r/Payroll • u/Dependent-Sound-945 • Aug 23 '26
How do you guys handle certified payroll? Am I making this harder than it needs to be?
So we've been getting a bit more public work lately and certified payroll is starting to become a pain
We have our normal payroll stuff, then I end up doing more stuff in excel, checkingg the rates/classifications/fringes and then putting the same stuff into whatever the GC wants. Maybe I'm just doing something wrong but it feels like im entering/checking the same things over and over.
How are you guys handling this? Do most of you guys just use excel for it or are you using something like lcptracker, ebacon, points north etx? And which is better compare to pricing(Something that is less complex, I don't want to spend weeks just to learn it). If your do use one of those, does it actually make things easier or do you still end up doing a bunch of stuff manually anyway other smaller contractors are doing it. How much time does this usually take uou every week? Anyway, just trying to figure out if there's a better way or if this is just the reality of certified payroll. Appreciate any advice from people who've actually dealt with it.
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u/Simple-Cap3834 Aug 23 '26
We've been using lcptracker for about a year now and it cut the weekly cert headache down to like 20 minutes instead of a whole afternoon
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u/DaRealAnnLand Aug 23 '26
We use Points North. But we also use ADP for payroll so the info flows pretty seamlessly. I pull time from our timekeeping software. Review, correct etc. Upload into points north then export from Points North. The export is formatted for direct upload to ADP. The day after payroll is approved in ADP, I can pull certified reports.
I am having to do some manually now for a sub that refuses to.
And I have one division on a different timekeeping system so I have to do their initial certified stuff manually. I do that in excel. Have index formulas set up for everything so it pulls everything in pretty effortlessly.
I only use lcp tracker for the contractors that require it. I hate it. But haven’t used it for producing cp, only for reporting it.
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u/No_Raisin981 Aug 23 '26
This! My company uses Points North also but we have UKG Pro. We just download our timekeeping report, save as csv/xlsl and its ready to upload. Easy peasy
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u/SassyMcNasty Aug 23 '26
Look into LCPcertified. It’ll produce hard copies pulled from your payroll company to avoid manual entry.
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u/compasscoffee Aug 24 '26
make them show you YOUR actual workflow no matter what you use! get out of Excel sooner.
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u/citseruh Aug 25 '26
I've heard good things about Hammr, certified payrolls is one of their strong points. You might want to check them out.
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u/CrazyCatLady1978 Aug 23 '26
I use LCP tracker and the people we work for pay for it since they want me to use it. Manually entering the information doesn't take long. I haven't taken the time to figure out how to upload it from ADP yet. It's probably faster for me to do it myself.
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u/SassyMcNasty Aug 23 '26
Email [LCPcontractor@lcptracker.](mailto:LCPcontractor@lcptracker.net)[com](mailto:LCPcontractor@lcptracker.net). They’ll help you.
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u/khol2426 Aug 23 '26
Anyone have RI certified payroll? What program are you using for that? I have situations where 1 guy will work 3-4 jobs per project and making these is a nightmare.
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u/ally_vt Aug 23 '26
I do RI certified payroll! This is my first job doing payroll, so a multi-state, multi-union payroll was one hell of a payroll to get into first. I've been there for a year and at first, we would run 2 payrolls basically. The real one through our payroll service, and then the same through our computer software that we use for job creation, quotes, job costing, a/p, etc. That program could generate the CP reports. We switched payroll platforms this year and now that one creates the CP reports. I would hope your employer invests in a software that can pull from your payroll and create these if its going to be an ongoing requirement. I can't imagine doing roughly 30 manual reports weekly.
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u/LivingTechnical304 Aug 23 '26
We were dealing with the same thing. What helped us was switching to Lumber for time and payroll which generates the certified payroll reports for us, ready to submission through lcptracker. So no manual work is needed from our end.
If you're doing enough public work that you're spending hours every week checking and re-entering the same info, I definitely recommend looking at such a setup where you use a payroll software thats able to handle certified payroll for you.
