Send me one certified payroll you already filed. You get back one of two things: it is clean, or here is exactly what to fix.
No portal, no account, no upload wizard. You send a form, I send it back marked up.
Pick a WH-347 you already filed on a federally funded job and send it to nick@wh347check.com.
I run it against the wage determination. Classifications, fringe math, the numbers that have to tie out.
Clean, or a short list of exactly what to fix and where. Nothing you have to decode.
If you run payroll on a federally funded job, you file a WH-347 every week for the life of the contract, and you sign a Statement of Compliance every time. That signature is where the exposure lives.
Last December a Maryland HVAC sub was debarred for three years over a wrong classification and short fringe, on two housing jobs.
Source: US DOL Wage and Hour Division release, 2025-12-10.
Your classifications and fringe tie out to the determination. File it as is. You keep the note in case anyone ever asks.
Exactly which line is off, why it is off, and the number it should read. No jargon, no lecture. Fix it and refile.
The questions people email me before they send a form. Short answers, no lecture. If yours is not here, ask me.
Form WH-347 is the Department of Labor's certified payroll report for federally funded construction. It lists every worker on the job, their trade classification, hours, rate of pay, deductions and net wages for one week, and it carries a signed Statement of Compliance.
No. The form is provided for convenience. You can use any payroll format that carries all the required information and comes with a signed Statement of Compliance. Plenty of agencies and portals, LCPtracker and eMARS among them, want their own layout instead.
Five things cause most of it: a worker in the wrong trade classification, a fringe rate that does not match the determination, arithmetic that does not tie out, a missing or unsigned Statement of Compliance, and a pay period that does not match the submission window.
The arithmetic one is the fastest rejection there is. A Column 5 total that disagrees with the daily hours, or a Column 9 net that is not Column 7 minus Column 8, gets caught on sight.
Divide the total annual cost of the benefit by the total annual hours worked. Benefits costing $12,480 a year over 2,080 hours is a fringe rate of $6.00 an hour.
You can pay fringe as cash, put it into a bona fide plan, or split it. What matters is that the total meets the determination.
Column 6 is the straight time rate of pay, including any cash paid in place of fringe benefits. The cash fringe can be shown separately from the base rate. A rate written as $12.25/.40 means a $12.25 base hourly rate plus 40 cents an hour in cash fringe.
Overtime is 1.5 times the base hourly rate, not 1.5 times base plus fringe. The fringe is paid at straight time for every hour worked, overtime hours included.
This one goes wrong in both directions. Time and a half on the full prevailing wage overpays. Getting the base wrong underpays. Either way it shows on the form.
Every week, for the life of the contract, including weeks nobody worked. Certified payroll is due within seven days of the regular pay date. Holding them and dropping a stack at closeout is not compliant, and most agencies reject the whole batch.
It compounds quietly. Ten cents an hour, twenty workers, six months, and you are past $5,000 in back wages before anyone notices. Bigger gaps bring withheld contract funds, and at the far end, debarment from federal work for up to three years.
One WH-347 you have already filed, read by hand against the applicable wage determination. You get back either a note saying it is clean, or a short list naming the row, the reason and the right number. No account, no upload wizard, no card.
I do. My name is Nick Kaufman and I read these by hand, one at a time. No model is guessing at your numbers and no offshore team is touching your payroll. If it is a slow week you hear back the same day.
Written by Nick Kaufman. Last updated 4 September 2026. Nothing here is legal advice. If a finding is already on your desk, talk to a lawyer.
You keep signing the Statement of Compliance. I never sign anything. I just check the form.
Not a portal, not a model guessing. I am Nick. I read the form, check it against the rate sheet, and write you back myself. If it is a slow week you hear from me the same day. Send one and see.
See what a second set of eyes catches before the auditor gets a turn.
nick@wh347check.com