5 certified payroll reporting mistakes that will cause delayed payments – learn how to avoid them.
Filling out weekly certified payroll reports can be a time-consuming and frustrating task, especially if you complete them by hand or have to manipulate data in order to create them. Transposition errors and other mistakes are bound to happen, no matter how careful you think you are being. Making mistakes on certified payroll reports will lead to more frustration and you’ll end up spending more time correcting the errors; mistakes will also put your company’s good standing in jeopardy with the General Contractor or Project Administrator.
Certified Payroll/Prevailing Wage reporting can be complex and varies by state. Learning how to avoid the following mistakes and submit the reports properly the first time will benefit you and your company.
- Your reports are rejected as inadequate or incomplete – you may not have submitted the proper form or some of the required information is missing. You’ve been told that you need to correct the forms and resubmit them by a new deadline or your company, and the General Contractor, will have to wait longer to receive payment. Delayed payments have a negative affect on everyone’s cash flow. The Labor Standards Clause of the final contract (and the bid package) for each job usually provides you with a sample of the certified payroll reporting form that you will be required to submit; it will also inform you if you are required to file your reports electronically.
- You didn’t pay your employees prevailing wage and you didn’t submit certified payroll reports - you’ll need to make wage restitution to your employees to bring their rate of pay up to the prevailing wage rate required on the job and then you’ll need to submit ALL of the certified payroll reports within 30 days from the time that the General Contractor was notified. Payments to both your company and the General Contractor can be delayed. The requirement to pay prevailing wages and submit certified payroll reports is included and usually discussed in the Labor Standards Clause of the bid package and the final contract.
- You didn’t pay your employees the rate of pay listed in the Wage Decision – you’ll need to make wage restitution to your employees, provide proof of the wage restitution, and submit corrected certified payroll reports within 30 days from the time that the General Contractor was originally notified. A Wage Decision is a listing of all the different Work/Trade Classification and minimum wage rates (base PLUS fringe) that must be paid to anyone performing work on the jobsite. Some Wage Decisions cover several counties and/or types of construction (residential and commercial) and can be difficult to read – in instances such as this, the Contract Administrator may prepare a Project Wage Rate Sheet or issue a Wage Bulletin, which will only show the Work/Trade Classifications and wage rates for a specific project. The Wage Decision is found in the Labor Standards Clause of the bid package and the final contract.
- Your employees Work Classifications do not match those listed on the Wage Decision – you’ll need to correctly classify your employees according to the Work/Trade Classification found on the Wage Decision, and quite possibly make wage restitution to your employees. You’ll need to provide proof of any wage restitution, if applicable, and provide corrected certified payroll reports within 30 days from the time that the General Contractor was originally notified. Each employee must be classified and paid accordingly, based on the type of work they are performing. If the Wage Decision doesn’t contain the correct Work Classification; a written request must be submitted. The written request must identify the Work Classification that is missing, recommend a wage rate, and provide a description of the actual work being performed. This written request should be submitted/discussed at the bid qualification meeting.
- Your reports have incorrect computations, unclassified “Other Withholdings”, or do not indicate how the fringe benefit portion of the prevailing wage is paid – you will need to submit corrected reports within 30 days of the date that the General Contractor was originally notified. While these items may seem trivial, they are all part of the requirements of certified payroll reporting. Always check the “math” on the final reports before submitting them, for example, the Federal WH-347 certified payroll report should match the employees paycheck exactly for gross wages ALL jobs, withholdings and net wages paid for the week, even if you use a software program to generate your reports you should verify that these numbers match before you submit the reports.
Learning to avoid these mistakes is in your best interest because will you avoid extra paperwork and be paid in a timely manner.
If you are manually creating the reports or having to manipulate large amounts of data to generate the reports, you aren’t saving any time (or money) and need to automate the process in order to eliminate the transposition errors and save valuable time that could be better spent on other tasks. I see many QuickBooks users discussing on the Intuit forums how they generate the built-in QuickBooks certified payroll report and either manually make corrections or print the report and then enter that data into a fillable Federal or State Specific certified payroll report on a weekly basis.
Make sure that you have thoroughly reviewed the Labor Standards Clause of the bid package AND the final contract package and provide your payroll administrators with the information that they need to correctly pay your employees. If you continue to submit incorrect certified payroll reports you will be in violation of certified payroll reporting requirements and this can mean that you will be disbarred; not allowed to bid on or perform work on prevailing wage projects for up to 3 years. Additionally, you may be passed over in favor of another company (even if you do top quality work) if you have a “checkered past” in meeting the reporting requirements.
Wage Restitution is the difference between what the employee should have been paid (base PLUS hourly fringe) and what they were paid.
If you are new to certified payroll reporting requirements, sign up for a 2-hour Certified Payroll Reporting Training webinar, $69.00 per person.
If you use QuickBooks and want to automate the entire certified payroll reporting process, request a Free 30-Day Trial of Certified Payroll Solution.
PRESS RELEASE
For Immediate Release
Contact
Nancy Smyth
Sunburst Software Solutions, Inc.
