Correcting a certified payroll you already submitted

You filed payroll 6 three weeks ago. The prime's compliance reviewer just noticed that a worker's overtime rate was computed on the fringe-inclusive wage, or you noticed that a worker was listed as a laborer for a day spent on the excavator. The payroll is wrong and it has your signature on it.

The regulation does not describe a correction procedure. Agencies and primes have converged on one, and following it keeps a mistake from becoming a finding.

Fix the pay first

If the error means a worker was underpaid, pay the difference before you file anything. A corrected payroll that shows the right rate and the wrong gross is still wrong. Cut a supplemental check or add the shortfall to the next regular check, identified as a Davis-Bacon adjustment for the week in question, and keep the check stub or pay record.

If the error is only on paper, the numbers on the form do not match what the worker was actually paid, and the pay was right, no money moves.

File a revised payroll

Prepare a new WH-347 for the same week with the same payroll number. Mark it clearly as a revision: "REVISED" or "AMENDED" in the header next to the payroll number, and a note in the remarks on page 2 explaining what changed and why. For example: "Revised payroll 6. Entry 3 reclassified from Laborer Group 1 to Power Equipment Operator Group 2 for 8 hours on 9/2. Underpayment of $106.40 in wages and $44.40 in fringe paid on 9/19 check no. 4471."

Do not give the revision a new payroll number. The sequence of numbers tracks weeks, and a payroll 6 and a payroll 6-R for the same week is what reviewers expect. A payroll 12 that turns out to be a correction of payroll 6 breaks the sequence and hides the correction.

Sign a new Statement of Compliance. The old one certified the wrong figures; the new one certifies the right ones.

Show the restitution

Where wages were short, most agencies want to see the restitution on the revised payroll. The common way is to report the corrected hours, rates, and gross for the week as they should have been, and use the remarks to state the amount of the shortfall, the date it was paid, and how. Some agencies prefer a separate "restitution payroll" listing only the affected workers and the amounts paid. Ask the prime which the agency wants; both are accepted, and doing it their way avoids a second round.

Keep evidence that the worker received the money: the check copy, the direct deposit record, or a signed receipt. In an investigation, back wages are not considered paid until the Department can see they reached the worker.

When the correction cuts the other way

If the original payroll overstated hours or rates and the worker was overpaid, you probably cannot recover the overpayment by deducting it from later prevailing wage pay without approval. Deductions from Davis-Bacon wages are limited to those the Copeland Act regulations permit, and the list in 29 CFR 3.5 does not name an employer's own error. Whether an accidental overpayment counts as a bona fide prepayment of wages under 3.5(b) is not settled in the Department's guidance. The safe course is to correct the record, note the overpayment in the remarks, and then either treat the money as paid, recover it from pay that is not Davis-Bacon wages (a later week on a private job, for example, subject to state wage law), or get written Wage and Hour Division approval under 29 CFR 3.6 before deducting it.

Portal submissions

If the prime or agency uses an electronic system, the correction is usually a resubmission of the same week: the system keeps the original, marks it superseded, and stores the revision with a new signature and timestamp. Follow the system's flow rather than emailing a PDF alongside it. In California's eCPR, corrections are filed as amendments to the same payroll and the system assigns the amendment number.

Corrections that reach earlier weeks

A misclassification is rarely a one-week event. If a worker was carried in the wrong classification, check every week they appear. File a revised payroll for each affected week, pay the accumulated difference, and state the total in the remarks of the most recent revision so the reviewer sees the whole picture in one place.

When the prime or agency finds it first

A rejection notice is the ordinary case. Respond with the revised payroll and the restitution evidence within the time the notice gives; on HUD-assisted work, HUD's guide allows 30 days to correct an underpayment and says a submitted payroll is never handed back for revision, so the fix is always a correction payroll. Withholding from the prime's progress payment under the contract's withholding clause is the agency's remedy when corrections do not come, and the prime's remedy is to hold your payment until the agency releases it.

If the Wage and Hour Division finds the error in an investigation, the Division computes the back wages, you pay them, and the Division supervises the distribution to the workers. Your revised payrolls become part of that record.

What to keep

Keep the original payroll, the revised payroll, the rejection or correspondence that prompted the change, and the proof of restitution, together, for the standard 3 years after the prime contract is complete. A file that shows a mistake, its correction, and the worker made whole is a file an investigator closes quickly. Retention rules.

Reducing the number of corrections

Most revisions trace to 4 errors: overtime computed on the wrong base, fringe left off overtime hours, a worker in one classification all week when the logs show 2, and arithmetic between hours, rates, and gross. Each is checkable before signing, in a minute per worker, against the timecards and the wage determination. What to check before you sign.