Outsourcing certified payroll in California: your four options, honestly compared
Every option below is used by real subcontractors and each one is right for someone. The point is to pick with your eyes open, because the wrong pick shows up as a withheld progress payment.
First, the rule that decides everything
Whatever you choose has to put a certified payroll into the state's own system, in the state's own format, under your own registration. DIR's eCPR FAQ says it in one sentence: "Submitting CPRs to other agencies does not put you in compliance with the state unless you submit eCPRs directly to DIR" (DIR). Filing into the general contractor's portal, however diligently, is not the state filing. Any option that cannot produce the DIR eCPR file, or that leaves you typing it into the portal by hand, is only doing half the job.
Option 1: keep it in house
Your bookkeeper or office manager runs the payroll report, builds the WH-347, and types the eCPR into the DIR portal each period. It costs no license fee and it costs hours every week, more on every new project, plus the learning curve of a portal that rejects uploads over small formatting details. The failure mode is quiet: the person who knows the portal leaves, or gets busy, and the filings slip until a records request arrives with a 10 day clock attached (what that costs).
Option 2: a payroll add on
Add on products bolt certified payroll reports onto a payroll system. The catch in California is which system. QuickBooks Desktop has an add on ecosystem; QuickBooks Online does not produce the California eCPR XML at all, and the same is true out of the box for ADP, Paychex, Gusto, and Sage exports. We keep the current, sourced coverage on each system page: QuickBooks Online, QuickBooks Desktop, ADP, Paychex, Gusto, Sage. Even where an add on covers the XML, you still drive the software, check the output, and upload.
Option 3: compliance software
Platforms built for prevailing wage compliance cover the forms and the DIR file, and they are the right tool for a company with a compliance person who wants a system to work in. You license seats, learn the product, and do the work inside it. Pricing is usually quoted on a call, often per project. Our comparison pages lay out what each vendor actually publishes, and the pricing roundup shows who publishes prices at all.
Option 4: a consultant or a done for you service
Someone prepares and files for you. The variables are the ones to ask about below: whether they submit directly to DIR or hand you a PDF, who signs, whether a person reviews every file, whether they handle the GC's portal as well as the state, and whether the price is published. WellStanding is in this category: we take the export you already run, produce the WH-347 and the DIR eCPR, a person reviews every file, and the pricing is on the home page in full.
Seven questions to ask any provider
- Do you file the eCPR directly with DIR, or do you give me a report to file myself?
- Who signs? The declaration under penalty of perjury on a certified payroll is the contractor's (Labor Code 1776). A provider who says you never touch it is describing a shortcut you should understand.
- Does a person check every file against the wage determination, or is it software only?
- What happens when the GC also requires LCPtracker, PRISM, Elation, or OCPS? Who files there?
- Can you catch up the weeks I missed, and what does that cost?
- Is your pricing published? If not, why not?
- What happens when DIR changes the portal or the schema, as it has before?
What it costs to have us do it
$995 one time setup, then $249 per month flat for crews up to 25 workers, every project, every weekly filing, WH-347 and DIR eCPR, done. Crews of 26 to 50 workers: $449 per month, still flat, still everything. No contract. Cancel anytime. Pause between public works jobs and pay nothing until the next award. Your first weekly filing is free, done before you pay us anything, so you can judge the output on your own project.