(888) 348-2877 phone
(866) 684-5157 fax
sales@sunburstsoftwaresolutions.com
http://www.sunburstsoftwaresolutions.com
SUNBURST SOFTWARE SOLUTIONS, INC. RELEASES FEDERAL WH-347 COMPLIANCE UPDATE FOR “CERTIFIED PAYROLL SOLUTION” AND CONTRACTORS USING QUICKBOOKS.
“Certified Payroll Solution” Integrates with QuickBooks to Help Contractors Working on Government Funded Construction Projects Comply With Certified Payroll Reporting Requirements, Saving Them Time And Money.
West Charleston, VT – January 16, 2009
Sunburst Software Solutions, Inc., an Intuit Gold Developer, is pleased to announce the release of a compliance update, on January 14, 2009, for their flagship QuickBooks integrated application “Certified Payroll Solution.” This compliance update meets new Federal WH-347 certified payroll reporting requirements which become effective January 18, 2009, as mandated by the U.S. Department of Labor on December 18, 2008.
“Certified Payroll Solution” utilizes QuickBooks Pro, Premier, and Enterprise Solutions timesheet, employee, job, and payroll data to automate the creation of Federal and/or State mandated certified payroll reports, statements of compliance, “No Work” performed payrolls, EEOC Reports and Union/Bona-fide Plan Fringe Benefit Reports. This exchange of critical data helps contractors working on prevailing wage construction projects to manage their compliance reporting more efficiently – saving them valuable time, money and resources.
“Manually creating certified payroll reports is simply a horrendous, time-consuming, error-prone process and if your reports aren’t accurate, you simply don’t get paid in a timely fashion. Before developing ‘Certified Payroll Solution,’ I created my certified payroll reports for years using an Excel spreadsheet and several reports from QuickBooks, and no matter how careful I was, there was always a mistake somewhere,” says Nancy Smyth, Sunburst Software Solutions, Inc. President, also a Certified QuickBooks ProAdvisor. ”I knew there had to be a better way and that way involved using data that I had already entered in QuickBooks.” She continues, “Essentially, without having to re-enter data manually into another program, errors were eliminated. Although this left the middleman – me – out of the picture, the savings to the small and mid-size business owner was tremendous!”
There are more than 12 million small businesses currently using computers in the United States (TowerGroup, 2001). Developing a QuickBooks integrated certified payroll program, and later an AIA type billing program, made sense to the husband and wife team, Ben & Nancy Smyth, principals of Sunburst Software Solutions, Inc. Nearly three million small businesses (and almost 200,000 are contractors) use QuickBooks and 80 percent of those users want QuickBooks to integrate with other software and devises (QuickBooks 2000 User Study).
The “Certified Payroll Solution” updates provides compatibility with new WH-347 reporting requirements, which no longer require the reporting of full employee social security numbers and home address; but rather just a unique employee identification number, usually the last 4 digits of the employee social security number. Additionally, Sunburst Software Solutions, Inc. has built in the ability for current users to easily change these reporting requirements on State specific reports and/or electronically filed reports as new requirements are announced.
About Sunburst Software Solutions, Inc.
Sunburst Software Solutions, Inc. has been providing contractors using QuickBooks Financial Software with a fully automated, integrated means to generate certified payroll reports and AIA type billings since October 2000. For more information, visit http://www.sunburstsoftwaresolutions.com
About Intuit Inc.
Intuit, the Intuit logo, Quicken, QuickBooks, QuickBooks Pro, QuickBooks Premier, Turbo Tax, ProSeries, and Lacert, among others, are registered trademarks and/or registered service marks of Intuit Inc. in the United States and other countries. Other parties’ trademarks or service marks are the property of their respective owners and should be treated as such.
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Important Note: As of January 16, 2009 there was no new or revised WH-347 form available from the U.S. Department of Labor, we will continue to monitor the site for the availability of a new form, if applicable.
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View this PRLog.org http://www.prlog.org/10168568-wh-347-compliance-update-for-certified-payroll-solution-and-contractors-using-quickbooks.html
Well, I’ve finally found some quite time to go take my ProAdvisor Certification “test” – I’ve been a certified QuickBooks ProAdvisor since 2000, when the program first was established by Intuit.
I’ve taken this test 8 years in a row now, and I swear it’s changed little – oh sure, they do put in a few questions about new features found in QuickBooks each year, but overall it’s the same darn test I’ve taken since the inception. How sad!
I “used” to think that being a “Certified QuickBooks ProAdvisor” actually meant something, now I feel that it means that somebody was able to pass the test (open book format), with less than 20 attempts. Yup, that’s right, you can take this open book test 20 times before you absolutely, positively have to pass it in order to be “certified”.
The unfortunate thing about the test is that it’s all “theory” and we all know that in “theory” everything is always perfect.
I understand that the testing for the Advanced ProAdvisor status is more difficult and at least provides some practical application……….guess I’ll give that a whirl next……
So as a business owner, I’d like to leave you with this tidbit to file away…next time someone tells you that they are a Certified QuickBooks ProAdvisor; think open book test, 20 attempts to pass – and ask them how long they have been “certified”.
