Certified payroll software
Certified payroll is only as good as the hours underneath it.
Prevailing wage reporting asks a question most time tracking cannot answer: exactly how many hours did this person work on this project, on this day. If your crew splits days across public and private work and reconstructs it on Friday, you are certifying a reconstruction. Punchless attributes every hour to a job site as it happens, then builds the WH-347 from the hours a manager already approved.
What makes certified payroll hard
The form is not the difficult part. The data behind it is.
Per-project attribution
Davis-Bacon reporting is per project. A technician who spends the morning on a school job and the afternoon on a private remodel has to be split correctly. Handwritten timesheets almost never split at the real moment; they split at whatever the person remembers.
Overtime across projects
Overtime is earned across the workweek, not per project, then has to be allocated back. Doing that by hand across five projects and seven days is where most errors enter.
Base and fringe kept separate
The form wants the base rate and the fringe benefit rate as distinct numbers, not a blended one. Payroll systems that only carry a loaded rate cannot produce a compliant row.
The Statement of Compliance
A signed statement accompanies the filing, made under penalty of perjury. You are personally attesting to the accuracy of numbers that, on a manual system, someone assembled from memory a week later. Punchless does not produce that statement - it produces hours you can actually check before you sign one.
Weekly, per contract, on time
It is a recurring obligation for the life of the contract. The cost is rarely one hard week; it is the same three hours every week for eight months.
It has to survive an audit
The question in an audit is not whether the arithmetic adds up. It is whether the hours are real. Records generated at the moment of the event, keeping every edit alongside what it replaced, answer that better than clean numbers with no provenance.
Reconstructed on Friday
- Technician splits the week across projects from memory
- Overtime allocated by hand, or not at all
- Base and fringe blended into one rate
- Hours land on neat half hours across every project
- You sign a Statement of Compliance for numbers you cannot verify
Attributed as it happened
- Each site visit is its own attributed block
- Overtime reconciled weekly, then allocated across projects
- Base and fringe carried separately
- Times reflect actual arrivals and departures
- You sign for hours you already reviewed and approved
How Punchless produces the report
01
Mark the job as prevailing wage
Flag the public-works jobs and set the base and fringe rates for the classifications on that contract. Everything downstream keys off that flag.
02
Hours attribute themselves
Geofence crossings assign hours to the specific job site where the work happened, as it happens. A day split across a public job and two private calls comes out already split.
03
A manager reviews and approves
The report is built from approved timecards by default. Nothing reaches a compliance filing because a device recorded it; a human signs off first, and every override is logged.
04
Export the hours worksheet
Pick a week and export, as PDF or CSV. Hours are grouped Monday to Sunday by employee and day, with straight, overtime and double time reconciled across the week, plus base, fringe and gross earned. This is the hours side of certified payroll, not the filing: you get the numbers, and your payroll provider or compliance service puts them on the form. We do not produce a filable WH-347 and do not include a Statement of Compliance for you to sign.
Questions worth asking any certified payroll vendor
Where do the per-project hours come from?
If the answer is that a worker selects a project when clocking in, the report inherits every selection error. Ask what happens when someone picks the wrong project or forgets to switch.
Is certified payroll native or a partner integration?
Several tools in this category route prevailing-wage reporting through a third party who generates the actual forms. That works, and it is worth knowing you are paying for it: another vendor, another cost, another data handoff. Punchless does the hours side itself and does not generate the form - so the honest comparison is that you still need a filer, and what you get from us is hours attributed at the moment the work happened rather than reconstructed on Friday.
Which plan includes it?
Compliance features are commonly reserved for top tiers. In Punchless, certified payroll export is available on every plan, including during the trial.
Does it handle overtime allocation across projects?
Weekly overtime allocated back to the projects that earned it is the single most error-prone calculation in this whole process. Ask to see it done on a split week before you buy.
Does it file for me?
Punchless does not, and you should be suspicious of anyone who says they do. We produce the hours: per employee, per project, per day, with weekly overtime reconciled and fringe kept separate. The form itself, the Statement of Compliance and the signature stay with you or your compliance service. Note that some jurisdictions accept no free-form file at all - California DIR wants XML against its own schema or entry through its web form.
Common questions
What is certified payroll software?+
It is software that produces the weekly payroll reports required on public-works contracts subject to Davis-Bacon or a state prevailing-wage law. In the United States the common format is Form WH-347, which lists each worker, their classification, hours worked per day on that project, straight and overtime hours, the base and fringe rates, and gross earnings, accompanied by a signed Statement of Compliance.
Does Punchless generate Form WH-347?+
No, and we would rather say so plainly. Punchless produces the hours side: per-employee, per-project daily hours with weekly overtime reconciled across every project worked, and Davis-Bacon fringe carried flat with the premium applied to the base rate only, exported as CSV or PDF. It is not a filable WH-347 - the form carries around thirty fields and several of them, including the wage determination number, the journeyworker or apprentice designation, and deductions and net pay, come from your wage determination and your payroll system rather than from time data. Hand the worksheet to your payroll provider or compliance service to file.
Does Punchless submit certified payroll for me?+
No, and it does not produce a Statement of Compliance for you to sign either. That attestation is a personal one made under penalty of perjury, and it should sit with the person who can vouch for the hours, on a complete form. We give you the hours and the overtime reconciliation those numbers rest on; you or your compliance service complete and submit the filing. Note that some jurisdictions accept no free-form file at all - California DIR requires XML against its own schema or entry through its web form.
Is certified payroll included on every plan?+
Yes, including during the 30-day trial. It is not reserved for a higher tier. Access is limited by role rather than by plan: managers and owners can export it, technicians cannot.
How does GPS help with prevailing wage compliance?+
Prevailing wage reporting is per project, and the hardest part is knowing exactly which hours belong to which project. Because Punchless attributes hours to a job site from the geofence crossing at the moment it happens, a day split between a public job and private work arrives already split, rather than being divided from memory at the end of the week.
What if the automatic hours are wrong?+
Then you correct them before approving, which is the point of the approval step. Certified payroll builds from approved timecards by default, and every manager override is logged with who made it and when. That is worth more in a review than a set of numbers nobody can trace.
Is this legal advice?+
No. We build software, not legal opinions. Prevailing-wage rules vary between the federal Davis-Bacon Act and individual state statutes, and classification questions in particular can be genuinely difficult. Talk to your own counsel or your contracting agency about how the rules apply to your contract.
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Certify hours you can actually stand behind.
30 days free, no credit card. Flag a prevailing-wage job, run a week, and export the hours worksheet before you commit to anything.