The operator’s rate changes with the iron, the morning’s pay call changes with the sky, and half the fleet earns by the load. WageTime runs dirt-work payroll for excavation, grading, and site work crews, whatever week the weather leaves you.
Dirt-work payroll is its own trade. Pay follows equipment groups on a wage determination, rain and frost rewrite the week by Wednesday, and the office closes the month with load tickets, foreman cards, and a comp policy priced off every one of those dollars.
On a public job the wage determination doesn’t care who’s in the seat; it pays the machine’s group. The same operator earns one rate in the excavator and another on the grader, some states split the groups by operating weight, and every hour keyed to the wrong group is a wage error someone certifies with a signature.
The crew shows up, the site is soup, and the call is made at the tailgate. Depending on the state and the agreement, sending them home may still owe them hours, and paying a flat show-up amount by hand every wet morning is how spreadsheets grow a weather tab.
Frost laws end the season and the roster goes with it: layoff paperwork for the crew, unemployment questions, then a spring scramble to rehire the same people as if they’d never worked for you. Meanwhile the payroll bill from a per-seat provider stays full-size through months nobody dug.
The dump side earns per load or per yard while the ground crew earns by the hour, and the guy who owns his own truck isn’t on payroll at all until someone has to explain his 1099 in an audit. Three pay math systems, one Friday.
The foreman’s time card carries crew hours, machine hours, and quantities moved. Payroll takes only the first, after an export and a re-key, so the labor that reaches the check is a copy of a copy and the cost report trails the job by a week.
Every open trench needs a competent person and every crew member needs current excavation-safety training, but the proof lives in a binder behind the seat and a stack of wallet cards. When the inspector or the GC asks who’s trained, the answer is a phone call, not a record.
WageTime pays each operator at the classification the work actually ran: a week split between the excavator and the grader comes out at two correct rates, with overtime on the weighted-average regular rate across both.
Replaces the rate sheet taped to the dashboard, and the certified report rebuilt from it on Sunday night.
WageTime prices payroll at $50 a month per company plus $10 per person paid that month, so the December shutdown shrinks the bill to the people who actually got a check, and runs stay unlimited.
| Worker | Last day | Spring status |
|---|---|---|
| Cole D.Excavator operator | Dec 12 | Rehire ready |
| Marta V.Grade foreman | Dec 12 | Rehire ready |
| Ray T.Tandem driver | Dec 5 | Rehire ready |
| Gus P.Laborer, pipe crew | Dec 12 | Declined recall |
| Dana W.Mechanic | Year-round | Active |
Replaces the weather tab on the payroll spreadsheet, and the full-size payroll invoice in a month nobody dug.
The truck side earns per load or per yard, and WageTime pays it that way: per-unit pay codes turn a tandem driver’s Friday check into loads times rate, without a side ledger.
Replaces the load-ticket shoebox, and the January hunt through the checkbook for what the haulers were paid.
Straight from the field: the crew punches on their phones, each punch GPS-stamped and geofenced to the site, and the hours arrive in WageTime already coded to the phase they moved dirt on.
| Phase | Hours | Labor cost |
|---|---|---|
| Cut & fill · 4 crewCost code 214-CUT | 128.0 | $4,822.40 |
| Utility trench · 3 crewCost code 214-UTIL | 84.5 | $3,269.75 |
| Final grade · 2 crewCost code 214-GRADE | 31.0 | $1,286.50 |
| Shop & service · 1 crewCost code SHOP | 12.0 | $438.00 |
Replaces the Friday export from the time-card system, the re-key after it, and the cost report that trails the job by a week.
The safety paperwork lives where payroll already lives: on the WageTime employee record. Training is assigned and tracked with completion records, and expiring credentials carry date-driven alerts, so who’s current is a report, not a glovebox search.
| Worker | Expires | Status |
|---|---|---|
| Marta V.Excavation competent person | Feb 2028 | Completed |
| Cole D.Trench safety awareness | n/a | Completed |
| Ray T.CDL Class A | Sep 2027 | Current |
| Benny K.CDL Class B | Sep 2026 | Renew in 54d |
| Gus P.Trench safety awareness | due this week | Assigned |
Replaces the binder behind the seat, and the wallet card nobody can find while the trench sits open.
Full-service payroll is $10 a month per person paid that month, plus $50 a month per company, with unlimited runs. No long-term contracts, no per-run charges.
Off-cycle runs and bonuses cost nothing extra. No long-term contracts; cancel anytime.
Example: 50 people paid × $10 + $50 company = $550 for the month
HR & hiring, onboarding, PTO, time tracking, benefits, and workers’ comp are optional add-ons, priced separately when you’re ready.
See a demoYes. Prevailing-wage rules apply per classification, project- and location-specific, so each seat pays its group’s rate, and overtime on a split week computes on the weighted-average regular rate automatically. Prevailing wage and certified payroll run as a construction add-on, scoped and priced on the demo; the WH-347 generates from the run itself.
That depends on your state and your agreements, and the call stays with you and your counsel: several states have reporting-time rules and many CBAs set show-up hours. WageTime makes whatever you owe executable: show-up and standby amounts run as flat-amount pay codes, applied in minutes and itemized on the stub.
The bill follows the roster down. WageTime charges $50 a month per company plus $10 per person paid that month, so a January with six people paid costs a fraction of a June with forty. The shutdown itself runs through a bulk termination wizard, and spring rehires come back with records and rates already on file.
Per-load and per-yard amounts run as per-unit pay codes, and a week that mixes loads with hourly pit work gets weighted-average overtime automatically. Owner-operators you treat as contractors run as 1099s on the same payroll as W-2 drivers, with both year-end forms included. The classification call itself stays yours.
Yes, as a union payroll add-on scoped and priced on the demo. It carries multiple locals and classifications with dues checkoff, fringe calculations, and fund contribution handling inside the payroll workflow, so hour-based remittances to the pension and benefit funds come off the hours already run instead of a month-end rebuild.
We import clock hours so there’s no double entry. Tell us your system on the demo and we’ll confirm the exact flow for your setup, including how hours land on your phase codes. If the field runs on paper today, skip the export era entirely: punches go straight from the crew’s phones to the run, geofenced per site.
One week of foreman cards or time-card exports, your load rates, your wage determination if you dig public work, and the roster you shut down with last winter. Twenty minutes with a payroll specialist on a live demo company: you’ll see operator classifications, a show-up pay code, per-load driver pay, and the invoice a small January actually produces.
Book a 20-minute demo