DAVIS-BACON JOB COSTING WITHOUT THE MARGIN LOSS.
Davis-Bacon and state prevailing wage work changes the job costing most subcontractors use. The wage determination sets a labor floor by classification. Fringe benefits become a real accounting decision, since paying cash or crediting bona fide plans moves your burden 10 to 20 percent. Worker classification affects compliance and cost at the same time. And certified payroll publishes your labor data to the agency every week, which means the measurement already exists whether or not you use it.
The core problem is that subs bidding prevailing wage work off private-work burden rates either lose the bid or win it unprofitably. Both outcomes come out of the same input error. The fix is building burdened rates from the actual wage determination, deciding the fringe strategy before bid day rather than discovering it at the first certified payroll report, and keeping one weekly labor record that goes into certified payroll and job costs together. SPM doesn't process payroll and doesn't produce the WH-347. It builds the costing structure around whoever does.
WHAT IT MEANS.
A wage determination is the document attached to every Davis-Bacon contract listing the base hourly rates and fringe amounts by worker classification for the county the work is in.
Public work isn't harder to make money on. It's harder to price wrong twice, because the wage floor applies to every bidder in the room. Once labor cost stops being the competitive variable, the competition moves to productivity, burden math, and overhead efficiency, and a sub with a real burdened rate table per classification is bidding against people guessing.
WHERE DAVIS-BACON BREAKS NORMAL JOB COSTING.
The wage determination sets your cost floor, whatever your payroll history says
Every Davis-Bacon contract includes a wage determination listing base hourly rates and fringe amounts by classification, and that document is the cost foundation for bidding rather than your private-work payroll history. The discipline is pulling the determination for the specific county, building a burdened rate per classification covering base plus fringe plus taxes computed correctly plus comp plus real labor overhead, and refreshing rates when modifications publish. Bidding prevailing wage work off blended private rates is how subcontractors win jobs that were already lost at estimate.
The fringe decision moves your burden 10 to 20 percent
The fringe portion can be paid as cash wages or credited through bona fide benefit plans, and the choice comes with real cost consequences. Fringes paid as cash inflate the base for payroll taxes and often workers' comp, while plan contributions generally don't. On a $15 an hour fringe across a 20 person prevailing wage crew, the difference is six figures annually. That decision belongs in the CFO function before bid day rather than showing in the first certified payroll report.
Classification and site-of-work rules decide the rate and the cost together
Worker classification on prevailing wage jobs sets the legal rate and your job cost at the same time. A laborer performing operator work owes operator rates, split-classification workers need hour by hour tracking, and site-of-work rules decide whether yard and haul time is covered. Misclassification produces back-wage findings, withheld contract payments, and debarment exposure, and it also means your job costs were wrong the whole time. One tracking discipline solves both problems: daily time by worker, classification, and cost code, entered once.
Certified payroll gets treated as overhead instead of a costing asset
Certified payroll is usually treated as pure compliance cost, but the weekly WH-347 holds the data per-job labor costing needs: hours by worker by classification at known burdened rates. Structured correctly, the same weekly record goes into the certified report and the job cost ledger, so prevailing wage jobs get sharper weekly labor tracking than most subs have on private work. Compliance stops being a tax and becomes the measurement system.
WHAT IT LOOKS LIKE IN DOLLARS.
That's the burden swing the fringe decision controls. Cash-paid fringes inflate the payroll tax and comp base while bona fide plan contributions generally don't. Deciding the fringe strategy deliberately before the bid is routinely worth five to six figures a year to a sub with regular prevailing wage crews, and most subs don't know they're making the decision at all.
Labor variance visibility on every prevailing wage job. Because certified payroll forces a weekly labor record anyway, prevailing wage jobs have the tightest labor tracking in the company once costing is integrated: estimate against actual by classification, every week. Overruns get caught at week two with time to respond, which is the discipline that removes profit fade.
Prevailing wage books close inside the same monthly rhythm as everything else: monthly close by the 10th, WIP on every job, and public-work float modeled in the 13 week forecast. Compliance-heavy work doesn't get a slower close. It gets a sharper one.
