Does ADP Do Certified Payroll? Setup, Reports, and Limits

Yes. ADP does certified payroll, but not on its standard small-business plans. The feature lives inside ADP Workforce Now for Construction, which can automatically generate the weekly certified payroll reports required on federal construction contracts over $2,000.¹ The software formats and calculates; the contractor who signs each Statement of Compliance carries the legal responsibility for what it says.

Which ADP Product Generates Certified Payroll

Certified payroll reporting is part of ADP Workforce Now for Construction, supported by ADP’s Construction Center of Excellence. The platform pulls hours, wage rates, and deductions from the regular payroll run into the specialized format required by federal agencies, without separate manual data entry.¹ Automated updates keep the reporting format current when federal requirements change.

Because certified payroll is not a default feature on ADP’s standard plans, accessing it typically means moving to the construction tier or adding the module. ADP does not publish pricing for these features, so you’ll need to request a quote based on project volume and workforce size.

Inside the platform, you assign a unique project code to each covered contract. The system uses those codes to separate government work from private jobs and to generate reports that map to the fields the Department of Labor requires.

What You Have to Set Up Before ADP Can Produce a Valid Report

ADP will produce a report from whatever data you enter. That means the accuracy of the certified payroll depends on how you configure the project, the workers, and the wage rates before you run payroll.

Pulling the Right Wage Determination

The Department of Labor publishes wage determinations listing the minimum hourly rate and fringe benefit rate for each job classification, by geographic area and construction type. Find the applicable determination on SAM.gov, either by determination number if your contract lists one or by selecting “Public Buildings or Works” and narrowing to the state and county where the work is performed.² Using a determination for the wrong county produces underpayments even when your data entry is otherwise clean.

The determination incorporated into your contract at the time of award generally sets the minimum rates for the life of the project, though a substantial change in scope, an exercised option period, or ongoing work not tied to a single project can require the contracting agency to bring in the most recent revision.³

Employee Data and Classifications

Federal regulations require each worker’s name, address, social security number (only the last four digits appear on the submitted payroll), correct job classification, hourly wage rate, daily and weekly hours, deductions, and actual wages paid.⁴ In ADP, all of that lives in the employee profile and time-tracking modules and has to be right before you finalize the pay run.

Classification is where mistakes concentrate. An electrician and a plumber on the same site draw different required rates. A worker who performs more than one type of covered work in a week needs hours tracked separately for each classification, and each block of hours must meet or exceed the rate for that classification. Reviewing the fields on Form WH-347, the Department of Labor’s optional template, is a good way to confirm your ADP setup captures every data point the report will need.⁵

Fringe Benefits

The prevailing wage has two parts: a basic hourly cash rate and a fringe rate. You can satisfy the fringe portion in cash, through contributions to bona fide benefit plans, or in any combination, as long as the total meets the wage determination.⁶ Benefits you’re already required to provide under other law (workers’ compensation, for example) do not count toward the fringe requirement, and neither do travel or subsistence payments.⁷

ADP can perform the hourly-equivalent math on benefit contributions once you’ve entered plan costs and hours, but you should verify the output against the wage determination line by line. The system doesn’t know whether the plan you configured is a qualifying one.

Overtime Base Rate

The Contract Work Hours and Safety Standards Act requires one and one-half times the basic hourly rate for hours over 40 in a workweek on covered federal contracts.⁸ The overtime rate is calculated on the basic hourly cash rate from the wage determination (or the actual rate paid, if higher), not on the combined rate that includes fringe contributions.⁶ Confirm that ADP’s overtime calculation for the project is pointed at the correct base rate, not an internally set one.

Running and Submitting the Weekly Report

After you finalize the pay run, the reporting or compliance section of ADP generates a preview of the certified payroll for the selected project code and pay period. Review it against the wage determination before you sign. Classifications, hours, and rates should line up.

Certified payrolls are due weekly for any week in which covered work is performed.⁹ The regulation says “weekly” but doesn’t set a specific number of days after the pay period; your contracting agency’s deadline governs, so check the contract.

