Minimum payroll frequencies are determined by each state and can be quite confusing. I’m often asked “How often do I have to pay my employees” during a Certified Payroll Training Webinar. State minimum paycheck frequencies are shown below – this information comes directly from the U.S. Department of Labor’s website.
It’s difficult to thoroughly cover the requirements of all 50 states in a 2 hour webinar, but it has crossed my mind that a series of blog posts on the differences between what State Laws are for how often payroll must be generated and how that can effect the generation of a certified payroll report would be a good thing to do. While I could have simply started this series and talked about the complexities of generating certified payroll reports when issuing employee payroll on anything other than a weekly basis – I first wanted to display the requirements by state, rather than just put off a link to the U.S. Department of Labor website.
Under the Federal Davis-Bacon and related Acts; contractors and subcontractors performing work on Federal or Federally-aided construction-type contracts are required to submit weekly payrolls. The Copeland Act provides further/clearer requirements; indicating that contractors and subcontractors performing work on Federally financed or assisted construction contracts “furnish weekly a statement with respect to the wages paid to each employee during the preceding week”.
Obviously, contractors and subcontractors who issue their payroll on a weekly basis find the necessary information easier to obtain; therefore, making compliance simpler to obtain.
State |
Weekly |
Bi-Weekly |
Semi-Monthly |
Monthly |
| Alaska | X | X | ||
| Arizona | X 3 | |||
| Arkansas | X | |||
| California | X 9 | X 9 | X | |
| Colorado | X | |||
| Connecticut | X 4 | |||
| Delaware | X | |||
| District of Columbia | X | |||
| Georgia | X | |||
| Hawaii | X | X 5 | ||
| Idaho | X | |||
| Illinois | X | X 2 | ||
| Indiana | X | |||
| Iowa | X | X 6 | X | X |
| Kansas | X | |||
| Kentucky | X | |||
| Louisiana | X | X 7 | ||
| Maine | X 8 | |||
| Maryland | X | |||
| Massachusetts | X | X | ||
| Michigan 9 | X | X | X | |
| Minnesota | X 10 | |||
| Mississippi | X 11 | X 11 | ||
| Missouri | X | |||
| Montana 12 | ||||
| Nebraska 13 | ||||
| Nevada | X | X 2 | ||
| New Hampshire | X | |||
| New Jersey | X | |||
| New Mexico | X | X 2 | ||
| New York | X 14 | X 14 | ||
| North Carolina 15 | ||||
| North Dakota | X | |||
| Ohio | X | |||
| Oklahoma | X | |||
| Oregon | X | |||
| Pennsylvania 13 | ||||
| Rhode Island | X 16 | |||
| South Dakota | X | |||
| Tennessee | X | |||
| Texas | X | X 17 | ||
| Utah | X 18 | |||
| Vermont | X | X 19 | X 19 | |
| Virginia | X 20 | X 20 | X 2 | |
| Washington | X | |||
| West Virginia | X | |||
| Wisconsin | X | |||
| Wyoming | X |
- Alabama and South Carolina – No regulations or not specified.
- Illinois, Nevada, New Mexico and Virginia – Monthly payday requirements for Executive, Administrative, and Professional personnel.
- Arizona – Payday two or more days in a month, not more than 16 days apart.
- Connecticut – Longer interval (up to monthly) permitted if approved by Labor Commissioner.
- Hawaii – Employees may choose to be paid on a monthly basis under special election procedure. Director of Labor and Industrial Relations also may grant exceptions to the general semi-monthly payday requirement. Payday requirement applies only to private sector employment.
- Iowa – Any predictable and reliable pay schedule is permitted as long as employees get paid at least monthly and no later than 12 days {excluding Sundays and legal holidays} from the end of the period when the wages were earned. This can be waived by written agreement; employees on commission have different requirements.
- Louisiana – Applicable to entities engaged in manufacturing, mining, or boring for oil, employing 10 or more employees, and to every public service corporation. Payment is required once every two weeks or twice during each calendar month.
- Maine – Payment due at regular intervals not to exceed 16 days.
- California and Michigan – Frequency of payday depends on the occupation.
- Minnesota – Employees engaged in transitory employment, i.e. migrant workers, which require and employee to change the employee’s pace of abode, because the employment is terminated wither by the completion of the work or by the discharge or quitting of the employee must be paid within 24 hours.
- Mississippi – Applicable to every entity engaged in manufacturing of any kind in the State, employing 50 or more employees and employing public labor, and to every public service corporation doing business in the State. Payment is required once every two weeks or twice during each calendar month.
