Construction payroll software compared

2026-11-03Updated 2026-11-129 min read

Construction payroll software does two jobs a general payroll does not. It pays each hour against a job, a cost code and the right rate for the work, and on public work it turns the week into a certified payroll: the WH-347 or the state's own form, with fringes split the way the agency reads them. There are two ways to get there. A construction system or service that runs the payroll itself (FOUNDATION, eBacon, ComputerEase, Payroll4Construction), or a reporting tool that reads the payroll you already run (Points North). QuickBooks Payroll and Gusto pay people well, but their own pages do not mention certified payroll.

What makes it construction payroll

On a private job, payroll is payroll. The difference starts with the first federal or federally funded contract over $2,000, which carries the Davis-Bacon labor clauses. From then on the regulation, not your pay cycle, sets the rhythm: a certified payroll for every week covered work happens, signed, kept for years. Here is what 29 CFR 5.5 and the DOL's form instructions say, read on 2026-11-03, and what each line asks of the software.

Two lines in that table decide most purchases. The prime contractor is responsible for every subcontractor's certified payrolls, so a general contractor needs a way to collect and check them, not only to produce its own, the same way it gathers the G702 and G703 each month. And an agency or prime may require an electronic system, so the question is not “does it print a WH-347” but “does it upload to the portal this owner uses”. State and local prevailing wage laws add their own forms and rates on top; the federal rules here are the floor, not the whole job.

Construction payroll software, vendor by vendor

Our pick: the one whose payroll and certified report come from the same entry

“Not stated” means the vendor's own page does not say. Ask in the demo; do not assume.

FOUNDATION: payroll inside the job cost ledger

FOUNDATION is the pick when payroll and accounting should be one system. Its payroll page covers prevailing wage, Davis-Bacon and union payrolls with automatic calculations, figures fringes and deductions on regular, overtime or special rates, and produces certified payroll reports in print or electronic form for numerous state, federal and local agencies. It files W-2s for multiple states and localities, and one payroll entry posts to job cost and the general ledger together, so labor on a job report is the labor you actually paid.

Payroll comes with the base software, alongside job costing, purchase orders and subcontracts, and receivables. There is no list price: FOUNDATION quotes by the modules you take. The trade-off is that you are buying an accounting system, not a payroll add-on. If your books already live somewhere you like, read the reporting tools below first.

eBacon: payroll for open-shop prevailing wage work

eBacon is narrower and says so. It is built for open-shop and merit-shop contractors with 15 to 500 employees. It calculates paychecks and taxes, files the federal and state returns, ties every clocked hour to a job and a cost code, and pre-fills the WH-347 and state certified payroll reports from the same data. Its fringe trust is for open-shop and merit-shop crews on prevailing wage jobs. If your crews are all union, eBacon says the union fund already handles fringe and the trust is not the right fit, but you can still run its certified payroll and the rest of the platform.

That makes it a fit for a merit-shop sub that bids public work regularly and wants the fringe handled as a benefit rather than cash. A firm under 15 people is below the range eBacon names. No price is published; it starts with a demo.

Payroll4Construction: a payroll service that produces the certified reports

Payroll4Construction is a service rather than software you run yourself. Its site says it is powered by FOUNDATION, and its integration page calls Foundation Software its parent company. It produces paychecks and direct deposit, W-2s and automatic electronic tax filing, handles prevailing wage and union fringes, and gives access to dozens of print and electronic certified payroll formats; its electronic list names the California DIR, AASHTOWare CRL, eComply, LCM and LCPtracker, and it says it processes certified payroll in all 50 states.

Its union payroll page names multi-union processing, fringe benefit tracking and union tables, and lets the job's union agreement override a worker's home union. Labor hours, dollars and burden are job-costed in the standard package; cost-code tracking is an option. It pairs with Foundation Software's own accounting, time tracking and HR products. There is no list price: it shows custom pricing after you fill in a quote form. It fits a contractor who wants construction payroll handled outside the office.

ComputerEase: an ERP with people who run payroll for you

Deltek's ComputerEase names union payroll, prevailing wage, certified payroll requirements, fringe credits and garnishments, and jobs that cross state lines, with job cost tracked by job, phase and cost code. Its payroll service handles payments, direct deposit and tax filings through year-end W-2s, and offers consulting support on certified payroll and prevailing wage. Read that last part carefully: consulting support is help with the report, not a promise to file it for you.

Deltek prints no price. Its page says the license starts with a first-month payment rather than a lump sum, which matters if a conversion budget is what has kept you on a general payroll.

