I need help setting up prevailing wages and creating certified payroll reports when we pay monthly

Welcome to the Community forum, @KDawatson.

I'll provide the necessary steps to create prevailing wages and certified payroll reports in QuickBooks Desktop Payroll. 

To do so, please follow the steps below:

Step 1: Set up prevailing wages

You can set up hourly payroll items with names such as Carpentry, Electrical, or General Labor for each work classification code. These items will appear on your certified payroll reports.

Step 2: Set up job costing

Utilize job costing to monitor your employees' hours for each prevailing wage item. Refer to the guide on setting up and tracking payroll expenses by job in QuickBooks Desktop Payroll.

Step 3: Set up time tracking

Implementing time tracking can streamline the process of creating your payroll and certified payroll reports weekly. Information from time tracking will automatically populate your paychecks and certified payroll reports. Through time tracking, you'll link your prevailing wage items to the jobs you've established.

Alternatively, you can generate payroll and certified payroll reports without time tracking by manually entering all necessary information on your paychecks during payroll creation and in the certified payroll report module.

• For setting up time tracking, see Set up time tracking 
• To use QuickBooks Time, see Set up and use QuickBooks Desktop for Windows and QuickBooks Time integration 
• To use QuickBooks timesheets, see Create and print timesheets

Step 4: Set up your employees

Ensure that your employees have the following configurations:

• A weekly pay frequency.
• Utilization of time tracking data for paycheck creation, if you're using time tracking.
• Inclusion of prevailing wage items and rates.

Run your payroll using time tracking and job costing

You’ll need to run your payroll on a weekly basis, ideally using the job costing and time tracking systems you have implemented. If you are not using time tracking, manually add the prevailing wage items established in Step 1 and the respective jobs set up in Step 2 to each employee's paycheck.

Step 5: Generate a Certified Payroll Report

You are now prepared to create your certified payroll report. A full version of Microsoft Excel is necessary for this task. Additionally, this report can be used to complete the optional Certified Payroll Form WH-347. 

Furthermore, you can refer to this article for more detailed steps: Create prevailing wages and certified payroll reports in QuickBooks Desktop Payroll.

For future reference, here are some guides on fringe benefits. It includes instructions on setting up a taxable fringe benefit payroll item and explains how taxable fringe benefits impact employee tax forms:

• Create taxable fringe benefits payroll items.
• Fringe benefits and tax forms.

Additionally, you can refer to this guide for instructions on creating and processing your payroll: Create and run your payroll.

The Community is always here to support you, we're just a post away if you need assistance with managing your prevailing wage items and generating certified payroll reports in QuickBooks Desktop Payroll.

Certified payroll does not permit paying once a month. It requires weekly pay periods.

So a company has to change their pay cycle because of government project?

Yes, if you are required to comply with certified payroll reporting, you have to pay weekly.

Thank you for responding.  Do you know where I can verify this requirement on a government website?  I have searched every way I know how and cannot find in writing that this is a requirement.  Thanks.

I found online that you do not have to change your payroll cycle.  See Copeland Act. 

contractors and subcontractors performing work on Federally financed or assisted construction contracts “furnish weekly a statement with respect to the wages paid to each employee during the preceding week”.  Changing to weekly would be easier since Quickbooks will not create a weekly certified payroll form if you pay bi-weekly for example which is what our payroll cycle is.  You can write on the statement of compliance in the remarks section that you pay bi-weekly.  The cerified payroll form creates in excel so you can make changes to it.  Hope this helps.

@CJohnsonQCS 

The report QuickBooks produces is a substitute ws347 form.

Here are instructions for certified payroll reporting: https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/forms/wh347

It does seem that you have to pay weekly. I don't know how else it could work.

The form is set up to report daily information for one week, and gross and net payroll for the week - which you can only do if you have a weekly payroll. There is no way, for example, to have one payroll for two weeks and somehow divine what the gross and net are for each week.

Instructions include the text:

While use of Form WH-347 itself is optional [a substitute form is allowed], covered contractors and subcontractors performing work on Federal or federally assisted construction contracts are required by the DBRA regulations and the contract clauses to submit payroll information on a weekly basis. The Copeland Act (40 U.S.C. § 3145) requires contractors and subcontractors performing work on Federal or federally financed construction contracts to, on a weekly basis, “furnish a statement on the wages paid each employee during the prior week.”

The standard form, while rather ugly, shows how you have to report hours worked each day of the week on the project (for one week only) and has boxes for gross amount paid, deductions, and the gross net paycheck for all work. So, the only way to fill the form is to actually create that weekly payroll check every week:

Can you pay bi weekly, but process a weekly check that is paid bi weekly.?

QuickBooks processes payroll checks based on the pay frequency assigned to each employee, ggvmi.

When issuing payroll checks, you’ll need to input a unique check number for every transaction. If an employee is paid bi-weekly but you process checks weekly, check numbers may be duplicated, leading to errors in your financial records. 
 

To ensure precise financial records, I recommend consulting your accountant. They can offer specific guidance to align your payroll and bookkeeping with your overall financial goals.

Let us know in the comments below if you have additional questions. We’re here to help.

@ggvmi  RE: process a weekly check that is paid bi weekly.?

No. You must pay a certified payroll weekly. It's part of what makes it a certified payroll.