- Montana – Wages must be paid within 10 business days after the wages are due and payable.
- Nebraska and Pennsylvania – Payday designated by employer.
- New York – Weekly payday for manual workers. Semi-monthly payday upon approval for manual workers and for clerical and other workers.
- North Carolina – None specified, pay periods may be daily, weekly, bi-weekly, semi-monthly or monthly.
- Rhode Island – Childcare providers shall have the option to be paid every two weeks.
- Texas – Monthly payday for employees exempt from overtime provisions of the Fair Labor Standards Act.
- Utah – Payments are to be paid at regular intervals but in periods no longer than semi-monthly.
- Vermont – Employers may implement bi-weekly and semi-monthly payday with written notice
- Virginia – Employees whose weekly wages total more than 150% of the average weekly wage of the Commonwealth may be paid monthly, upon agreement of each affected employee.
NOTE: South Carolina – Employers with 5 or more employees are required to give written notice at the time of hiring to all employees advising them of their wages agreed upon, and the time and place of payment along with their expected hours of work. The employer must pay on the normal time and at the place of payment established by the employer.
Stay tuned over the next week to find out some of the problems that can occur when a company follows various state payroll requirements {bi-weekly, semi-monthly, and monthly paychecks} and how the pay frequencies affect the submission of their certified payroll reports.
Payroll can be one of the most complex duties of any bookkeeper’s job – especially when you need to OR want to track your Worker’s Compensation costs for job costing purposes and pay your employees Vacation, Holiday and Overtime wages. Just take a look at this question, submitted by one of our blog subscribers!
I have set up the Workers Compensation tracking in QuickBooks for a construction company with no problem, it seems to be working fine. My question is – how do you keep track of Holiday, Vacation, and Overtime pay? Do I set up each payroll item with the Workers Comp {WC} rate for each class? For example Carpenter-Holiday and Carpenter-Vacation? Thanks, Kathleen
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Answer:
Hi Kathleen;
That’s an excellent question!
One of the first things that you should do is contact your Worker’s Compensation Insurance carrier and ask them if there is a reduced Worker’s Comp rate for when you pay your field workers for non-field related time such as Vacation or Holiday pay. I once asked this question of the Insurance underwriter and much to my surprise he told me {grudgingly} that Vacation and Holiday pay for field employees was computed at a lower experience rate than their normal wages; mainly because there was “no risk” involved for those wages – he quickly followed this up with “but this will involve more tracking on your part” for the annual audit/review.
The QuickBooks payroll module is pretty darn flexible; but like the rest of the program it’s generic – so sometimes it’s a little “lacking” when it comes to some specific things like the situation above.
Even if I didn’t fall into the special situation of a reduced WC Experience Rate for Holiday and Vacation time, I would still create specific payroll items based on Work Classification/type of wage: so Carpenter-Holiday or Carpenter-Vacation would be the way I would go.
Overtime can get tricky, especially if your contractor client works on prevailing wage jobs and pays the fringe benefit portion of the prevailing wage in cash to the employee as part of the hourly gross wage, QuickBooks will need some “help” when determining the overtime rate. {This becomes complex and cannot be explained in a blog post but I plan on providing a fee-based live and pre-recorded webinar on how to set this up and make it work in QuickBooks – which will be available in January 2012}.
You will need to add an “Overtime” payroll item to your Payroll Item List using either the E-Z Setup or Custom Setup method naming them Carpenter OT, Laborer OT, etc and being sure that you select that the type of wage is an Overtime rate. If the premium OR half-time portion of overtime pay is excluded from Worker’s Compensation tracking, make sure that you have checked that option in the Workers Compensation preference; found from the Edit menu -> Preferences -> Payroll & Employees -> Workers Compensation button and checking the option to “Exclude overtime premium from Workers Comp calculation”
Make sure that your Codes in the Workers Comp List are descriptive – meaning that when you choose the WC Code in Weekly timesheets that you will understand what code is being assigned to what payroll item.
Setting things up in this manner will provide you with all the payroll numbers that you will need during an audit and clearly indicate the type of wages that are being paid.
If you feel this QuickBooks Payroll tip has been helpful, please take a moment to leave us a comment or to share it with others on your favorite Social Networking site
A nonexempt employee working a second job as an independent contractor for your organization is a red flag for the IRS, the DOL, and state agencies. So, make sure that your employee’s second job really meets the independent contractor criteria or be prepared to pay overtime.
