Outsource certified payroll in California: four options, honestly compared

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 built for it. Based on our own testing, most general payroll platforms do not export the California eCPR XML out of the box. We keep the system by system findings, and how each one was tested, on our own pages: 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 certified payroll consultant or a done for you service

A certified payroll consultant is a person or firm you pay to prepare, and sometimes upload, your certified payroll, often alongside prevailing wage advice or fringe benefit plans. One example is Public Works Consultant (publicworksconsultant.com). Ask any provider the seven questions below before you sign anything, and see how the three types of help compare in the table.

Consultant, training course, or flat fee service, compared

A training course teaches your own staff to do the work. A consultant does it for you as a billed engagement. A flat fee service like WellStanding does the same weekly work at one published price.

A course fits a company that wants to own compliance in house long term. A consultant earns its cost on complex, non routine situations, a disputed wage determination or a fringe benefit plan that needs designing. A flat fee service fits the routine weekly filing on a straightforward job, which is most public works subcontracts most weeks.

Seven questions to ask any provider

1. Do you file the eCPR directly with DIR, or do you give me a report to file myself?
2. 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.
3. Does a person check every file against the wage determination, or is it software only?
4. What happens when the GC also requires LCPtracker, PRISM, Elation, or another GC required labor compliance portal? Who files there?
5. Can you catch up the weeks I missed, and what does that cost?
6. Is your pricing published? If not, why not?
7. 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.

Questions