12Jul 2010 by Nancy Smyth

Calculating & Displaying Fringe Benefits on a Certified Payroll Report

Certified Payroll/Prevailing Wage, QuickBooks 2010 - What's New?, The "Sunburst" Website
One of the biggest causes of confusion for contractors working on government funded construction projects is “how to calculate and display fringe benefits” on a certified payroll report. In recent months, I have repeatedly seen posts from QuickBooks users on the Intuit Community Forums asking how the fringe benefit rate is calculated and then displayed on the Certified Payroll Report in Excel, which is now a standard function of QuickBooks Premier and Enterprise when used in conjunction with Enhanced Payroll, and I really haven’t seen any good responses.  Hence today’s blog post. Background: Contractors who work on government funded construction  projects are required to pay their employees a “prevailing” rate of pay; based on where the project is located and the type of work they are performing.  This “prevailing rate…
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25May 2010 by Nancy Smyth

QuickBooks Tips Payroll Mistakes – It’s Not As Easy As 1-2-3 – Part 2

Payroll Tips
Payroll is an essential part of your business – not just a weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly annoyance.  Payroll is the primary way that employees are rewarded for good job performance and retained.  If you are issuing late or incorrect paychecks it can lead to dissatisfied, unmotivated workers – or worse.  It’s hard to keep good employees when a company gets payroll wrong. The relationship between employees and employers is highly regulated by the government and many of these regulations involve payroll.  There are literally hundreds of things that you have to know, as well as hundreds of mistakes that you can make.  As a result, the payroll process is much more complicated than anyone who has never done it can possibly know. The consequences of some mistakes can be more…
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24May 2010 by Nancy Smyth

QuickBooks Tips Payroll Mistakes – It’s Not As Easy As 1-2-3! Part 1

Payroll Tips
Payroll is an essential part of your business – not just a weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly annoyance.  Payroll is the primary way that employees are rewarded for good job performance and retained.  If you are issuing late or incorrect paychecks it can lead to dissatisfied, unmotivated workers – or worse.  It’s hard to keep good employees when a company gets payroll wrong. The relationship between employees and employers is highly regulated by the government and many of these regulations involve payroll.  There are literally hundreds of things that you have to know, as well as hundreds of mistakes that you can make.  As a result, the payroll process is much more complicated than anyone who has never done it can possibly know. The consequences of some mistakes can be more…
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09Apr 2010 by Nancy Smyth

Top 10 Overtime Questions – Part II

Payroll Tips, QuickBooks Add-Ons, The "Sunburst" Website
Paying overtime may be expensive, but not paying it properly can create even more liability for your organization. In our previous post, we focused on five overtime questions (numbered one through five), including what the basic overtime requirements are, whether overtime must be paid for weekend work, and how overtime is calculated. In this post, we address five more common overtime situations, numbered as questions six through ten. You will find out when overtime has to be paid in holiday or vacation weeks, whether compensatory time off can be given instead of overtime, when unauthorized overtime should be paid, and what the penalties are for noncompliance. 6.  Are employees entitled to overtime in weeks they receive holiday pay or take vacation? Not unless the employee actually works more than 40…
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08Apr 2010 by Nancy Smyth

Top Ten Overtime Questions – Part 1 of 2

Payroll Tips, QuickBooks Add-Ons, The "Sunburst" Website
The requirement to pay employees overtime seems simple enough; once a nonexempt employee has worked 40 hours in a single workweek, each additional hour worked MUST be paid at time and one-half the regular rate of pay.  Yet, many employers are confused about the mechanics of implementing the law, such as how overtime pay is calculated when a nonexempt employee is paid a salary or works two jobs. This confusion can be expensive.  The Department of Labor (DOL) recently issued enforcement data for Fiscal Year 2008 (FY 2008) which showed that the agency collected over $123 million in back wages for overtime violations under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA).  The violations covered over 10,000 wage claims involving almost 183,000 employees and represented 88% of the claims filed with the…
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25Aug 2009 by Nancy Smyth

QuickBooks Time Card Entry and Overtime Calculations – Beyond the Basics

Payroll Tips, The "Sunburst" Website
Entering employee time cards in QuickBooks is the foundation for job-costing payroll in QuickBooks and issuing your employees paychecks – or at least it should be – especially if your employees work on multiple jobs or are paid a different rate of pay for different tasks that they perform. Knowing how many man hours it took to actually complete a job or project is just as important as knowing the cost of having those employees on the jobsite. Many business owners say that they “have all that information in their heads”, but I’ve found that actually having this information available in reports that you generate within QuickBooks helps you to analyze not only the profit of that specific job, but the overall profitability of your company and helps you to…
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19Jun 2009 by Nancy Smyth

What happens when a contractor fails to pay prevailing wages and submit certified payroll reports?

Certified Payroll/Prevailing Wage, Construction News
When a contractor works on Federal and/or state funded construction projects and fails to pay the appropriate "prevailing wages" or  overtime to their employees and/or fails to submit the required "certified payroll reports" to the appropriate agencies ---- well it's pretty serious business. The following article from SouthCoastTODAY.com will give you a little insight into just how serious it can be. New Bedford drywall firm settles wage problem By Staff Report June 17, 2009 BOSTON — Attorney General Martha Coakley's Office has reached a settlement with a New Bedford drywall company resolving allegations that the company failed to pay employees the prevailing wage rate, the correct overtime rate and failed to keep proper payroll records for work performed at four Massachusetts public works job sites. Garcia Drywall Inc. and its…
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