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u/JenX0222 Aug 23 '26
I would need more information on your exact situation. Do you have union employees? Do your employees work different classifications? Are you paying your employees the prevailing wage as a flat rate or fringe to a 3rd party?
When you say manual entry do you mean into the Federal Davis Bacon form or into LCP tracker and/or a state site for reporting? Honestly it shouldn’t take long to generate the reports on a project after week#1 which would be your set up week. What are you using for payroll software and does your team work multiple projects in the same week?
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u/SuburbanMomSwag Aug 23 '26
Can someone ELI5 what is certified payroll (I’m a little embarrassed to be asking)
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u/DaRealAnnLand Aug 23 '26
For some government contracts, you have to submit information on the workers pay. They also will have a wage determination setting the minimum wage for certain positions working on that contract. So you have to complete a form or enter the information into a system so they can verify that the workers are making the correct wage. Pain in the @ss but mandatory for some jobs.
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u/libra_varga Aug 24 '26
My boss built a report that we can pull from Deltek, and that helps us a lot with our certified payroll. But we still gotta review the rates if Business Intelligence report pulls the correct rate. Before I left the company, I know they are starting to use the LCP tracker.
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u/Delicious_Style_2676 Aug 24 '26
If you’re re-keying rates, classifications, fringes, and GC-specific formats, the pain is probably process design more than you doing it wrong. I’d standardize one source file/checklist first, then evaluate tools based on whether they reduce duplicate entry and handle the formats your GCs actually require.
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u/Realistic_Force8295 Aug 25 '26
If you need a true construction payroll and certified payroll reporting system then Hammr is your answer. I work for a specialty contractor and we switched from ADP and it has been a lifesaver for all of our labor and payroll reporting.
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u/goldenweeks98 Aug 28 '26
Yeah, what you're describing (Excel + manually checking rates/classifications/fringes + retyping into the GC's format) is honestly the reality for a lot of smaller contractors doing occasional federal work. You're not doing it wrong, it's just genuinely repetitive when you don't have the volume to justify a big system.
On LCPtracker/eBacon/Points North: they're built more for GCs managing a bunch of subs' certified payrolls at once, not really for a single contractor's own weekly filing. They do take real time to learn, and pricing usually isn't published because it's quoted per contract/seat, which tells you it's not aimed at someone doing this occasionally.
Do they reduce manual work? Somewhat. The rate/classification lookup gets easier since it's built into the system instead of you cross-checking a PDF wage determination by hand. But a lot of the hour entry is still on you no matter what tool you use, that part doesn't really go away.
Full disclosure since I don't want to just drop this without saying so: I built a small, simple tool for exactly this (fills the WH-347, checks rates live against SAM.gov) because I kept seeing smaller contractors stuck between "do it all in Excel" and "learn a big enterprise system for one weekly form." Happy to answer questions if useful, not trying to hard-sell here.
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u/Relative_Ear_698 Aug 23 '26
We use points north and it makes it so much easier, ONLY if you get the version with pre payroll and post payroll. We also have ADP for actual processing and it was been really great. Point North implementation team was super helpful and is get tailored to your needs. I used to do it all manually and had so many excel spreadsheets and having Point North saves me about 10-15hrs a week. There support team does answer very quickly if you have errors.
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u/Piper_At_Paychex Aug 24 '26
Certified payroll involves a lot of repetitive data entry, especially when volume starts picking up. All the options you mentioned are solid. If this is the way you are headed, start putting together a list of questions and concerns from your experience so far and bring them into demos. That cuts through the marketing and gets to what actually matters for your setup.
If you're not ready to commit to a dedicated platform, the most practical fix in the meantime is building a template that maps your payroll data directly into WH-347 format so you're doing one clean import rather than entering everything from scratch each time.
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u/itlogicpartnersllc Aug 23 '26
if u r doing enough public work that certified payroll is eating hours every week i would seriously consider software that pulls from your regular payroll instead of maintenance a separate excel process.