THE PREVAILING WAGE COSTING CHECKLIST.
The structure starts with a burdened rate table per classification per active determination, refreshed whenever a modification publishes. The fringe strategy gets decided and documented before bid day, whether that's cash, plans, or a split. Daily time gets captured by worker, classification, and cost code, entered once and used by both payroll and job costs. Prevailing wage jobs get costed and reported separately from private work, because blended books keep the real prevailing wage margin out of view. Weekly labor-to-estimate variance is calculated per classification, so overruns get caught at week two and not at closeout. And retainage, agency pay cycles, and stored-material rules all go into the 13 week cash forecast, because public work floats long.
SPM doesn't process payroll and doesn't produce certified payroll reports. That work stays with your payroll provider, and the good ones do it well. What SPM builds is the costing structure around it: the rates, the fringe strategy, the job cost integration, and the margin visibility that makes prevailing wage work worth winning in the first place.
Civil, sitework, and DOT face the heaviest prevailing wage exposure in the field, where federal-aid highway, water, and infrastructure work put operator classifications, trucking and site-of-work rules, and long agency pay cycles in the same job, and civil subs who master the burden math own a segment most competitors price wrong in both directions. Electrical on federal work, meaning data centers on federal property, military bases, and VA projects, has some of the highest fringe components on the books, which makes the cash versus plans decision worth the most, and apprentice ratio compliance adds a layer where the legal limit and the cost optimum are the same number. Concrete on public structures like bridges, treatment plants, and schools mixes laborer, finisher, and operator classifications on the same pour, so split-classification time tracking is the difference between a clean audit and a withheld payment, and inspection-gated billing stretches the cash cycle past private-work norms. Erosion control on municipal work passes the prime's Davis-Bacon obligations downstream, and multi-site municipal portfolios mean several determinations applying at once, so per site costing and per determination rate tables keep forty small sites from becoming forty small compliance exposures.
FLAT MONTHLY FEE. NO SURPRISES.
Three tiers, priced by your trailing twelve month revenue. Which one you're in depends on how much of the work you want off your desk. No hourly billing. No payroll. The one-time onboarding fee is right here in the table.
| Last 12 months revenue | Monthly fee | One-time onboarding |
|---|---|---|
| Under $1M | $1,900 to $3,300 | $1,000 |
| $1M to $3.5M | $2,600 to $5,300 | $1,500 |
| $3.5M to $6.5M | $3,800 to $8,300 | $3,000 |
| $6.5M to $9.5M | $5,100 to $11,800 | $4,500 |
| $9.5M to $12.5M | $6,100 to $14,900 | $6,000 |
| $12.5M to $15.5M | $7,400 to $17,650 | $7,500 |
| $15.5M to $18.5M | $9,400 to $22,400 | $9,000 |
| $18.5M+ | Quoted individually | Quoted individually |
The onboarding fee covers migrating your books back to the start of your last taxable year and getting you fully operational in 60 days. It's billed once, with your first invoice. It's the same for all three tiers. Your first month is prorated, and your monthly engagement starts on the first of the first full month.
Range reflects the three tiers below. Which one you're in depends on how much of the work you want off your desk. No payroll. No hidden line items. The onboarding fee is right here in the table.
You stop guessing.
You get the CFO work. Job costing built against the way you estimate, a 13 week cash forecast, monthly WIP, and a meeting every month that ends in decisions and never in a report.
Your bookkeeper still does the books.
Every job shows its margin while it is still open.
Everything in Core, plus the bookkeeping and bank reconciliations done for you, and the job costing and WIP software set up, loaded with your cost codes, and managed every month. Use your own online software, or move to ours and we cover it.
A bookkeeper we choose does the books and reconciliations. No payroll.
You approve, and the money side gets handled.
Everything in Strategic, plus a controller we choose who handles your bills and receivables for you the way an in-house controller would. They call vendors, pay the bills and keep the accounting current. We plan the cash flow first, and you approve every payment because it is your money.
A controller we choose does the payables and receivables. No payroll, no pay applications, no collections.
FREQUENTLY ASKED.
