WH-347 Old vs. New: Side-by-Side Comparison

The most useful thing you can do with it is not read it but test against it. Take last week's payroll as your system exports it, put the current form beside it, and go field by field. Every place where the form asks for something your export does not contain is a field somebody is typing by hand every week — and manual transcription is where audit problems originate, because it is the step with no record of what was intended.

The current form's header asks for project name, project or contract number, certified payroll number, business name, project location, wage determination number, week ending date, and business address, with checkboxes for final submission and for whether you are prime or subcontractor. The wage determination number is the field most commonly reported as newly required, and it is the one most often left blank — partly because it lives in the contract rather than in any payroll system.

Entry number, last name, first name, middle initial, and an identifying number in column (1E), headed "WORKER IDENTIFYING NO." rather than Social Security number. Then column (2), which asks you to mark each worker as (J) journeyworker or (RA) registered apprentice — the classification distinction that the current form makes explicit and that page 2 then asks you to substantiate. Column (3) is the labour classification, which should come from the wage determination rather than from internal job titles.

Column (4) is the seven-day grid, split into a straight-time row and an overtime row for each worker, with space above to record the days and dates. Column (5) is total hours for the week. Column (6A) takes the hourly wage rate for straight and overtime stacked in one cell. Then (6B) total fringe benefit credit and (6C) payment in lieu of fringe benefits — the separation of credit from cash in lieu being one of the changes most consistently reported.

Gross amount earned on this project (7A) and gross amount earned for all work (7B) sit side by side, so the form makes explicit that the first is part of the second. Column (8) breaks deductions into tax withholdings, FICA, other — printed "MUST SPECIFY" — and a total. Column (9) is net pay for all work. Gross and net both being required is another of the commonly cited changes, and it is worth checking your export produces both rather than one.

This is where the current form departs most from what many systems produce. It carries six separate certifications with checkboxes rather than a single block of attesting text. It has an apprenticeship table with three rows, each asking for the programme name, a tick for OA or SAA registration, and the labour classification. And it has the hourly credit table: eight worker rows across six plan columns, where each column is defined once by FB NAME, FB TYPE, PLAN NO. and a funded/unfunded tick, and each worker row carries the hourly credit claimed under that plan. A total hourly credit column closes each row. The signature block asks for telephone and email as well as a date.

Run down that page 2 description against your system and the gaps usually appear in the same places. Plan numbers and plan types are rarely in a payroll export. The funded versus unfunded distinction is rarely a field at all. Apprentice registration and registering body are usually in a training coordinator's records rather than in payroll. If those three are missing from your export, that is the manual transcription happening every week, and it is the thing worth fixing regardless of any deadline.

Both page 1 and page 2's credit table hold eight workers. That means a crew of fourteen needs two complete sheets — two page 1s and two page 2s, signed on each — rather than continuation pages sharing one signature page. It is a small thing that causes real confusion the first time a larger crew is filed, and it is better discovered while reading about it than at the point of submission.