The Prime Approver module offers additional resources and control to Prime Contractors should the Agency decide to turn this on. Primes have the ability to check certified payrolls submitted by all lower tier contractors and subcontractors prior to the Agency/Admin receiving the payroll for final review and acceptance.   

This guide will explain the functionality and the responsibilities of a Prime Approver based on the setup configuration completed by the Agency. We will go through and outline the following steps within this guide:

• Certifications
• Violations
• Project Contact
• Contractor Setup
• Change Password
• eDocuments
• Admin Tab
• Reports

The Agency may configure the Prime Approver role in various ways.  What is showing in this guide may be different than what you have available to you in your database.  Please contact your Agency/Admin should you have any questions regarding the Prime Approver setup available to you.

During setup of an LCPtracker database using Prime Approver, an Agency may choose to configure various settings in different ways.  Please ensure that you speak with the Agency you are working with to discuss your role as a Prime Approver.

Following are settings may be configured based on Agency preference. (Note that Agencies may all configure their databases differently.)

• Hide various validations from the Prime Approver
• Limited access to the Edit Employees page including the restriction of Apprentice approvals
• Prime Contractor’s payrolls sent directly to Agency without the Prime Approver approving them first
• Ability for the Agency to now reject/permit edit payrolls
• Restrict a Prime Approver from rejecting/permit editing once the payroll has been accepted by the Agency
• Remove the ability for a Prime Approver to delete a certified payroll

Reviewing and Approving Payrolls

The main tab a prime approver will focus on is the ‘Certifications’ tab. This is where you’ll be reviewing and approving or rejecting these payrolls.

Once you’ve approved a certified payroll report (CPR), it is then available for the Agency/Admin to view the report for final acceptance. An Agency may require that a Prime Approver only review and approve subcontractor and lower subcontractor certified payrolls. Depending on how the Agency completes the setup, the payrolls submitted by the Prime Contractor may go directly to the Agency and not require the Prime Approver to first approve them.

CPRs can be filtered by: 

• Department 
• Project 
• Contractor 
• Date Range
• Payroll Numbers.  

You can also filter by the:

• Process Status 
• Accept Status
• Prime Approval Status. 

Once you’ve selected your filters, you can click on Load Data to bring up your selected CPRs. 

Now you are ready to review the certified payrolls that have been submitted. Note: the full functionality depicted below depends on Agency configuration.

1. Delete CPRs- the only time you want to delete a record is 1) if a sub entered the wrong week-end date, 2) if the contractor reported to the wrong project or, 3) if the incorrect location was entered.   All other information is editable. 
2. View CPRs- you can review the submitted CPR by clicking on the PDF button or you can click on the View Details button as well.
3. Prime Approval – once you have reviewed the payroll and have no errors, you will change the Prime Approval status to APPROVED. The system will stamp the date it was approved. Note: the full functionality depicted below depends on Agency configuration.
4. Accept Status

1. Submitted – this is the initial accept status once the payroll is certified.
2. Updated or Resubmitted - if the sub went back and made any changes, you will see one of these two accept statuses. 
3. Permit Edit - sometimes a sub realizes they made a mistake on their record after certifying it. They may try to go back and edit the record, but depending on the allotted edit time, they may not be able to access the record. By changing the Accept Status to Permit Edit, you are unlocking the record to allow them to make changes. They will also receive an admin notice and email informing them that they have been given permission to edit. 
4. Rejected – if you find an issue and need to reject the payroll, you will be asked for a reason or message to send with the rejection. After it’s been rejected, the sub will receive an admin notice in their account and an email informing them that the record has been rejected along with your message. 

 Note: The Agency/Admin may restrict the Prime Approver from selecting the reject or permit edit selection once the payroll has been accepted. 

1. Accepted Column – this will display the date the Agency/Admin accepted the payroll record on their end
2. Final – this will show as yes if the sub has marked their payroll as final on their end.  Please note that changing this final status on this end DOES NOT officially change it on the record itself.  The subcontractor will still need to go back and correct this in their account to make it official.
3. View Details – this will allow you to see more details regarding the payroll that was submitted and the status of the payroll.

