Davis-Bacon compliance
WH-347, audit defensibility, and avoiding 3-year debarment.
If you take federal money for construction, Davis-Bacon applies. This guide explains what the WH-347 is, how ConstructOps generates it from your daily logs, the bilingual paystub workers receive, and the audit chain that holds up under DOL or state-DIR investigation.
1. What WH-347 is and when you need it
Form WH-347 is the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) Wage and Hour Division payroll form for federally-funded construction. It is weekly. It is per worker. It lists hours by classification, gross wages, deductions, and fringe disbursements. Signed by a certifying official, it is the document that proves you paid prevailing wages.
Key deadlines
- Weekly: WH-347 due within 7 days of the close of each work week. Federal week is Sunday through Saturday in most contracts.
- Annual: NJ Wage Hub registration renewal. NJ has mandated electronic filing since August 2024.
- Six-year retention: NY requires all WH-347 source documents (daily logs, classification claims, fringe statements) retained 6 years.
- Year-end: IRA-eligible projects must demonstrate 15% apprentice ratio. Drop below in the final 60 days and you trigger automatic notice to the GC.
- Audit window: DOL investigations typically reach back 2 years; willful violation investigations reach 3 years.
2. How ConstructOps generates the WH-347
The WH-347 is not a separate task -- it is the byproduct of the daily logs and timesheets your crew already records. Friday at 4:00 PM you tap Generate, and the WH-347 lands as a signed PDF + the e-file payload for whatever portal your project requires.
- Throughout the week, workers clock in with their classification (apprentice, journeyman, foreman). Voice + GPS + NFC give you three-way verification.
- Foreman approves entries at tier 1. PM approves anything anomalous at tier 2. Controller intervenes only when classification changes affect prevailing wage.
- Friday at 4:00 PM, open Certified Payroll -> This Week -> Generate.
- The system pulls: each worker, their hours by classification, the prevailing wage from the DOL determination for the project zip code, fringe split, deductions.
- You review the draft -- one screen per page of the WH-347. Edit the cover sheet narrative if you want; line items are derived from approved entries and should not be edited (changes trigger an audit flag).
- Sign with voice or thumbprint. The certifying official signature is recorded with timestamp + IP + biometric proof in the Confidential Ledger.
- The system produces: signed PDF, NJ Wage Hub XML (if applicable), CA DIR XML (if applicable), MA DLS portal payload (if applicable), individual worker paystubs (bilingual; see section 3).
- Workers receive their paystubs via the app. The GC controller receives a copy automatically via the federation feed if you are working as a sub.
3. Bilingual worker paystub variant
Federal WH-347 is English-only. But the worker who actually performed the labor often reads Spanish first. ConstructOps generates the federal form in English (mandatory) AND a side-by-side worker receipt in Spanish (informational). Both reference the same line items, the same hours, the same gross.
| English (WH-347) | Espanol (recibo del trabajador) |
|---|---|
| Worker name | Nombre del trabajador |
| Classification | Clasificacion |
| Hours worked | Horas trabajadas |
| Hourly base rate | Tarifa base por hora |
| Hourly fringe rate | Tarifa de prestacion por hora |
| Gross wages | Salario bruto |
| Federal withholding | Retencion federal |
| State withholding | Retencion estatal |
| FICA / Social Security | FICA / Seguro Social |
| Medicare | Medicare |
| Union dues | Cuotas sindicales |
| Net pay | Pago neto |
| Pay period | Periodo de pago |
| Project number | Numero de proyecto |
| Cost code | Codigo de costo |
4. Audit defensibility chain
When the DOL or state DIR comes knocking, the question they ask is: prove the worker named on this WH-347 actually did the work, at the classification claimed, for the hours claimed. ConstructOps builds a four-layer chain that makes that answer easy.
5. The 3-year debarment risk
Davis-Bacon willful violations can result in DOL debarment -- you and your firm are barred from federal work for 3 years. This is a corporate death sentence for most federal contractors. ConstructOps reduces this risk by removing the failure modes that cause it.
Risks
- Misclassification (paying journeyman rate for apprentice work or vice versa) -- the #1 willful violation finding.
- Off-the-books cash payments -- the entire crew is paid prevailing on paper, but the cash side is undocumented.
- Hour falsification -- timesheets show 8 hours, but the crew was actually on site 12. Or vice versa.
- Fringe pocketing -- the GC withholds fringe rate from the worker but does not pay it to the health/welfare fund.
- Apprentice ratio fraud -- the project claims IRA-compliant apprentice ratio but the apprentices are not real.
Mitigations
- Misclassification: classification is captured at clock-in by the worker themselves, and any change is logged with both parties consenting.
- Cash off-books: ConstructOps does not eliminate cash work, but the system records who was on site and what they did. Any cash payment outside the system is a willful concealment, not a record-keeping gap.
- Hour falsification: voice + GPS + NFC + photo all cross-verify hours. Falsifying one layer is hard; falsifying all four leaves a paper trail.
- Fringe pocketing: fringe disbursement is recorded separately from gross wages. Each worker can see their fringe history in the app.
- Apprentice ratio fraud: apprentices are verified against the state apprentice registry on enrollment. Their hours show up in the real-time ratio dashboard.