Certified payroll: the weekly form that keeps federal work legal

On Davis-Bacon jobs, every week ends with form WH-347: each worker, classification, hours and wages, signed under penalty of federal law. How certified payroll works and why the data has to flow from the field.

Federal and federally-assisted construction contracts come with a payroll discipline most commercial work never sees: certified payroll under the Davis-Bacon and Related Acts. Every week, the contractor and every subcontractor submits a certified payroll — the U.S. Department of Labor's form WH-347 — listing each worker, their classification, daily hours, rates, deductions and net pay.

The signature is the point

Page two of the WH-347 carries the Statement of Compliance. It does not need to be notarized — but it is signed subject to the penalties of 18 U.S.C. § 1001: a fine, imprisonment of up to 5 years, or both. The person signing certifies that the payroll is correct and complete and that each worker was paid the full prevailing wage for their classification. A sloppy payroll is not an administrative error; it is a federal statement.

Where certified payroll breaks down

• Classifications that drift: a worker swung between carpentry and laborer tasks all week; the form wants hours per classification, not a shrug.
• Weekly cadence: the payroll is due weekly, for every contractor tier — a missing week stalls payment up the chain.
• Field data arriving late: hours reconstructed on Friday from memory and text messages instead of captured daily.

The form is an output, not a task

When daily hours per worker and classification flow from the daily report and the job cost records, the WH-347 is generated from data that already exists — reviewed, not reconstructed. That flow, implemented per company around the way each one works, is what an ERP for construction companies runs.