Certified Payroll reporting has our office manager ready to bolt. It takes her days to complete the reports and it’s tedious work. Is there a better way to get these reports done?

— Ron

  Hey Ron,

  Along with government contracts come government mandated reports — most notably the weekly certified payroll report. It sounds like you may be running your payroll using a general accounting program or with a payroll service that doesn’t provide construction reporting. Whatever the case may be, if your office manager has to manually create these reports, I can see why she’s pulling her hair out. This is tedious work and not the best use of your company’s time and resources.  

 Most construction specific accounting systems offer construction reports like certifieds that are automatically produced when running payroll. The good ones will handle several certified payroll agency formats (e.g., the U.S. Dept. of Labor and others, of which there could be hundreds).

 The best part? A construction specific system significantly reduces the time you’ll spend processing payroll. In fact, some contractors boast that their entire payroll takes under one minute per employee. This includes cutting checks, filing taxes and completing certified payrolls. And the program automatically updates job costing. Long gone are memories of spending hours or days manually doing just the certified payroll reporting portion alone!

  I know, probably sounds too good to be true, right? Do understand that there is a commitment involved when implementing a construction accounting program. These systems typically require more upfront time than their generic counterparts — four to six weeks on average — before you will be live. While that may not sound appealing to an already time crunched office manager, rest assured that switching is a solid long term investment. You’ll reap huge savings in both time and effort every time you run your payroll. And that’s just the start of how these programs can help your business.

—  Fred