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Question: We have a nonexempt employee who has offered to do landscaping work outside of his normal 40-hour week for our organization. Can we treat him as an independent contractor when he is doing this work? We would normally hire an outside company for landscaping.
Answer: If the employee’s landscaping job meets the criteria for an independent contractor job, then you may classify him as such. If he does not meet the criteria, however, any additional work that he performs for your organization must be counted towards his 40-hour workweek and he must be paid overtime if he works more than 40 hours in both jobs in a single workweek. In addition, you then must withhold taxes for the position’s wages.
The independent contractor, or freelancer, classification is used for nonemployee workers who typically perform specialized work that your employees do not do and are retained for a specific period of time. Since they are not considered employees of the organization, these workers are not covered by the laws for minimum wage and overtime, payroll taxes, workers’ compensation, unemployment compensation, or employment discrimination and are not eligible for any benefits. But meeting criteria for independent contractor status is tricky because the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), the Department of Labor (DOL), states, and the courts all impose different standards for employers to satisfy.
You also should be aware that when current nonexempt employees perform two or more jobs for your organization, classification of the second position as an independent contractor often raises a red flag for the various government agencies above. These agencies are interested in ensuring that taxes are properly paid and that employees are fully protected by wage and hour laws guaranteeing overtime.
Independent contractor status usually is determined using one of three different tests: (1) the IRS 20-factor analysis, for coverage under federal withholding requirements; (2) the “economic reality” test, used to determine compliance with requirements of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA); and (3) the common law “right to control” test, used by many courts to administer certain other statutes. Under all three tests, whether a person who performs work for the organization is an “employee” or an “independent contractor” primarily depends on how much control the employer has over the work relationship.
So, for example, if the employee provides the equipment to do the landscaping, is paid when he completes the job (as opposed to payment on an hourly basis), and sets his own work hours, then he is more likely to be an independent contractor. But, if you provide him with the equipment, require him to perform the job at a particular time, and pay him by the hour, he may appear to be an employee and should be paid as such.
Because of the complicated nature of the independent contractor criteria, you should consult with a tax expert or attorney who is familiar with them. In addition, you can request a determination from the IRS by filing Form SS-8, “Determination of Worker Status,” available online at www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/fss8.pdf. You also can find helpful information on correctly classifying and correcting misclassification of workers from IRS Publication 15-A, “Employer’s Supplemental Tax Guide,” available online at www.irs.gov/publications/p15a/index.html .
If you determine that the nonexempt employee’s second job does not meet the independent contractor criteria, then you must count all hours he works in both jobs towards overtime. So, for example, if the employee works more than 40 hours in a single workweek while doing both jobs, you should pay him overtime. Calculating overtime can be a little tricky when an employee works two or more jobs for which the employee is paid different hourly rates since overtime must be based on the employee’s “regular rate of pay.” Typically, the employee’s regular rate of pay is the weighted average of the different rates.
If you use QuickBooks and are manually having to calculate weighted average overtime; Crew/Overtime Entry Solution will help you automate this time consuming and eror prone task.
One final warning: As of last year, the IRS and the DOL began targeting worker misclassifications more aggressively than they have in the past. Beginning in February 2010, the IRS launched its first Employment Tax National Research Project in 25 years, targeting 2,000 taxpayers each year for the next three years for “comprehensive” audits, according to an IRS press release. The purpose of the audits is to determine what the “employment tax gap” is, i.e., the difference between taxes that are owed and taxes that are not paid because of underreporting, underpayment, or unfiled taxes, and how to collect these payments. In 2005, the IRS estimated the overall tax gap to be a whopping $345 billion, and so clearly the agency is interested in increasing its collections. In addition, the DOL has added 350 field investigators in the last two years to enforce wage and hour laws and focus on job misclassifications.
So, if you want to classify an nonexempt employees’ second job as an independent contractor, you should make sure your classification is proper and not a shortcut to an expensive nightmare of agency audits, back taxes, back wages, and penalties.
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Redistributed with permission of: Personnel Policy Service, Inc. 159 St. Matthews Ave., Suite 5, Louisville, KY 40207
Verifying the accuracy of the certified payroll reports that you can generate from QuickBooks Premier and Enterprise versions – IF you also subscribe to Enhanced Payroll, is a must for anyone in the construction industry.
I’ve been watching the posts on the Intuit Community Forums about the alternate, substitute U.S. Department of Labor WH-347 certified payroll reports that can be generated if you have QuickBooks Premier or Enterprise AND an Enhanced Payroll Subscription. It seems like many people want to know how to generate the reports, if the reports are approved through the DOL (Department of Labor), why they have suddenly stopped working, how to issue “No Work Performed Reports”, and how to tell if the reports they are generating are accurate.
