Texas Department of Transportation Requires Electronic Certified Payrolls (E-Payrolls)

The Texas Department of Transportation, like many other state agencies, is requiring electronic submission of certified payroll reports, through its Electronic Project Records System (EPRS).

TxDOT EPRS provides contractors with multiple functions which they can utilize; however, one of the primary functions of the EPRS is that of collecting Electronic Certified Payrolls (E-Payrolls), instead of requiring contractors to submit paper certified payroll report forms for review.

E-Payrolls may be uploaded into the EPRS from a contractor’s computer IF they have the proper information, in a specific data order, and it is a .CSV file format – otherwise the contractor will have to take his printed paper certified payroll report and manually input it in the EPRS System.

Some software companies are updating their payroll systems to provide their construction clients with the ability to create electronic output files, such as the .CSV file required by TxDOT, in addition to printing a standard paper report for the contractor to keep in his job file.  However, the problem for the software companies is that there is no standard output file that is used consistently and each state or agency wants the electronic file to not only contain ALL of the information that is required on their “paper form” but include additional information as well.

For example:

• Texas Department of Transportation requires a .CSV file
• Elation Systems, Inc. requires an XML file
• TRS Consultants, Inc. requires an XML file
• LCPtracker requires an .XLS file
• Sandia National Laboratory requires an XML file
• Alaska Department of Labor & Workforce Development requires a .TXT file
• Wisconsin Department of Transportation requires an XML file
• Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development requires an .XLS file

Some computer savvy contractors create a “master” certified payroll reporting form (based on the requirements of the State agency that they must submit them to) in Excel, manually input the payroll data each week and attempt to “save” it in any of the above mentioned file formats listed above – only to discover that the file is rejected and they have to log and manually type the information into the Labor Compliance System.

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Certified Payroll Solution, a QuickBooks integrated application, will read your QuickBooks payroll data and generate paper forms and/or all of the required electronic upload formats noted above – included the format required by the Texas Department of Transportation .CSV format (this functionality will be released via a program update on 7/30/2010 and has been thoroughly tested by TxDOT).

Request a FREE 30-day trial to see for yourself.