On a Davis-Bacon job, a payroll clerk types a rate one line at a time and a compliance officer checks it against the wage determination. Prevail does that check first — every rate, every overtime hour, every apprentice ratio — and prints a WH-347 that gets accepted instead of returned.
No card. The demo is a drywall subcontractor mid-contract, with two live jobs and a week that does not quite add up.
Almost nobody underpays on purpose. They credit a health plan at the family rate instead of the employee’s, or take time-and-a-half off the base without the cash fringe, or put a fourth apprentice on a three-journeyworker crew. Then the payroll is returned, the progress payment waits, and someone spends a Friday reconstructing six weeks.
Certified payroll is required for every week worked, within seven days of the pay date — 29 CFR 5.5(a)(3)(ii), under the Copeland Act. There is no future deadline to prepare for; it is already the job.
A prime contractor or agency officer has to accept it. Until they do, the invoice sits. Most of what they return is fixable in ninety seconds — if you find it first.
An underpayment repeated for eleven weeks is eleven weeks of restitution, plus interest, plus the argument about whether it was willful.
Prevail is not a payroll processor and does not want your bank details. It takes the hours and rates you already have and turns them into a defensible weekly filing.
Enter the classifications from the schedule attached to your contract — base rate, fringe rate, apprentice ratio. Every payroll on that job is measured against it.
Hours per day, rates, deductions. Hours past 40 move to overtime on their own; the gross recomputes as you type; last week’s crew carries over.
Critical findings block certification. Once it is clean, print the WH-347 and give the reviewer a link they can act on without creating an account.
Every rule carries the citation it comes from, so the finding is something you can hand to a compliance officer rather than argue about.
Cash base plus cash fringe plus bona fide plan credits, against base plus fringe on the WD — with the shortfall priced as restitution across the hours worked.
Time and a half on the higher of the rate paid or the WD base, and a separate warning when cash paid in lieu of fringes has been left out of the regular rate.
A plan marked not bona fide under 29 CFR 5.28-5.31 is excluded from the credit and the shortfall it causes is shown.
Ratio tested per day rather than averaged over the week, step percentage against the journeyworker base, and full fringe still owed. Unregistered means full rate.
Daily hours against weekly totals, hours × rates against gross, gross less deductions against net, undescribed “other” deductions, missing addresses.
The government form with the Statement of Compliance and the right 4(a)/(b)/(c) box ticked, plus a CSV for agencies that want an upload.
Priced against one returned payroll, not against a payroll processor. Everything already filed stays open to you and your reviewers even if you stop paying — those are records you are required to keep for three years.
Up to 3 active jobs, 3 people.
Everything in Crew, plus:
14-day trial with every feature. No card up front.
Subcontractors and small primes on federally funded work — drywall, electrical, mechanical, paving, painting, landscaping. Typically 5 to 150 people on the tools, a bookkeeper who does certified payroll on Fridays, and a prime who returns it on Monday.
It is not a payroll processor: no tax filing, no direct deposit, no bank connection. It takes what your payroll already produced and makes it survive review.