This article will focus on the requirements of the U.S. Department of Labor form WH-347 and how you can check to verify whether or not the reports from QuickBooks are accurate BEFORE you submit them – so that you will be paid in a timely fashion; we’ll be focusing on:
- Section 4 – Day & Date – Hours Worked Each Day
- Column 5 – Total Hours
- Column 6 – Rate of Pay
- Column 7 – Gross Amount Earned
- Section 8 – Deductions, and
- Column 9 – Net Wages Paid for Week
Columns 1-3 are pretty straight forward and each row of information relates to a single employee and a single Work/Trade Classification.
Section 4 – Day & Date – Hours Worked Each Day
In this section you are to report by day and date the number of hours (straight time and overtime) a specific employee worked, under a specific Work/Trade Classification on the job that you are generating the report for.
Column 5 – Total Hours
The total number of Straight and Overtime hours that the employee worked (for a specific Work/Trade Classification) for the week in question.
*Column 6 – Rate of Pay INCLUDING Cash Fringe Benefits
In the “straight time” box for each worker, list the actual hourly rate paid for straight time worked, PLUS cash paid in lieu of fringe benefits paid. When recording the straight time hourly rate, any cash paid in lieu of fringe benefits may be shown separately from the basic rate. For example, “$12.00/.40″ would reflect a $12.00 base hourly rate plus $0.40 for fringe benefits. When overtime is worked, show the overtime hourly rate paid plus any cash in lieu of fringe benefits paid in the “overtime” box for each worked or “$18.00/.40″. This is one of the biggest faults of the certified payroll report generated by QuickBooks – if you pay the fringe benefit rate in cash to the employee as part of his/her hourly rate of pay you MUST manually update this information each week.
Column 7 – Gross Amount Earned this Job and ALL Jobs
Enter gross amount earned on this project. If part of a worker’s weekly wage was earned on projects other than the project described on this payroll, enter in column 7 first the amount earned on the Federal or Federally assisted project and then the gross amount earned during the week on all projects, thus “$163.00/$420.00″ would reflect the earnings of a worker who earned $163.00 on a Federally assisted construction project during a week in which $420.00 was earned on all work. These amounts can easily be verified by looking at the Employee’s Paycheck Detail in QuickBooks.
Section 8 – Deductions
Five columns are provided for showing deductions made from the employee’s paycheck. If more than five deduction are involved, use the first four columns and show the balance deductions under “Other” column; show actual total under “Total Deductions” column; and in the attachment to the payroll describe the deduction(s) contained in the “Other” column. All deductions must be in accordance with the provisions of the Copeland Act Regulations, 29 C.F.R., Part 3. If an individual worked on other jobs in addition to this project, show actual deductions from his/her weekly gross wage, and indicate that deductions are based on his gross wages. These amounts can easily be verified by looking at the employee’s Paycheck Detail in QuickBooks. Remember, ONLY deductions from the employee’s paycheck are to be reported here – Federal Withholding, State Withholding, the Employee portion of FICA and Medicare, Child Support, Wage Garnishments, etc.
Column 9 – Net Wages Paid
This amount should equal the employee’s NET paycheck for the week and should match exactly the amount of his/her paycheck.
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If your final QuickBooks certified payroll report doesn’t look like this wh347, it’s time to opt for a more accurate and less time-consuming option that will truly automate the process for you.
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Many people generate the QuickBooks Certified Payroll report and either manually make changes in it while it is still in Excel, prior to printing the report OR they will print the report and then use it as a guideline for manually completing the actual “fillable report” from the U.S. Department of Labor Website – which is a highly error prone and time-consuming process.
Additionally, QuickBooks does not have the ability to generate a “No Work” performed payroll, so if you need one, and it’s likely that you will, you’ll need to manually complete one of these also using the fillable form from the DOL website.
Manual entry of the same information multiple times in multiple places is a huge waste of time and let’s face it, every time that you have to enter the same information in yet another place the higher the risk of transposition errors which result in rejected reports and delayed payment.
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*Fringe Benefits that are paid to a Union or a bona-fide plan are NOT displayed on the report and the Straight time rate would be displayed as $12.00 and the Overtime rate as $18.00 in the Rate of Pay Column. The certified payroll report generated by QuickBooks inaccurately displays any fringes paid to a Union or bona-fide plan and you MUST manually correct this each week.
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