A framing contract pays in draws, one house-sized number split by milestones, while the crew that stood the walls is owed a check every Friday. WageTime turns the house into weekly paychecks: hours on the record, overtime on what the piece paid.
The money arrives shaped like a house and has to leave shaped like a workweek. In between stands a crew where the layout lead, the wall crew, and the helpers are each paid a different way, and a law that only counts hours.
Framers price the job the old way: take what you bid the house for, subtract your cut, divide the rest by the footage. The draw lands at dry-in. In between sit three or four Fridays on which real employees, with real hours, are owed real paychecks, whatever the builder has funded so far.
The habit is old: the lead takes the piece money and squares up the helpers out of pocket. The Labor Department reads it differently. One Idaho framing contractor paid $293,698 in back wages for straight-time overtime and unpaid shop-to-site travel; a New Jersey carpentry contractor paid $360,000 after investigators found cash payments and records that didn’t match the crew.
A union carpenter hour under the Chicago-area commercial allocation effective June 2025 is $56.71 in wages and $45.10 in fringes, a $101.81 package: health, pension, supplemental retirement, vacation, apprenticeship, and more, each fund with its own rate and its own remittance, plus working dues checked off at 4% of gross. Multiply by a crew and a month, and the spreadsheet becomes its own trade.
Rough framing of dwellings is one workers’ comp classification; cabinets, interior trim, and finished stairs are another. Florida prices the residential framing code at $7.69 per $100 of payroll for 2025. When a shop frames and trims the same houses and the hours land in one bucket, the audit prices your trim carpenters like they hang joists.
On a HUD-financed job, prevailing wage follows what each worker actually did, hour by hour. A helper who spent Wednesday nailing walls is a carpenter on Wednesday’s line. One framing sub on three Washington apartment projects learned that inside a $500,851 recovery for workers classified below the work they performed.
The house settles at dry-in; the crew settles every Friday. WageTime’s per-unit pay codes split the piece, per square foot, per house, per role, onto real paychecks, with runs unlimited at a flat monthly price.
Replaces the notebook that divides the house money by memory, and the Friday it doesn’t stretch.
The whole crew goes on payroll with hours that can survive an investigator: punches from their phones, GPS-stamped inside the lot’s geofence, attested timesheets, and a week that locks after approval.
| Worker | Shop-to-site | Status |
|---|---|---|
| Rafael G.10 punches · in geofence | 2.5 hrs | Attested |
| Marcus D.10 punches · in geofence | 2.5 hrs | Attested |
| Tomás R.9 punches · 1 edited, logged | 0.0 | Attested |
| Deacon W.10 punches · in geofence | 2.5 hrs | Awaiting |
Replaces the envelope, the memory arithmetic behind it, and the records that fall apart when someone official asks.
WageTime’s union payroll add-on, scoped and priced on the demo, carries the whole package inside the run: locals, classifications, dues checkoff as its percent of gross, and every fund’s per-hour contribution from the same hours that drove the paychecks.
| Fund | Hours | Amount |
|---|---|---|
| Health & Welfare$13.64 per hour | 480 | $6,547.20 |
| Pension$16.91 per hour | 480 | $8,116.80 |
| Supplemental Retirement$10.35 per hour | 480 | $4,968.00 |
| Vacation Fund$2.61 per hour | 480 | $1,252.80 |
| Apprenticeship + council funds$1.59 per hour | 480 | $763.20 |
| Working dues checkoffPercent of gross, not per hour | $1,088.83 |
Replaces the remittance spreadsheet, and the month-end evening it eats.
Every hour lands in WageTime on a job and a cost code, rough framing on one, trim on another, so the comp audit finds the split already made instead of one lump priced at the framing rate.
| Cost code | Hours | Labor |
|---|---|---|
| FRM-ROUGH · House 212Walls, deck, roof frame | 212.0 | $6,466.00 |
| FRM-ROUGH · House 214Layout through dry-in | 186.0 | $5,673.00 |
| TRM-FINISH · House 208Interior trim, stairs | 64.0 | $2,048.00 |
| TRM-FINISH · House 206Cabinets, casing | 41.5 | $1,328.00 |
Replaces the one-bucket payroll report, and the comp audit that prices trim hours like joist work.
HUD-financed apartment projects carry wage determinations, weekly certified payroll, and classification by work performed. WageTime builds the WH-347 from the run that paid the crew; certified payroll is an add-on we scope and price on the demo.
| Worker | Hours | Gross |
|---|---|---|
| Rafael G. · Carpenter$36.45 + $11.30 fringe | 40.0 | $1,910.00 |
| Marcus D. · Carpenter$36.45 + $11.30 fringe | 40.0 | $1,910.00 |
| Tomás R. · split weekCarp Wed-Fri · Labor Mon-Tue | 40.0 | $1,710.00 |
| Deacon W. · Laborer, Group 2$27.10 + $8.15 fringe | 40.0 | $1,410.00 |
Replaces the Sunday spent rebuilding the week by classification for a federal form.
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. Piece pay doesn’t waive the workweek: overtime is owed on a regular rate the week itself defines, piece earnings divided by hours worked. WageTime runs per-square-foot and per-house pay codes, figures the overtime premium on that weighted-average rate automatically, and checks thin weeks against the federal, state, and local wage floors before anything pays out.
Because the helpers are usually employees in the law’s eyes, and cash splits leave no defensible record: framing and carpentry contractors have paid $293,698 and $360,000 in recent Labor Department actions over straight-time overtime, unpaid travel time, and records that didn’t match the crew. WageTime puts every hand on payroll, the split as pay codes, the hours attested.
Union payroll runs as an add-on, scoped and priced on the demo: multiple unions, locals, and classifications, dues checkoff as a percent of gross, and per-hour fund contributions computed from the run and totaled per fund for remittance. Bring your council’s allocation sheet to the demo and we’ll walk through your actual funds.
Because rough framing and finish carpentry sit in different workers’ comp classifications, and the rate difference is real money at audit time. WageTime codes hours to rough and finish cost codes as the crew works, so the payroll-by-class report your comp auditor asks for already exists instead of being reconstructed from one lump.
Often, yes: HUD-assisted residential projects can carry Davis-Bacon wage determinations, weekly WH-347 filings, and classification by work performed. WageTime’s certified payroll add-on generates the WH-347 from the run with job-costing segments; bring the wage determination to the demo and we’ll scope it against your crew.
$50 per month per company plus $10 per person paid that month, with unlimited runs: weekly checks, a final check the day someone walks, and job-close bonuses at no extra cost. Union payroll and certified payroll are add-ons, scoped and priced on the demo. Switching is full-service and paid; we’ll scope the cutover with you.
The bid, the split, last week’s hours, and the crew list; if you’re union, the allocation sheet; if the job is HUD money, the wage determination. Twenty minutes with a payroll specialist on a live demo company: the house becomes paychecks, the hours land on codes, and the invoice math is on the screen.
Book a 20-minute demo