In the details section, you can:

1. Change the Process Status or Accept Status 
2. Send and review Admin Notices 
3. View CPRs, including their superseded versions 
4. Under Payroll Details you have the option to:

1. View the actual record as it looks when the subcontractor entered it. Audit is the same as View. By clicking on Audit, it will write stamp a yes in the Audited column.  Please note, we do not currently have any reports that show the audit status.   
2. By clicking on view under the payroll record, you can click on Revalidate at the bottom to refresh the record and send it through all validation checks again.

As the prime approver, you want to ensure that payroll numbering is not out of sequence and that a payroll was or was not marked as final incorrectly. Depending on how the Agency/Admin setup the validations, a contractor may receive a notice if they are not paying the required minimum rate for the craft they’ve selected. 

A notice/enforce will prevent them from certifying, a warning/alert is a soft stop but will allow them to move forward with the triggered notice and a hidden validation will not show the contractor if a mistake was made or if the employee was underpaid. It is important to understand how your Agency/Admin has setup this functionality.

 Any notices or warnings that exist when the contractor submits a CPR are listed in the Violations tab. Administrators can review these potential violations, act, or delete as needed.

Validations that are set to a warning or hidden from the Contractor can be seen within the Violations tab.  

A common warning that you may see is VAL_52; Total deductions are greater than the check amount.   A validation set to a warning will not prevent the contractor from certifying their payroll but will still be visible here if the warning was not cleared.

Within the Projects tab, you will see the projects you’ve been assigned to oversee. Each contractor that is assigned to the project, will have access to the ‘Show Info’ button under their Projects tab as well.  

It is the decision of the Agency/Admin who they enter as the first contact. Typically, an Agency will list the Prime Contractor as the contact which includes their name, phone number and email address.  

When logging in as a Prime Approver on the Administrator side, the only buttons available in your Set Up tab are Contractor Setup and Change Password.  

Please note that the Admin and Prime Approver will see the button for setting up contractors and subcontractors as ‘Contractor Setup’ whereas when a contractor logs in to LCPtracker, they will see the button listed as ‘Subcontractor Setup’ if this function is available to them.

Admin & Prime Approver View:

 Contractor View:

The process for adding and assigning both Contractors and Subcontractors will be done using the same steps below.  

Contractor Setup

During setup, the Agency/Admin will decide if they will allow contractors and lower tier subs to setup their own subs or if this task will be handled at the Admin/Prime Approver level.

If this feature is turned on, you as the Prime Contractor will first set up the subcontractor below you. Please note you will be able to either login with your Prime Approver Admin login or your Prime Contractor User ID login to perform this setup. After that, each subcontractor is responsible for setting up their lower tiered subs. You do have the ability as the prime to set up all subcontractors on the project as well if you choose.

The following steps will display the process for contractor setup as logged in as a Prime Approver Admin.

Contractor setup is a two-step process:

 Step 1: Contractor Setup > Add/Edit Contractors

To add a new contractor, complete the data fields with information provided by your contractor starting with their Company Name. Each field with a red asterisk will be required to be completed before a contractor can be saved. If this is an existing user, you may have read-only access to their information.

Some contractors may already be a user of LCPtracker under another agency database.  Before adding your contractor, ask if they are a current user. If so, ask them for their exact User ID that they currently use to log into the LCPtracker system. You will still move forward with setting up this company as a ‘new’ account under the database you are working in.

Enter their current User ID in the ‘Contractor License No. or 10-digit Phone Number’ field.  The system will then automatically link their accounts for them. This prevents them from having to use multiple user IDs.

Continue to enter the required information on the Contractor Setup page. The Contact E-mail field information should be the contractor’s main user of LCPtracker. It is important that this entry is correct, prior to saving, as LCPtracker is designed to communicate with system users through this email address. This should be the person responsible for handling certified payrolls for that contractor.

All red asterisks fields need to be completed before saving. Please note, some database Admins/Agencies may have additional requirements in addition to the red asterisk fields. Once you have completed your entry, click Save.

You will receive a pop-up telling you “Contractor has been sent an email notifying them.  Don’t forget to assign this Contractor to project”.   You will now move to step 2 of the contractor setup.   

