Payroll4Construction's Blogs

Construction payroll presents a set of unique challenges due to evolving government and union regulations, fluctuating employee hours and the versatility of workers who perform tasks across multiple trades and locations.

As you prepare for year-end, now’s the best time to think about the busy season — specifically the time-consuming nature of payroll in the construction industry.

Key Takeaways

• Construction payroll services like Payroll4Construction can automatically calculate construction payroll and account for prevailing wages, union dues, taxes, and multi-state/rate/trades.
• Payroll4Construction helps contractors spend less time on payroll, allowing them to focus more on growing their business.
• Contractors who invest in Payroll4Construction can reduce payroll errors, avoid disputes with workers, and avoid legal issues related to compliance.
• Payroll4Construction can integrate with construction accounting software, construction time tracking software, and human resources software.
• Contractors can rely on Payroll4Construction for year-end tax filings, annual tax filings, W2s, and ACA filings.

With the busy season comes more jobs with more workers across more locations — resulting in more time spent on payroll.

The many construction payroll requirements can seem overwhelming, particularly during the busy season. For example, certified payroll reports take an average of 55 minutes to complete manually for eight employees per week, according to information included in the U.S. Department of Labor’s WH347 form.

For contractors who rely on additional workers during busy seasons, certified payroll reporting alone can become an overwhelming task.

Construction payroll services like Payroll4Construction can help contractors reclaim their time while maintaining compliance with payroll requirements.

Benefits of Construction Payroll Services like Payroll4Construction

There are several benefits contractors receive when investing in a construction payroll service, like Payroll4Construction, some of which include:

1. Improved Accuracy and Timeliness: Construction payroll services automate wage calculations to reduce human errors and reduce time spent on payroll. Payroll4Construction has a team of construction payroll experts who can perform these calculations for you.
2. Simplified Compliance: Construction payroll services can accurately calculate, compile, and submit certified payroll reports, union reports, compliance reports, workers’ compensation reports, and more. Payroll4Construction automatically generates these reports for each employee at the end of each payroll period.
3. Support from Construction Payroll Experts: Construction payroll experts are equipped with the knowledge to handle any payroll challenge, and they ensure a contractor’s payroll scales with the rest of their business. Payroll4Construction has a team of in-house construction payroll experts who are equipped to handle any construction payroll challenge — including union payroll and certified payroll.
4. Synced Payroll and Accounting Data: By connecting the data across each software, contractors can easily review labor costs and see their impact on the rest of the business. Payroll4Construction can sync its payroll data with most accounting software — to keep users job cost and accounting up to date in their current accounting/ERP system.
5. Saved Time: Construction payroll services allow contractors to reclaim time spent on construction payroll. They can redirect their energy to the project at hand or future projects. Payroll4Construction does contractors’ payroll for them. Contractors must submit their time, and Payroll4Construction does the rest, reducing the administrative burdens for your construction company.

Contractors may be saying to themselves, “These benefits sound great, but how exactly does outsourcing payroll work?”

Understanding How Payroll4Construction Works

Payroll4Construction uses a few simple steps to streamline the construction payroll process. These steps are:

1. A contractor can enter payroll or use Payroll4Construction’s mobile app or a different time tracking system to upload their employees’ timecards into Payroll4Construction.
2. Payroll4Construction’s expert payroll staff calculates payroll accurately for each employee — taking into account prevailing wages, multi-trade/rate/state scenarios, union dues, taxes, etc.
3. After the calculations are complete, Payroll4Construction sends payroll information to contractors for their approval.
4. Once approved, Payroll4Construction completes the payroll process by mailing checks and submitting direct deposits for each employee. Additionally, Payroll4Construction automatically compiles the construction payroll data into a range of construction reports like certified payroll, union, job costing, job labor reports and more.
5. Contractors can access these reports for no additional cost to make more informed decisions to drive the growth of their business.

Overall, Payroll4Construction helps contractors reclaim time spent on payroll while also giving them valuable insights to improve operational efficiency.

