Prevailing Wage Payroll for Construction Contractors

Prevailing wage requirements apply to construction contractors working on federally funded projects covered by the Davis-Bacon Act, and on state-funded public works covered by state equivalents. The requirement is that workers in covered classifications receive at least the locally prevailing wage and fringe benefit rate for their craft, as determined by the Department of Labor or the relevant state agency. Prevailing wage applies at the project level, meaning contractors may have workers on prevailing wage projects and private projects simultaneously, each subject to different pay rates for the same craft classifications.

Both UKG and ADP support prevailing wage pay rules, but the configuration requires deliberate design around how workers are assigned to projects, how craft codes map to wage determinations, and how the platform handles workers who move between prevailing wage and non-prevailing-wage work in the same pay period. We build rate tables and pay rule structures that enforce the correct prevailing wage rate at the project and classification level, and configure the platform to flag rate changes when new wage determinations are published. Without this design work, most out-of-box prevailing wage configurations require manual rate management that creates compliance risk.

Certified payroll reporting requires weekly submission of payroll records for covered workers on federal and state projects, documenting the classification, hours, wage rates, and fringe benefit contributions for each employee on the covered work. The standard federal form is the WH-347. UKG and ADP can both generate certified payroll reports when configured correctly, but the reports require the platform to track work at the project and classification level rather than just by department or cost center. We configure the platform's reporting layer to produce the structured output that project owners, general contractors, or contracting agencies require.

Workers moving across projects in a single pay period may have different prevailing wage obligations for each project, and some periods may mix prevailing wage work with private work at different rates. The HCM platform needs to track hours by project at the time entry level, apply the correct rate for each project, and calculate blended pay correctly across the pay period. We design the time entry and allocation structure to capture this data cleanly, and configure audit logic that surfaces crew assignments that could create compliance exposure before payroll processes.