Payroll inside Accounting, for everyone on the team. Set each person's pay method, W-4, state form and deductions once; approve their hours; and a pay run works out every check for the period — overtime week by week on the true regular rate, commissions owed, approved time off, gross to net, and what each person costs you. Approving a run locks the period's hours. It is not a payroll service: it doesn't file taxes or send direct deposits. It calculates, then hands a payroll register and an hours file to you, your accountant or your payroll service. Built only for post-frame and barndominium builders, it pays the way they pay — crews hourly with a share of the job, reps on commission, owners on draws.
Also called: payroll · pay runs · run payroll · paycheck calculator · withholding · W-4 · overtime · PTO · time off · pay stubs · payroll register · employee pay · raises
Everyone on the team, each paid their own way
People & pay, inside Accounting, lists everyone on the roster with how they're paid: Carla in the office at $21.00 an hour, Dana the project manager on $62,000 a year, Jenna and Sam on commission, Mark on a $3,000 draw, and Crew A on their crew's hourly-plus-surplus rate. Anyone not set up yet — here, Ben, a new hand on Crew A — is called out above the table.
A crew on hourly plus surplus, a salaried PM, commission-only reps and an owner on draws usually live in four different places.
People want to know they're paid the way they were promised. When every arrangement sits on one screen, nobody's deal gets forgotten or mixed up with someone else's, and the owner stops carrying it all in his head. Because it's built only for post-frame and barndominium builders, a crew paid by the hour with a share of the job sits right next to a rep on straight commission.
Eight ways to pay, set per person
Try itOpen a person and choose how they're paid: hourly, salary, commission only, salary + commission, hourly + commission, day rate, crew pay (their crew's hourly rate) or owner draw. Only the rate that method needs appears. Two switches decide whether they clock in and whether they're exempt from overtime — and a salaried person paid under $684 a week gets flagged. Every rate change is kept with who made it. Try the pay method list.
Pay software built for one kind of employee makes you pretend your commission rep is hourly.
A rep on commission and a crew lead on hourly are driven by different things, and pay that matches the deal you made is pay people trust. The office stops inventing workarounds, and the owner has fewer "that's not what we agreed" talks on payday.
The W-4 and the state form, as the person filled them in
Try itThe Taxes section follows the forms themselves: filing status, step 2 (multiple jobs), step 3 dependents, 4a, 4b and 4c, then the state's own certificate — filing status, allowances, extra per check. Wes is married filing jointly with $4,000 for dependents, which is why his federal income tax this check comes to $0.00. Leave it blank and the IRS rule for a missing W-4 applies: Single, nothing else.
Withholding guessed from a phone call is how someone ends up owing in April.
Nobody likes a surprise tax bill, and a crew member who owes in April blames whoever did his paperwork. Copying the form step by step means he gets the withholding he asked for, so he trusts the check — and the office isn't guessing on his behalf.
Deductions that lower the right taxes
Try itAdd a deduction or benefit from the list — 401(k), Roth 401(k), SIMPLE IRA, Section 125 medical, dental and vision, HSA, FSAs, transit and parking, child support orders, tax levies, garnishments, union dues, loan repayments, tools and uniforms. Each type knows what it lowers: a 401(k) lowers income tax but not Social Security; a Section 125 premium lowers both. The 2026 annual limits are enforced. Below it sit the person's raise plan and the PTO they earn per hour worked.
A 401(k) and a health premium are both "pre-tax" but lower different taxes; type them in the same way and every check is a little wrong all year.
Benefits are part of why good people stay, but only if the check shows them working. Getting the tax treatment right means the employee sees the saving he was promised, and the owner isn't left fixing a year of small errors in December.
The office clocks in too — from Home
Try itCrews punch in on their field link. Everyone else whose profile says they clock in — office, reception, sales, owners — gets a clock card on Home: on the clock, this week's approved and waiting hours, an unpaid break, Clock out. Clocking in on a job asks which job. Request time off opens from the same card, with the person's PTO balance.
The crew had a punch clock on their phones; the office wrote its hours on a sticky note.
When everyone clocks in the same way, nobody feels singled out and nobody gets a free pass — that fairness keeps a small team pulling together. And seeing her own approved hours and PTO balance means Carla never has to ask the office what she's owed.
