How to Fill Out WH-347 (Without Getting It Wrong)

WH-347 is the Department of Labor's certified payroll form for any federal or federally-assisted construction contract over $2,000 subject to the Davis-Bacon Act. Every contractor and subcontractor on the job files one, weekly, for as long as the contract runs. Here's what each section actually wants.

Header: contractor, project, and payroll number

Straightforward, but two things trip people up: the payroll number must be sequential with no gaps (payroll 1, 2, 3; if you skip a week with no work, you still note it, you don't just jump the number), and the project/contract number has to match exactly what's on the award document, not an internal job code.

Column-by-column, the part that matters

• Name and identifying number: first initial + last name is standard; full SSNs should not appear on the copy you submit (use the last four digits).
• Work classification: this has to match a classification that actually exists on the wage determination for this contract. A generic "laborer" won't survive an audit if the WD lists specific classifications like "Laborer: Common or General" vs. "Laborer: Pipelayer."
• Hours worked, straight time and overtime, by day: daily breakdown, not just a weekly total.
• Rate of pay: base hourly rate, separate from fringe.
• Fringe benefits: paid in cash, or as bona fide benefits (health, retirement). If paid as benefits, you need documentation showing the benefit is legitimate and its cash-equivalent value.
• Gross amount earned: for this project specifically, if the worker also worked on non-Davis-Bacon jobs that week.
• Deductions: itemized. "Other" as a catch-all deduction category is a common audit flag.
• Net wages paid

The Statement of Compliance

This is the part people forget matters as much as the payroll data itself. It's a signed certification that:

1. The payroll is correct and complete
2. Each worker was paid no less than the applicable wage determination rate
3. Fringe benefits were paid as stated, or the cash equivalent was paid instead

Someone with actual authority over payroll has to sign it, not whoever happened to compile the spreadsheet.

The mistakes that actually trigger an audit

Based on how DOL audits typically start, it's rarely a smoking gun of deliberate underpayment. It's usually:

• Fringe benefit documentation that doesn't hold up: claiming a fringe credit for a plan that doesn't meet ERISA's bona fide benefit test
• Misclassification: putting an apprentice-rate worker in a classification requiring journeyman rate, or vice versa
• Gaps in the payroll number sequence with no explanation
• Rounding that consistently favors the contractor across many pay periods

Doing this without re-keying everything by hand

If your time-tracking system and your payroll system are the same place your wage determinations live, WH-347 generation is a report, not a data-entry task. The form pulls straight from time entries, classifications, and the wage determination already on file for the contract. That's the model Groundwork's certified payroll module is built around; see what certified payroll software actually needs to do for the fuller argument.