Contractor Payroll Tracking Software
Track what you owe your crew — by project, by employee, by week — and hand off clean summaries to your accountant.
Start free — no credit cardThe problem
Contractor payroll is harder than regular payroll. Your crew works different hours on different job sites, at different pay rates, sometimes with overtime on one project and not another. Spreadsheets can't keep up, and generic payroll software doesn't know what a job site is. Punch Ledger tracks labor by project from the day you schedule it, so your payroll numbers always match your job costs.
What you get
- Per-employee pay rates with per-project or per-day overrides
- Hours logged through the crew scheduling board — no separate timesheet entry
- Weekly and monthly payroll summaries broken out by employee and project
- Regular and overtime hours tracked separately
- Export CSV for Gusto, ADP, or any payroll service
- Labor costs flow directly into project P&L — no manual allocation
How it works
Add your employees and set their pay rates
Go to Settings → Employees. Add each crew member, their role, and their default hourly or daily rate. Takes about two minutes per employee.
Schedule crew hours on the Plan Work board
Each day, assign employees to projects and log their hours. Override the pay rate for any specific day or job if needed.
Review the Payroll report
The Payroll report totals regular and overtime hours per employee, calculates gross pay, and breaks it out by project. You can filter by any date range.
Export and hand off
Export the payroll summary to CSV for your payroll service or accountant. The export includes hours, rates, gross pay, and project allocation.
Common questions
Does Punch Ledger file payroll taxes?
No. Punch Ledger calculates gross pay and tracks labor costs per project. It does not file payroll taxes or issue W-2s. Most contractors export the payroll report and hand it to a payroll service like Gusto or ADP, or to their accountant.
Can I track different pay rates for different projects?
Yes. Each employee has a default pay rate, and you can override the rate per project or per day. Useful for prevailing wage jobs, union rates, or specialist work that pays differently.
How does payroll connect to job costing?
Because hours are logged per project on the Plan Work board, every labor cost is automatically allocated to the right project. Your job costing P&L includes labor without any manual entry.
Does Punch Ledger handle 1099 subcontractors?
Subcontractor costs can be recorded as project expenses, so they show up in job costing. Punch Ledger does not generate 1099 forms — your accountant handles those.
What if crew members work on multiple projects in one day?
You can create multiple schedule entries for the same employee on the same day, split across different projects with different hours. The payroll report adds them up correctly.