Hours are approved first — and a far-away clock-in is flagged
Try itNothing is paid until it's approved. Hour approvals names the person on every shift, puts time-off requests beside the hours, and groups shifts by job so a whole crew's day is one Approve all. When someone clocks in to a job with their location on, the distance to the job site is recorded; more than a mile away and the row says so. It's a flag to ask about, never a block. Only admins and project managers can approve.
A clock-in from the yard twenty miles away looks exactly like one from the site unless something says so.
Most crews are honest, and a flag instead of a lock treats them that way — a crew parked at the end of a long lane isn't punished. Knowing the distance is recorded keeps everyone straight without anyone being accused, and the approver gets a reason to ask instead of a hunch.
Time off with a balance behind it
Try itRequests land in Time off and in Hour approvals. Approve takes paid time off out of the person's balance — once — and the next pay run pays it at their rate. Who's out lists approved time off coming up, so you can see who else is gone that week before you say yes. PTO is earned per hour worked and added when a run is marked paid.
Time off agreed in the truck is forgotten by the time the schedule gets made.
A yes that's written down is a promise kept, and people who watch their PTO balance grow feel looked after. For the business it means no double-booked weeks and no argument later about what was agreed.
A pay run is one pay period
Try itNew pay run suggests the period and pay date. Calculate gathers everyone paid on that frequency — approved hours, salaries, commissions owed from the commission ledger, approved time off, owner draws — and works out each check. The list shows every run with its people, hours, overtime, gross and total cost to you. A period that already has a run is refused; void the old one first.
Payroll in a spreadsheet keeps no record of which week was paid, or whether these hours were already in last week's run.
Running payroll the same way every time takes the dread out of payday. The owner sees what the period really costs, not just the gross, and the team gets paid on time because nothing has to be rebuilt from scratch.
Every check, line by line, with the arithmetic
Try itOpen a run and each check shows every line and how it was worked out. Overtime is figured week by week on the regular rate — Wes's 44-hour week gives 4 h × $28.00 + ½ × $28.00 × 4 h = $168.00. His 8 hours of PTO are paid at his rate, and his federal income tax is $0.00, with the W-4 arithmetic that got there. Taxes use the official 2026 federal and state tables, and year-to-date limits carry from run to run. A state whose rules can't be followed exactly is marked estimated, and the line says what was assumed. City and county wage taxes aren't calculated.
A check that can't be explained turns into an argument with the person holding it.
People trust a pay stub they can check. When the overtime arithmetic is printed right there, a crew lead can see he wasn't shorted, and the office answers the question with a glance instead of a call to the accountant. That trust is worth more than the minutes it saves.
Approve locks the period's hours
Try itApprove ties every approved shift in the period to the run, so paid time can't be edited afterwards. Spot a mistake? Void the run — with a reason — and its hours unlock for a new one; a run already marked paid can't be voided. Mark paid once the money has gone out: the run's commissions are marked paid and earned PTO is added to each balance. Walk this run from draft to paid.
Hours edited after they were paid are how two people end up with two answers about the same week.
Once a week is settled, it stays settled — that's what lets everyone stop worrying about it. The crew knows the hours they were paid for are the hours on record, and the owner never has to referee a week that changed after payday.
A clean register for whoever files
Try itLeads 2 Build calculates payroll; it doesn't file taxes or send direct deposits. Each run ends in two downloads: the Register CSV — one row per person with hours, gross, every tax and deduction, net and every employer cost — for your accountant, and the Hours & earnings CSV — hours, PTO, commissions and gross — in the shape payroll services import. You or your payroll service pay it and file.
Retyping hours from timesheets into a payroll service is where the mistakes come in.
Your accountant gets numbers he can trust without retyping a thing, and you stop being the middleman between the crew's phones and the payroll service. Fewer hands on the numbers means fewer mistakes — and fewer awkward corrections on someone's next check.
