QuickBooks and Certified Payroll: What QB Does and Doesn't Handle
— WH347.io Team
Millions of contractors run payroll through QuickBooks — but QuickBooks wasn't built for Davis-Bacon compliance. Here's what QuickBooks handles natively, where it falls short, and how to get from a QuickBooks paystub to a signed, submission-ready WH-347.
QuickBooks is the most widely used accounting and payroll platform in the United States, and a large share of federal contractors are already running their weekly payroll through it. The natural assumption is that if the payroll data lives in QuickBooks, generating a certified payroll report should be straightforward. Unfortunately, QuickBooks wasn't designed for Davis-Bacon compliance — and the gap between a QuickBooks paystub and a submission-ready WH-347 is real.
What QuickBooks Handles Well
QuickBooks Payroll does a solid job of the core payroll functions: calculating wages, withholding federal and state taxes, paying workers, generating paystubs, and producing the standard payroll reports that a CPA or tax preparer needs. For a general contractor who doesn't do federal work, QuickBooks is often all you need.
- Wage and salary calculations, including overtime.
- Federal and state tax withholding and payroll tax deposits.
- Paystub generation and direct deposit.
- W-2 preparation and filing.
- Standard payroll reports (payroll summary, employee earnings, tax liability).
Where QuickBooks Falls Short for Certified Payroll
QuickBooks is not a certified payroll tool. It has no awareness of the Davis-Bacon Act, prevailing wage classifications, wage determinations, or the WH-347 form. The specific gaps that matter most for certified payroll:
- No prevailing wage classification tracking — QuickBooks tracks job codes and pay rates, but it doesn't know anything about the DOL wage determination classifications (Carpenter, Laborer, Operating Engineer, etc.) that must appear on the WH-347.
- No WH-347 output — there is no native QuickBooks report that generates a WH-347 PDF, an eCPR XML, or an AASHTOWare PRL XML.
- No fringe benefit crediting — QuickBooks records benefit plan contributions, but it doesn't calculate whether those contributions satisfy the prevailing wage fringe requirement for each classification.
- No Statement of Compliance — the legal certification that transforms a payroll summary into a certified payroll document doesn't exist in QuickBooks.
- No project-level certified payroll tracking — QuickBooks can track job costs by project, but it doesn't support weekly certified payroll submissions for multiple projects simultaneously.
None of this is a criticism of QuickBooks — these features aren't part of its purpose. But it means that contractors using QB for payroll have historically needed to either re-enter all the data into a certified payroll form by hand, or use a tool that can work from the paystub data QuickBooks already produced.
How WH347.io Bridges the Gap: Paystub Import
WH347.io's paystub import feature is the bridge between QuickBooks and a completed WH-347. After running payroll in QuickBooks, download the paystub PDF for each worker — QuickBooks Online generates these automatically and they are easy to export. Upload the PDF to WH347.io, and the platform uses OCR to extract the hours, wages, and deduction data directly from the paystub.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can QuickBooks generate a WH-347 certified payroll report?
No. QuickBooks does not have a native WH-347 report, prevailing wage classification tracking, or Statement of Compliance generation. It handles payroll calculations and paystubs, but the certified payroll compliance layer requires a separate tool like WH347.io.
How do I get certified payroll data from QuickBooks into WH347.io?
Download the paystub PDF for each worker from QuickBooks after running payroll, then upload it to WH347.io using the paystub import feature. WH347.io uses OCR to extract hours, wages, and deductions from the PDF, pre-filling the timecard for your review. You assign the prevailing wage classification, review the data, and WH347.io generates the WH-347.
Does paystub import work with QuickBooks Desktop?
Yes. Both QuickBooks Desktop and QuickBooks Online generate paystub PDFs, and WH347.io's paystub import handles both. Desktop users print paystubs to PDF from the payroll reports menu; Online users download them from the employee paycheck detail view.
What data does WH347.io extract from a QuickBooks paystub?
The import extracts straight-time and overtime hours, hourly rate, gross pay, federal and state tax withholding, FICA deductions, and any other deductions shown on the paystub with their labels. Fields that cannot be read confidently are left blank for manual entry.
Is paystub import available on all WH347.io plans?
Paystub import is a Pro plan feature, available on all active Pro subscriptions with no per-import limit.
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