Guides / Software or by hand?
It comes down to how many prevailing wage jobs you run at once. Here is the math, with the DOL's own time estimate and real list prices.
The Department of Labor estimates the WH-347 takes an average of 55 minutes to complete. You file one for every week the job runs. One job for a full year is 52 forms, a little under 48 hours of work. Two jobs at the same time is about 95 hours.
Put a number on that hour. If the person doing it costs you $25 an hour, one job is about $1,190 a year in time.
You also do not have to use the WH-347 itself. The regulation says the weekly information "may be submitted using Optional Form WH-347 or in any other format desired." A lot of payroll systems print their own version with the same columns.
These are the prices listed on each vendor's own page when I checked on September 27, 2026. Prices change, so confirm before you buy.
LCPcertified, from LCPtracker, charges $12 per report on its Plus plan, or $145 a month for up to 5 active projects. One job filed every week for a year is $624 at the per report price.
CertifiedPayrollPro starts at $49 a month plus $5 a report. One job for a year comes to $848.
Points North, sold as an add-on inside ADP RUN, lists $175 a month plus $7.50 a report, and a $995 setup fee on its edition for 1 to 25 employees, which covers the federal WH-347. The first year for one job is about $3,485, and you have to be on ADP RUN to use it.
Certified Payroll Solution from Sunburst Software Solutions is a one-time $799 company license. It works with QuickBooks Desktop for Windows and Intuit's Desktop payroll. It does not work with QuickBooks Online.
Foundation Software, eMars and Payroll4Construction give prices by quote only.
Software pulls hours and pay from your payroll and fills in the form. That gets rid of most arithmetic slips and retyping errors.
It still works from what you set up. If a worker is under the wrong classification, or the fringe credit you entered was divided by the wrong number of hours, the software prints a neat form that is wrong. Both of those can turn into back wages. They live in the setup, so no amount of automation catches them on its own. The wage determination guide and the fringe guide cover both.
Sometimes the owner or the prime picks the system for you. The rule lets a contracting agency or prime contractor "permit or require contractors to submit certified payrolls through an electronic system," as long as it uses a valid electronic signature and allows another way to submit when you cannot use it. LCPtracker is one you may run into. Who pays for access depends on the contract, so ask before you buy anything of your own.
On paper, even one job costs more in staff time than the cheapest per report plan: about $1,190 by hand against $624. Software does not take the hour to zero, though. Somebody still sets up the job, enters the workers, and checks what comes out.
The trade tips toward software fastest when you run two or more prevailing wage jobs at once, when workers move between classifications, or when your payroll system already has an add-on for it. By hand still makes sense for a short job with a few workers, where learning a new tool would take longer than the forms themselves.
Either way, the setup is where the money is. Somebody has to match each worker to the right classification on the wage determination and get the fringe math right once. After that, the weekly form is mostly copying.
However the form gets made, you sign the Statement of Compliance. Willful falsification can bring civil or criminal prosecution under 18 U.S.C. 1001 and 31 U.S.C. 3729. A contractor who disregards its obligations to workers can be debarred for 3 years under 29 CFR 5.12. Software does not sign for you.
Sources: DOL Form WH-347 page; 29 CFR 5.5; 29 CFR 5.12; LCPcertified pricing; CertifiedPayrollPro pricing; Points North on the ADP Marketplace; Sunburst Certified Payroll Solution. Prices checked September 27, 2026.
Built by hand or by software, send me one form and I will tell you if the classifications and fringe hold up.
Send me one form →