Raise ladders you can price before anyone is on them
Try itProgression plans raise pay on a schedule — after a number of months or approved hours — by a dollar amount or a percent, with an optional bonus or PTO hours. The preview runs the plan forward from a starting rate: on this Crew ladder a hand starting at $22.00 is at $23.00 after three months, $24.50 and 16 hours of PTO after a year, and $25.73 with a $500 bonus after two. Put people on a plan from their pay profile. Change the starting rate and watch it rerun.
Raises handed out when someone asks reward whoever asks loudest.
A young hand who can see his next raise on a calendar has a reason to show up and stay. A ladder that's written down is fair to everyone on the crew, and the owner knows what it costs before he promises it.
What each position really costs
Try itAnalytics totals each position — people, hours, overtime, what they cost and cost per hour — then shows each person with the number that measures their job: sales and cost of sale for reps, calls answered for the office, draws for the owner, hours waiting for approval for the crew. Missed clock-outs and PTO are counted for everyone. Crew delivery stays in hours and labour cost.
Labour is the biggest cost in the business and the least looked at.
An owner who can see what each role costs per hour makes calm decisions about hiring and overtime instead of panicked ones at year end. And judging each job by its own number — sales for a rep, calls for the office — means people are measured on what they actually do.
Test a raise before you give it
Try itThe Calculator works out one check and a year of them — take-home, what the person costs you, and cost per hour — for any pay, frequency, state, W-4 and deductions, using the same engine as the pay runs. At $22 an hour and 45 hours a week in Wisconsin, with 3% to a 401(k), a check is $2,090.00 gross, $1,617.48 take-home and $2,314.68 to you — $25.72 an hour. A 5% raise costs about $3,009 more a year. Nothing is saved; change any number.
A dollar-an-hour raise costs more than a dollar an hour once the employer's taxes are added.
Most owners have never seen the real hourly cost of an employee, and finding out after the raise is given hurts. Trying it first turns a nervous yes-or-no into a decision — and lets you tell a good hand exactly what you can do for him.
Who can see pay — and who can run it
Pay is three separate permissions, checked on the server. Pay management — people, rates, raise plans, analytics — is for admins, sales managers and project managers. Hour approval is for admins and project managers. Pay runs are for admins only. Sales reps and crew have no Payroll tab; anyone set to clock in gets the Home card. More on roles and permissions.
Handing out the payroll login so a foreman can approve hours shows him everyone's pay.
Pay is private, and people relax when they know their rate isn't on every screen in the office. Giving each role only what it needs lets the owner hand off approvals without handing over the payroll.
- 1In Accounting → Payroll → People & pay, set each person up: position, pay method, rate, how often they're paid, and whether they clock in.
- 2Copy in their W-4 and state withholding form, and add deductions and benefits — a 401(k), a Section 125 health premium, a child support order.
- 3Crews punch in on their field link; the office, sales and owners clock in from the Home card, where time off is asked for too.
- 4Approve hours and time off in Hour approvals. A clock-in more than a mile from the job is flagged for you to ask about.
- 5Start a New pay run: every check for the period is worked out from approved hours, salaries, commissions owed and approved time off.
- 6Approve locks the period's hours. Download the Register CSV for your accountant and the Hours & earnings CSV for your payroll service.
- 7Mark paid once the money has gone out: the run's commissions are marked paid and the PTO people earned is added to their balances.
A post-frame builder doesn't have one kind of employee. A crew lead on an hourly rate with a share of the job's surplus, two crew members, a sales rep on straight commission, a project manager on salary, someone on the phones by the hour, and an owner taking draws. Usually that's four systems: a punch app for the crew, a spreadsheet for commissions, a payroll service that only sees the hours somebody retyped, and the owner's memory for the rest. Hours got changed after they were paid. Overtime got worked out on the wrong rate. Nobody could say what a dollar-an-hour raise really costs once the employer's taxes are added. So pay now lives where the hours already are: the approved shifts from the crew's field link and the office clock card become checks, every line says how it was worked out from the 2026 tables, and approving a run locks the hours it paid. It stops short of moving money on purpose — filing and direct deposit are a payroll service's job — so a run ends in two clean files for whoever does that.
- Crew, sales, office and owner pay kept in different places
- Hours edited after they were paid
- Overtime and withholding worked out by hand
- Hours retyped into a payroll service
- No idea what each employee actually costs per hour
