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Construction Payroll Software That Knows What a Job Is

Multiple rates per employee, labour costed to the right project, apprentice tiers that step on hours, prevailing wage, and certified payroll that files on time. The complexity general payroll was never designed for — and the job data that makes it work.

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Construction payroll dashboard showing labour costed by job, crew assignments, and multiple pay rates

Where General Payroll Breaks for Contractors

Plenty of small contractors run payroll through QuickBooks or Gusto perfectly well. It stops working at four specific points — and if you hit any of them, that is the moment construction payroll stops being optional.

Certified payroll

Public projects under Davis-Bacon require a formatted weekly report of every worker, classification, daily hours, rate, deductions, and fringes, with a signed compliance statement. Standard payroll does not produce it, and late filings hold up project payment.

Prevailing wage

The same employee is owed different rates on different jobs depending on classification and locality. That is not an edge case on public work — it is the norm, and it is the single most common source of underpayment claims.

Apprentice wage tiers

Apprentice pay is a percentage of journeyman scale that steps every 1,000 hours worked, not on a calendar date. Rates change mid-year based on accrued hours, and tracking that by hand is where back-pay exposure builds.

Labour costed by job

One employee, three jobs, two rates, one week. If those hours are not split by job, you see a wage bill at month end but you cannot tell which jobs made money — which is the number that actually matters.

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Labour hours attributed to individual jobs so contractors can see real margin per project

Payroll Is How You Find Out Which Jobs Made Money

Most contractors know their revenue by job and their labour cost only in total. That gap is why unprofitable work gets repeated — the job that lost money looked fine on the invoice, and the labour overrun disappeared into a monthly wage figure.

Costing labour to the job closes it. Each employee's hours are split across the projects they worked, at the correct rate for each, and posted to that job — so margin is a number you can read rather than one you estimate at year end.

Worth knowing before you model any of this: wage is only about 70% of what an employee actually costs once taxes, insurance, and non-billable time are counted. Our labor burden calculator works out the real number, and the overtime pay calculator covers the premium hours that general payroll most often miscalculates.

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SubcontractorHub holding job records, crew assignments, and project structure that payroll and job costing depend on

Where SubcontractorHub Fits

Straight answer: SubcontractorHub is not a payroll bureau. It does not file your taxes or cut your cheques, and we would rather say so than have you find out on a demo.

What it is, is the operating system for the work — quoting, financing, scheduling, dispatch, project management, and invoicing. That means it holds the things payroll and job costing depend on and most often get wrong: which crew was on which job, what the job actually was, how the project is structured, and what was sold against it.

Bad payroll data is usually not a payroll problem. It is a job-data problem arriving at payroll — reconstructed timesheets, jobs that were never properly set up, crews assigned in a group chat. Fix that upstream and payroll becomes arithmetic.

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What to Check Before You Buy

  • Does it generate certified payroll in your state's required format? “Supports certified payroll” and “produces the exact report your state accepts” are different claims. Ask to see one.
  • Can one employee carry multiple rates in a single week? Test it with a real scenario from your own crew, not the vendor's demo data.
  • Does labour cost post to the job automatically? If it needs a manual journal entry per employee per job, it will not survive a busy month.
  • Does it track apprentice hours against the wage schedule? Steps happen on accrued hours, not dates. Software that only knows calendar dates will miss them.
  • Does it handle union fringes and multi-state tax if you need them? Both are expensive to bolt on later.
  • How does it get job and crew data? Manual entry is where the errors originate. An integration with the system that already holds your jobs is worth more than any single payroll feature.

Construction Payroll — Common Questions

What is construction payroll software?

Construction payroll software handles the pay complexity that general accounting packages are not built for: multiple pay rates per employee, job costing so labour lands against the right project, certified payroll reporting on public work, prevailing wage rates, union fringe benefits, and multi-state or multi-jurisdiction tax. A field employee might work three jobs at two rates in one week — construction payroll tracks that by job, while standard payroll treats them as one flat weekly figure.

Why can't I just use QuickBooks or Gusto for construction payroll?

You often can when you are small and single-trade. It breaks down at four specific points: certified payroll on public projects (a formatted weekly report standard payroll does not produce), prevailing wage with different rates per job classification, apprentice wage tiers that step as hours accrue, and job costing that attributes labour to the right project for margin reporting. If you never bid public work and everyone earns one rate, general payroll is usually fine.

What is certified payroll and when do I need it?

Certified payroll is a weekly report required on most federally funded construction projects under the Davis-Bacon Act, and on state-funded work under equivalent state laws. It lists every worker, their classification, hours by day, pay rate, deductions, and fringe benefits, with a signed statement of compliance. Filing late or incorrectly can hold up payment on the project, which is why contractors doing public work generally need software that generates it rather than assembling it by hand.

How does payroll connect to job costing?

This is the part that actually affects your margins. If labour hours are not attributed to specific jobs, you cannot tell which jobs made money — you only see a total wage bill at month end. Construction payroll splits each employee's hours across the jobs they worked, applies the correct rate to each, and posts the cost to that job. That is what turns payroll from a compliance chore into the data behind knowing your real job margin.

Does construction payroll software handle apprentice wage tiers?

The good ones do, and it matters more than people expect. Apprentice pay is a percentage of journeyman scale that steps up every 1,000 hours worked, so an apprentice's rate changes mid-year based on accrued hours rather than on a calendar date. Software that tracks hours against the wage schedule catches the step automatically. Handling it manually is where underpayments and back-pay claims tend to originate — you can model the progression with our apprentice wage calculator.

How does SubcontractorHub fit with payroll?

SubcontractorHub is the operating system for the job — quoting, financing, scheduling, dispatch, project management, and invoicing — which means it holds the job and labour data your payroll process depends on. Rather than replace a dedicated payroll or accounting system, it keeps the job records, crew assignments, and project structure accurate in one place so payroll and job costing are working from real data instead of reconstructed timesheets.

General guidance for contractors, not legal, tax, or payroll advice. Davis-Bacon, prevailing wage, and state certified payroll requirements change and vary by jurisdiction — confirm your obligations with a payroll professional or employment counsel.

Fix the Job Data Your Payroll Depends On

Book a demo and see how SubcontractorHub keeps jobs, crews, and project structure accurate from quote to final invoice — so payroll and job costing work from real data instead of reconstructed timesheets.

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