Points North: certified payroll on the payroll you already run

Points North does not run payroll. It takes over after payroll is processed, reading from ADP, Workday, Paycor, Paychex, UKG, Rippling, or QuickBooks Online and Desktop, and turns the week into certified payroll reports. It says it has more than 100 report formats and sends them through the agencies' own portals, naming LCPTracker, Elations, eComply and the California DIR among others. Its WageIQ product covers prevailing wage rates, union agreement rules and fringe calculations across states, and a Managed Service will generate and submit the weekly reports for each public project.

Its app listing on Intuit's marketplace prices it as implementation plus a license fee, by quote. For a sub whose payroll is fine and whose only problem is one weekly report per public job, this is the smallest change.

QuickBooks Payroll and Gusto: good payroll, no certified report

Most small subs pay their crews through QuickBooks Payroll or Gusto, and for private work both are fine. Intuit sells payroll in bundles with QuickBooks Online, each a monthly base plus a fee per employee; its top bundle tracks project profitability and labor cost. Gusto prints its prices, each a monthly base plus a monthly fee per person. For job costing the plan to read is Plus, at $80 a month plus $12 a month per person: its time-tools page says workers on Plus and Premium can track hours to projects and tasks, and employers get “a report detailing their team's cost on a per project basis”. Plus also adds multi-state payroll. Premium, at $180 a month plus $22 a month per person, adds what its pricing page calls “project based rules and costing” and Labor Cost Allocation, which splits labor cost across departments or custom categories by percentage. Simple, at $49 a month plus $6 a month per person, runs payroll in one state, and its plan grid lists workforce cost reports as not available.

Neither vendor's pricing page mentions certified payroll, prevailing wage or union payroll, and Gusto's payroll features page does not either. On QuickBooks, the usual answer is a reporting layer such as Points North, which lists both QuickBooks Online and Desktop. On Gusto, check with the reporting vendor before you assume a connection: Gusto is not on the integration list Points North publishes.

Fringes are where certified payroll breaks

A prevailing wage is a base rate plus a fringe, and the WH-347 keeps them apart. Column 6B carries what you contribute to plans for the worker; column 6C carries cash paid in lieu of fringes. A payroll that pays the total as one hourly rate can still be right on the check and wrong on the form, and the form is what the agency reads. Hours over 40 in the week go in as overtime, and a worker who switches classifications mid-week gets a row for each.

This is where vendors differ most. FOUNDATION calculates fringes on regular, overtime or special rates. eBacon runs a fringe trust for open-shop crews and says an all-union shop's fringe is already handled by its union fund. ComputerEase names fringe credits. Payroll4Construction names union fringes and fringe benefit tracking. Points North's WageIQ covers fringe calculations and union agreement rules. QuickBooks Payroll and Gusto do not say. Ask each one to run a sample week for a worker paid part cash fringe, part plan contribution, across two classifications, and compare the 6B and 6C totals by hand.

Who files, and where

On a federal job the subcontractor produces its certified payroll and the prime submits all of them. Some owners collect through a platform: LCPtracker describes itself as the system public agencies use to collect, verify and track labor compliance data from their primes, and its users include prime contractors and subs. If the owner names a portal in the contract, that portal is your real requirement. Points North names LCPTracker, Elations, eComply and the California DIR among the portals it reaches; eBacon names state uploads without listing portals; Payroll4Construction lists the California DIR, LCPtracker, AASHTOWare CRL, eComply and LCM among its electronic formats. Confirm the specific portal before you sign.

Getting this wrong costs money, not only time. If required payroll records are not submitted, the agency may suspend further payment after written notice, and the failure can support debarment. On a public job that means the pay application you filed on time sits unpaid until the payrolls catch up, the same cash-flow hole the Prompt Payment Act guide describes from the other side. Payment protection on those jobs runs through the bond, not a lien (see Miller Act vs Little Miller Act).

When the free WH-347 is enough

For a small sub with one federally funded job a year, the DOL's web-based WH-347 generator is an honest answer. It runs in the browser with no download or subscription, the DOL says the data stays on your computer, and you print or save the result as a PDF for the contracting agency. Pair it with the payroll you already run and a spreadsheet that holds the wage determination's rates.

It stops being enough when the weeks pile up: several public jobs at once, a state form on top of the federal one, an owner that requires a portal upload, or a GC asking you for payrolls from your own subs, usually beside the lien waivers from subcontractors it already collects. Then the cost of construction payroll software is smaller than the hours. If your ledger is due for a change anyway, read construction accounting software compared first: three of its vendors carry certified payroll inside the books.

This page explains the federal rules and what each vendor publishes; it is not legal advice. When an agency questions a payroll or a classification, talk to the agency's labor compliance officer or a construction attorney before you answer in writing.