Free certified payroll software: what it can't do in California
The free payroll tools people search for, Payroll4Free, ExcelPayroll, and TimeTrex, are real, though what is free comes with its own limits on each one. None of them mention certified payroll, prevailing wage, or California's DIR filing anywhere on their own sites, and DIR's own eCPR FAQ says the electronic system it runs is the only option for submitting certified payroll records. Here is what each free option actually covers, and where you hit the wall.
What people mean by "free certified payroll software"
Searches for this usually land on one of three well-known free payroll runners: Payroll4Free, ExcelPayroll, and TimeTrex. ExcelPayroll runs with no monthly fee to run basic payroll. Payroll4Free is free only up to a point: per its own fee schedule, one payroll batch is free each month for 9 or fewer employees paid, and per Payroll4Free's own FAQ, that free tier only applies if you pay those 9 or fewer people no more than once a month. Run payroll weekly or biweekly, which is the normal pattern for an active crew, and every batch after the first one that month costs $15. Once you pay 10 to 24 employees the cost is $10 per posting, and at 25 or more employees it is $35 per posting, which is the same crew size range this guide, and WellStanding's own service, is built for. TimeTrex's main site, timetrex.com, advertises a 30 day free trial of its paid Professional, Corporate, and Enterprise editions, not a permanent free plan. The product TimeTrex describes as free lives on a separate page, the open source Community Edition, which you download and run yourself rather than pay a monthly fee for. Their marketing pages describe paying employees and contractors, calculating and withholding taxes, printing checks or paying by direct deposit, and generating standard tax forms like W-2s and 941s. None of that is a criticism. It is what general small business payroll software is built to do.
What none of the three sites mention, anywhere in their own feature lists, pricing pages, or marketing copy, is certified payroll, prevailing wage, Davis-Bacon, the federal WH-347, or California's DIR filing. That silence is the finding. If a free tool produced a document a public works subcontractor could actually file, its own site would say so, because it is a real selling point. None of them say it.
What is genuinely free on the federal side
One piece of this is free and works as advertised: the federal WH-347 form itself. The U.S. Department of Labor publishes the current WH-347 as a static PDF and as an online fillable form, at no cost, and it is the source the form comes from, so it is the one worth trusting over a third-party copy. Using the WH-347 itself is optional under the underlying rule, 29 CFR 5.5(a)(3)(ii), but the weekly certified payroll and signed Statement of Compliance it represents are not. Our full field-by-field walkthrough is in how to fill out Form WH-347.
That free form only covers the federal Davis-Bacon side. On a California public works job it is one of two required filings, and it does nothing for the other one.
What is genuinely free on the California side
California's own filing path also has a free option: the iForm inside DIR's public works portal. Per DIR's eCPR FAQ, contractors have two options inside the eCPR system, the manual iForm or an XML upload, and the FAQ does not mention any fee for filing through either one. So the state does not charge you to submit. What it does not do is give you software: the iForm means typing every worker, every day's hours, every rate, and every fringe and deduction by hand, in the portal, for every payroll period, on every project. It is genuinely free and it genuinely does not scale past a crew of one or two on a single small job. Our full breakdown of both paths, including what makes an XML upload bounce, is in the DIR eCPR system explained.
Why the free payroll tools can't close the gap
The reason Payroll4Free, ExcelPayroll, and TimeTrex stop where they stop is not an oversight. DIR's own certified payroll reporting page tells contractors to build their electronic filing to DIR's own CPR XML schema, and DIR's eCPR FAQ states plainly that the eCPR system, with its iForm and XML upload, is the only option for submitting certified payroll. A general payroll tool built to run paychecks and print a 941 has no reason to also build a submission format one state agency requires for one category of job. This is the same gap that shows up above the free tier too, including for paid mainstream payroll software; see certified payroll from QuickBooks for what a widely used paid platform does and does not cover. Free general payroll software has the identical gap, for the identical reason.
The real cost of doing it free
Free is not free of consequences once you are actually filing. Whatever produces your numbers, the California payroll record itself has to be verified by a written declaration made under penalty of perjury that the information is true and correct and that you have complied with Labor Code sections 1771, 1811, and 1815, under Labor Code section 1776, subdivision (a). On the federal side, the WH-347 Statement of Compliance carries its own warning that willful falsification is subject to the penalties in 18 U.S.C. section 1001, a fine, possible imprisonment of not more than 5 years, or both, per DOL's own form instructions. Typing numbers by hand into a free iForm, or exporting a report from free payroll software that was never built for this and reformatting it yourself, does not lower that exposure. It just moves the arithmetic errors earlier in the process, where you are the one who has to catch them before you sign.
Free options, side by side
| Option | Cost | Covers WH-347 | Covers DIR eCPR | Your time per filing |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Payroll4Free, ExcelPayroll, TimeTrex | Free, with limits that vary by tool and crew size | No | No | Not applicable; these run payroll, not certified payroll reporting |
| DOL's WH-347 PDF or fillable form | Free | Yes, manually | No | Per worker, per week, by hand |
| DIR's eCPR iForm | Free | No | Yes, manually | Per worker, per project, per week, by hand |
| A done for you service | $995 setup, then $249 or $449 a month, first filing free | Yes | Yes | A review and a signature |
The full picture on what a paid option actually costs, and what changes the price, is in how much does certified payroll cost. If you want every option laid out, including add-on software and switching payroll platforms entirely, see outsourcing certified payroll: your four options.