Guides / Catch mistakes before filing
The cheapest time to fix a certified payroll is before anyone signs page 2. After that, the mistake is a signed statement to the federal government. Here is a routine a small office can run every week, in the order that catches the most.
Page 2 of the WH-347 is the Statement of Compliance. The regulation says falsifying it may lead to civil or criminal prosecution under 18 U.S.C. 1001 and 31 U.S.C. 3729. Even an honest mistake turns into a corrected payroll, back pay and a prime who wants to know what happened. The prime is responsible for turning in every sub's certified payrolls, so your error becomes their problem the day it goes in.
Most bad payrolls are wrong the same way every week. Catch it on week one and you fix one form. Catch it on week twenty and you fix twenty.
Before the first payroll, pull the wage determination that goes with your contract. Note its number and revision, and check that it covers the county the work is in. If nobody handed you one, it still applies. The regulation says the right determination is in force by operation of law even when it was never attached, so ask the prime or the contracting officer which one it is.
Then write one page. Every classification your crew might work goes on it, with the base rate, the fringe and the two added together. Tape it next to wherever payroll gets done. The weekly check becomes a lookup.
A worker who does two kinds of work in a week can be paid each rate for the time spent in it. The catch is in the same sentence of the rule: only if your payroll records show the time spent in each classification. Reconstructing that on Friday from memory is where it goes wrong.
Have the foreman write the split on the time card as the day goes. Tuesday, 6 hours pulling wire, 2 hours cleanup. That note is what lets you put the worker on two rows and defend it later.
Do them in this order. Each one is quick, and each one catches a different kind of miss.
Pass 1, the math. Column 5 has to equal the daily hours in column 4. Column 6B has to equal hours times the hourly fringe credit on page 2. Column 6C is hours times the cash in lieu rate. Column 9 is what was actually on the check for all work that week, across every project, and the deductions in column 8 come off the gross for all work. A total that does not tie is the fastest way to get a form sent back.
Pass 2, the floor. Take each row. Look up the classification in column 3 on your rate sheet. Add the cash rate paid to the fringe per hour, whether it went to a plan or in cash. If that number is under the base plus fringe on the sheet, the row is short, however clean the form looks. On overtime hours, time and a half goes on the cash rate the worker is actually paid, and never less than the base on the sheet. Fringe is owed at its straight amount on those hours too. So the overtime floor is 1.5 times the base, plus the fringe.
Pass 3, page 2 and privacy. Boxes 1, 2, 3 and 6 always get checked. If anyone was paid as an apprentice this week, box 4 gets checked, with each program listed and whether it is registered with DOL's Office of Apprenticeship or a state agency. Someone with authority signs it, by hand or with a legally valid electronic signature. A scanned or photocopied signature does not count. The copy you send leaves off full Social Security numbers, last known addresses, phone numbers and email addresses.
Whoever built the payroll knows what each number was supposed to be, and that makes their own mistakes hard to see. A second reader only sees what is on the page. In a two-person office, the one who did not run payroll does passes 2 and 3. If it is just you, do the check the next morning with the rate sheet, before you sign.
The Department of Labor estimates the WH-347 takes an average of 55 minutes to complete. The check is the part that gets cut when that hour runs long. With the rate sheet built once, pass 2 is one lookup per row.
The payrolls and basic records have to be kept for at least 3 years after all the work on the prime contract is done. Keep the time cards with the classification split in that file. If anyone ever asks why a worker is on two rows, that card is the answer.
The free self check walks the 21 items in passes 1 and 3. Pass 2, reading every row against the wage determination, is the part I do by hand. You still sign page 2 yourself.
Sources: 29 CFR 5.5; 29 CFR 5.32; DOL Form WH-347 page and instructions. Checked September 27, 2026.
Want a second reader on this week's payroll before you sign it? Send me the WH-347 and I will check every row against the wage determination.
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