For contractors whose prevailing wage work has outgrown a spreadsheet: crews in several states, fringe benefits paid in cash, a new payroll system, or an agency letter on the desk.
We are not a law firm and do not give legal advice.
Most contractors handle certified payroll well with good software and a careful payroll team. These are the situations where a second set of eyes is most useful.
Each one turns on a specific rule. We link the primary source so your team and your counsel can read it for themselves. We check your numbers and records against these rules; whether a plan or practice complies is a call for your counsel and benefits administrator.
Contributions paid to a trustee or third party count toward the fringe obligation only if they are made irrevocably, to a party not affiliated with your company. Contributions made less often than weekly count for the weeks they cover when they are made regularly, at least quarterly. Benefits paid from company assets instead (an unfunded plan) count only after the Department of Labor approves the plan.
Source (opens in a new tab): 29 CFR 5.26(a), 29 CFR 5.5(a)(1)(i), 29 CFR 5.28(b)
Plan credit is generally spread across all the hours a worker puts in, private work included, not just prevailing wage hours. A plan sized for covered hours alone can come up short.
Source (opens in a new tab): 29 CFR 5.25(c)
Fringe paid in cash is wages for Social Security and Medicare (FICA) tax. Some employer contributions to qualifying benefit plans are excluded from FICA wages; others, such as 401(k) salary deferrals, are not. Which structure fits is a question for you, your benefits administrator and your tax advisor; our part is the numbers.
Source (opens in a new tab): 26 U.S.C. 3121(a), 26 U.S.C. 3121(v)(1)
Money to cover back wages owed on one contract can be withheld from payments due on the same prime contractor's other federal contracts, and its federally assisted contracts subject to Davis-Bacon, even when a different agency awarded them. Contractors found to have disregarded their obligations to workers can be debarred for three years.
Source (opens in a new tab): 29 CFR 5.5(a)(2)(i), 29 CFR 5.12(a)(1)
For the federal basics, see our guide to the Davis-Bacon Act and the free fringe benefit calculator. States that have their own prevailing wage law add forms and filing systems on top of the federal rules; our state guides, starting with California certified payroll, cover the details.
What we do is the operational side: the numbers, the records, the process and the systems, worked out alongside the professionals you already trust.
No. We are not attorneys, and nothing we provide is legal, tax or ERISA advice. When a question turns on the law, we say so, and we work alongside your attorney, CPA and benefits administrator.
No. We do not represent clients before any agency. We can help your team gather the records an agency asks for, so you and your counsel start from a complete, organized file.
No. Your company signs and submits its own payrolls. Our job is to help make sure what you sign is right.
No. Consulting is contracted separately from any software subscription, under its own engagement letter. CertifiedPayrollPro is our own product, so we have a financial interest when we recommend it. If choosing a system is part of the work, we say so up front and share the criteria behind any recommendation, so you can judge every option, ours included.
Every engagement is scoped in a written engagement letter before any work begins. Contact us for more information.
A short conversation about your projects, the states you work in and how you pay fringe benefits. If we move forward, we may ask for a sample of certified payrolls and wage determinations, with full Social Security numbers and other personal details removed.
Send a short note about your projects and the states you work in. We typically reply within one business day.
Please do not send Social Security numbers or other personal information through the form.