CERTIFIED PAYROLL SPECIALIST

Tesseon•St. Louis, MO

9d•$35•Remote

About The Position

Tesseon is an embedded Paycor partner delivering managed payroll, HR, and workforce services. Our certified payroll practice is different from the software-only tools in the market: where other competitors hand the client a platform and expect the client's own staff to maintain wage determinations, classification libraries, and fringe reconciliation, our team performs that compliance work on the client's behalf. For a contractor running multiple simultaneous public-works jobs across several trades and unions, that difference is measured in headcount and risk, not convenience. Day to day, that work happens in our own Certified Payroll Center, the system Tesseon built to run this practice, from the wage-determination and classification library through the federal and state filings themselves. As we onboard more clients, our developer adds new states and report forms to it.

Requirements

A genuine service mindset: you enjoy talking with people, you're comfortable on the phone throughout the day, and you stay patient and clear when a client is frustrated or confused
The ability to explain technical compliance rules to a contractor's office manager without jargon
5+ years of hands-on certified payroll / prevailing wage compliance experience, preferably for a contractor, a construction payroll service bureau, or a multi-client CPA or PEO practice
Working command of Davis-Bacon and Related Acts, Form WH-347, wage determinations and modifications, fringe benefit valuation, and apprentice ratio requirements
Familiarity with at least one certified payroll reporting platform — LCPtracker, Points North, eMars, Elation, or comparable — as a signal of domain fluency
Experience running certified payroll for multiple simultaneous projects with multiple crafts and split classifications
Full-cycle payroll fundamentals: multi-state, multi-jurisdiction, garnishments, taxes
A clear understanding of what we can and cannot answer for a client, and the discipline to hold that line when a client pushes for an answer
Precision under a weekly deadline, and the judgment to spot a wrong number before a client certifies it

Nice To Haves

Experience in a client-facing payroll or service bureau role where you owned a book of clients
St. Louis metro, with working knowledge of the Missouri Prevailing Wage Law and the Illinois Prevailing Wage Act
General Paycor familiarity is a plus; Workforce Management and job costing experience is not essential
Union and CBA payroll exposure — fringe reporting, multiple locals, trust remittances
Additional state programs (California DIR/DAS-140/142, New York, Washington)
Experience supporting clients through a DOL or state agency audit

Responsibilities

Be the first call for your clients: answer their phone calls and emails, and see each question through to resolution
Walk clients through their reports in plain language — what a rate is based on and why a fringe amount came out the way it did
Help clients understand and fix what led to a general contractor or agency rejection, and stay with them until the resubmission is accepted
Run recurring client check-ins on open items, data gaps, and upcoming project starts
Confirm with the client which of their people worked on each project before a report is produced
Know what we can and cannot answer: we do not interpret any contracts, including union agreements and project contracts, and we do not decide whether prevailing wage applies to a project or give legal or tax advice — those questions go back to the client and its attorney
Cross-reference project locations and job titles against the prevailing wage determinations the client supplies; maintain each client's rate and classification library and apply modifications as clients provide them or as our own monitoring flags them
Calculate the monetary value of required fringe benefits (healthcare, retirement, training, vacation), including fringe credits and cash-in-lieu amounts
Collect and review the client's hours, typically from their own spreadsheet and occasionally from a Paycor Workforce Management integration; apply craft classification assignments, including split-classification weeks
Run reasonableness checks of client-supplied inputs against the classification library, rate table, and prior-period data — flagging inconsistencies and anomalies before payroll processes
Check apprentice classifications, program/trade/level data, and journeyman ratios for internal consistency
Generate certified payroll reports in federal Form WH-347 and required state and agency formats, and deliver filing-ready packages within two business days of receiving complete data
Prepare the Statement of Compliance for signature by the client's authorized officer (Tesseon does not sign or certify — federal rules reserve that for an officer or employee of the contractor who supervises the payment of wages)
On a Missouri public job, prepare the one-time PW-4 Affidavit of Compliance for the client's signature and notarization once the job is complete, separate from the weekly LS-57
Maintain the report archive per the retention terms in each client agreement
Build job/project mapping and classification libraries for new clients during implementation, including setting up how hours will actually reach us for each project, typically the client's own spreadsheet