Use case
Automate certified payroll
Turn a weekly compliance chore into a checked, filed report. Collect payroll once, audit it against the governing wage determination, and produce a signed WH-347 or state form without the manual re-keying.
Automating certified payroll means collecting each week of payroll once, checking every worker against the job wage determination, and generating the required report without manual re-entry. The system flags underpayments, missing fringe, and classification errors before the report is signed and filed.
- Filing cadence (Davis-Bacon Act)
- Weekly, within 7 days of the pay date
- Record retention (Davis-Bacon Act)
- 3 years after project completion
- CA underpayment penalty (Labor Code 1775)
- Up to $200 per worker per day
The workflow
How Buildalytic automates the weekly cycle
Bring payroll in once
Import hours, classifications, and fringe from your payroll system or a spreadsheet. The same data feeds every downstream check, so nobody re-keys it into a WH-347.
Match every worker to the determination
Each classification is resolved against the governing federal Davis-Bacon or state wage determination for the job, county, and craft.
Audit before you sign
The report is checked for underpaid base or fringe rates, missing overtime, apprentice-to-journeyman ratio gaps, and misclassified workers. Each finding cites the rule it came from.
Generate the report
A completed WH-347 or the required state form is produced with the statement of compliance, ready for signature.
File and retain
Submit to the awarding body or an agency portal, then keep the records for the retention period with an audit trail of what was checked.
Why the manual process breaks
The report is easy. Being right is not.
Filling out a WH-347 by hand is not the hard part. The hard part is knowing whether the rates on it are correct for this job, this county, and this craft, on the week the work happened. Wage determinations change, apprentice rates step up with hours, and fringe can be paid in cash or into a plan. A payroll clerk cannot hold all of that in their head across a dozen active jobs.
So errors ship. An underpaid classification or a missed fringe contribution surfaces months later in an audit, when back wages and penalties are larger and the paperwork to fix them is worse. The cost is not the ten minutes to type the form. It is the finding you did not catch.
What does the work
The pieces behind the automation
Frequently asked questions
Do I still have to use the WH-347 form?
The WH-347 form itself is optional on federal jobs, but the weekly certified payroll reporting and statement of compliance it captures are mandatory. Buildalytic produces the WH-347 or the state-specific form your awarding body requires.
How does the audit know the right wage rate?
Each worker classification is matched to the governing wage determination for the job, county, and craft, using federal Davis-Bacon determinations or the applicable state schedule. The rate in force during the work week is the one applied.
Can it catch apprentice ratio problems?
Yes. Apprentice rates step up with hours worked, and many jobs cap the ratio of apprentices to journeymen. The audit flags both underpaid apprentice steps and ratio gaps before the report is filed.
Does automating this replace my payroll system?
No. Your payroll system still runs payroll. Buildalytic reads that output, checks it against prevailing wage rules, and produces the compliant certified payroll report on top of it.
What about fringe paid in cash instead of a plan?
Fringe can be satisfied in cash or through a bona fide benefit plan. The audit accounts for how you pay fringe and checks that the effective total rate meets the determination.
See a certified payroll report get audited
Bring one week of payroll and watch the findings come back with citations.