ADP can export the report as a PDF for manual submission or as XML or CSV for upload to compliance systems like LCPtracker, eMars, or Elation, depending on what the contracting agency uses. The Statement of Compliance needs a legally valid signature, and ADP supports digital signatures where the agency accepts them.¹⁰ Once signed, the system archives the report.

The signer matters. It has to be someone who oversees wage payments and the work performed, in a position to know that the report accurately reflects every covered worker, their classification and hours, and that they received the required prevailing wages.¹⁰ Any employee with system access will not do.

What ADP Will Not Do for You

ADP generates certified payroll reports for your own employees paid through ADP. It does not produce the certified payrolls your subcontractors owe you. As the prime contractor, you’re responsible for the certified payroll compliance of every subcontractor on the project, at every tier.¹¹ Federal regulations require you to flow the labor standards clauses into every subcontract, and each subcontractor must do the same in any lower-tier agreements.⁹

If a subcontractor underpays its workers, you can be on the hook for the back wages. If you fail to include the required clauses in the subcontract at all, you may owe the subcontractor’s employees the difference between what they received and what the prevailing wage required.¹¹ Plan for a review process that catches classification, rate, and hours problems on subcontractor payrolls before you forward them to the agency, whether those payrolls come out of ADP or another system.

Why the Manual Verification Steps Matter

The reason to double-check every ADP-generated report before signing is that the penalties for a wrong one are not administrative. A contracting agency can withhold progress payments from any of your federal contracts, not just the one where the violation occurred, until unpaid wages, monetary relief, and interest are covered.¹² The standard remedy for underpayment is a back-wage order, either supervised by the Department of Labor or pursued by the Secretary in court.¹³

Falsifying a certified payroll is a Copeland Act offense: fines, up to five years in prison, or both.¹⁴ A contractor found to have disregarded its obligations to workers can be barred from federal or federally assisted contracts for three years.¹⁵ The Statement of Compliance you sign at the bottom of the report is a sworn declaration; the signer certifies under penalty of law that every figure is accurate.

Recordkeeping After the Report Is Filed

Payroll records for all laborers and mechanics must be kept during the work and preserved for three years after all work on the prime contract is completed. The clock runs from completion of the entire prime contract, not from when a subcontractor finishes its piece. Records must include names, addresses, social security numbers, classifications, hourly rates (including fringe contributions), daily and weekly hours, deductions, actual wages paid, and information on any fringe benefit plans, with proof the plan was communicated to workers in writing.¹⁶

ADP’s archiving stores digital copies of completed reports, but verify independently that your retention meets the three-year requirement and that the records remain accessible for federal inspection. If you switch payroll providers before that period is up, export and securely store all certified payroll data before closing the account. The Department of Labor and contracting agencies can request the records at any time, and failure to produce them can trigger payment withholding on active contracts.¹²

1
ADP. Construction Payroll and HR Software
2
SAM.gov. Wage Determinations
3
U.S. Department of Labor. Davis-Bacon and Related Acts Frequently Asked Questions
4
Acquisition.GOV. FAR 52.222-8 Payrolls and Basic Records
5
U.S. Department of Labor. Instructions for Completing Certified Payroll Form WH-347
6
Acquisition.GOV. FAR 22.406-2 Wages, Fringe Benefits, and Overtime
7
eCFR. 29 CFR Part 5 Subpart B – Interpretation of Fringe Benefits Provisions
8
U.S. Department of Labor. Hours and Safety Standards in Construction Contracts
9
eCFR. 29 CFR 5.5 – Contract Provisions and Related Matters
10
U.S. Department of Labor. Frequently Asked Questions – Protections for Workers in Construction
11
U.S. Department of Labor. Fact Sheet 66C – Davis-Bacon Labor Standards Clauses and Subcontract Agreements
12
U.S. Department of Labor. Davis-Bacon Contracts – Investigative Procedures and Remedies
13
U.S. Department of Labor. Back Pay
14
U.S. Department of Labor. Davis-Bacon and Related Acts Coverage
15
eCFR. 29 CFR 5.12 – Debarment Proceedings
16
U.S. Department of Labor. Prevailing Wages in Construction Contracts