The Challenges of Construction Payroll and How Payroll4Construction Solves Them

There are a number of construction payroll challenges that Payroll4Construction is uniquely equipped to handle, including:

1. Certified Payroll Reporting

Davis-Bacon Act jobs/prevailing wage jobs require certified payroll reports, which can become complicated. Challenges with certified payroll occur when employees are working across multiple locations with different prevailing wages.

Additionally, a simple data entry mistake can result in costly errors.

The payroll specialists at Payroll4Construction can reduce errors and time spent on certified payroll reporting by automatically tracking hours worked, applying the correct wage rates, and generating certified payroll reports as soon as payroll is processed.

2. Union Tracking

Tracking union requirements, dues, benefits, and maintaining relationships with union workers can be difficult, especially when attempting to adhere to different union agreements and collective bargaining agreements (CBAs) across multiple unions and projects.

Construction payroll errors can lead to legal challenges and disputes over union contracts with union representatives.

Payroll4Construction leverages union tables, allowing users to combine data from multiple locations into a single table and automatically filter out duplicate values to reduce errors.

Contractors also receive access to free union reporting and tracking that allows them to review union deductions and fringe benefits by employee.

3. Multi-Trade/Rate/State

Construction workers are oftentimes asked to perform different tasks across multiple jobsites. This can lead to difficulties tracking each worker’s trade or job classification and the prevailing wages across several locations. If this information is incorrect, it can lead to payroll errors and disputes with workers.

Payroll4Construction tracks the trades, locations and rates of each employee for each pay period, and then automatically calculates payroll based on that information.

Seamless Construction Software Integrations

Payroll4Construction understands construction payroll is intertwined with many other construction tasks like:

• Accounting
• Job Costing
• Time Tracking
• Human Resources
• Construction-Specific Reporting

That’s why Payroll4Construction syncs data with construction accounting, time tracking, and human resources software.

Construction Accounting Software

Our construction-specific payroll service syncs data with leading construction accounting software, like FOUNDATION®, QuickBooks and many more to give users a more comprehensive financial picture when it comes to how construction labor costs affect the rest of their operations.

With this integration, you can share data involving:

• Payroll
• Job costing
• General ledger

This integration helps contractors mitigate unnecessary costs to maximize profitability.

Construction Time Tracking Software

Payroll4Construction syncs data with construction time tracking software, like WorkMax, to help contractors reduce labor costs.

WorkMax uses biometrics, geofencing, and digital clock in/out to improve the accuracy of employee timecards.

These features help curb buddy punching — or the act of clocking in or out on another worker’s behalf — and time stealing.

With the power of WorkMax, contractors can get a better idea of labor costs in real time and adjust their budgets and timelines accordingly. WorkMax users can sync timecard data to Payroll4Construction to receive precise payroll calculations and limit unnecessary labor costs.

Human Resource Software

hrHQ streamlines employee onboarding and gives construction professionals more self-service opportunities to avoid administrative delays.

Employees can easily review paychecks and benefits and instantly update their information. Employers can more effectively manage employee certifications, access free HR reports (i.e., W-4, I-9, EEO, etc.), and securely access employee data from any device.

Payroll4Construction pairs with hrHQ to securely transfer:

• Employee data
• Federal, local & state tax statements
• Payroll information
• PTO plans
• Direct deposit history

With this integration, contractors can provide their workers with more information and autonomy.

Year-End Made Easy With Payroll4Construction

In addition to its many construction payroll features, Payroll4Construction also offers general features aimed at relieving stress involved in year-end processes.

Payroll4Construction can handle:

• Year-end tax filings
• Annual tax filings
• W-2s
• ACA filings

By allowing Payroll4Construction to handle the more tedious aspects of your year end, you receive peace of mind knowing that your company is in compliance with government regulations.

It also allows you to reclaim valuable time to plan for the next year and better position your business for success.

Simplify Your Construction Payroll with Payroll4Construction

Payroll4Construction is one of the leading construction payroll services because it offers several essential features, benefits, and integrations to help you tackle year-end, busy season, and everything in between.

By leveraging the power of Payroll4Construction, you can spend less time on time-consuming payroll tasks and focus more on expanding your operations and workload.

Click here for a free personalized tour of Payroll4Construction.