LCPtracker will automatically email the subcontractor their User ID and Temporary Password.

Step 2: Contractor Setup > Contractor Assignment

The next step after you have setup your contractors in the system is to assign them to the project(s).

Contract ID – The Contract ID is the contract number between you and the subcontractor. This field will help the subcontractor identify the contract to enter payrolls for if that contractor has multiple accounts under one project.   If you do not have a Contract ID or numbering system, be sure to assign a unique ID to this contract.  

Contract Amount – Optional field, some Admins may want this information. This is the amount of the contract between you and your subcontractor.

Start Date – The date that your Subcontractor is starting work on the project. This field can be changed after the initial save has been done.  The Late CPR Summary report utilizes this field for later CPR reporting.

End Date – Optional field, some Admins may want this information.

Responsibility Code – Optional field, some Admins may want this information.

After you have made your choices from the drop down and entered any required information, be sure to Save.

Change Password

You can change your password at any time. These password rules must be followed – more than 6 characters, less than 20, must contain at least one capital letter and one lowercase letter.  LCPtracker recommends that you create a password with the following characteristics. At least 8 characters long, contains at least one uppercase and one lowercase letter, one digit (0-9) and one special character (@#$%^&*+=).

The eDocuments functionality is designed to allow the Agency/Admin to receive documents electronically, store, index and view the documents at will.  A full administrator maintains all eDocument requirements. If there aren’t any documents displayed, this is not a section you’ll need to worry about.

Depending on the setup by the Agency/Admin, the Prime Approver is also able to view the eDocuments submitted by the subcontractors.  

View Documents

 You can view documents that a subcontractor has submitted by going to eDocuments > View Documents.

 You can narrow down your search by selecting any of the above filter items and clicking on Load Data.  This will bring up the documents and allow you to view the details, open the document by clicking on View or delete the document.

Upload Documents

If desired, you can upload a document for a specific subcontractor. To do this, you will go to eDocuments > Upload Documents. Ensure that you upload to the specific contractor that the eDocument is for. LCPtracker recommends that each contractor would upload their own eDocuments. If they are having trouble, you can refer them to our support team at support@lcptracker.com for assistance.

Based on the setup by the Agency/Admin, you typically would see two buttons under the Admin tab. Admin Notice Processing and Edit Employees.   

If you do not see the Edit Employee button, this means that the Agency/Admin has restricted your ability to view the employees and will be performing the Apprentice approvals.

If you see the Edit Employee button, you may find that you only have read access and not able to make any edits. This would mean that the Agency/Admin will be performing the Apprentice approvals but still allows you to view the employee information.

Edit Employees

You can filter down by a project, contractor, city, zip codes or an employee’s last name by clicking on Filter Employee Selection. You can click Load Employees if you prefer to not use a filter.  

If you have a lot of subcontractors, by using a filter, it will make the drop-down list more manageable.  

You may also want to only show those unapproved apprentices or expired approvals. That can be done by clicking the box associated with what you want to see.

 If the Agency/Admin has given you permission to approve Apprentices, once you click on Load Employees, you will scroll down to the Apprentice section.

To approve an apprentice in LCPtracker, you will need to have an entry in the following three fields; Apprentice Approval, Apprentice Approved Date, and the Approval Expire Date. When you select ‘Approved’ in the Apprentice Approval field, the system will auto-populate today’s date in the Apprentice Approved Date field as well as the Administrator’s User ID under the Apprentice Approved By field.  

Click SAVE at the bottom of the screen once you have completed the approval steps.

Admin Notice Processing

Admin notices are messages that can be sent out to the subcontractors. Most of these notices are automatically sent out, such as when a payroll is rejected or if permit edit has been granted. The Agency/Admin may decide to setup additional Admin Notice templates for you to use.  

Address Exemptions- When an employee address is validated, it will be compared to the US Postal Service database and a possible match may be suggested. Depending on the project setup, contractors may be prevented from submitting a certified payroll report when an address is not validated. If an address has not been validated by the US Postal Service database but is confirmed accurate by the Contractor, Prime Approvers can provide an address exemption. It will allow the contractor to proceed with the certified payroll process. To provide an address exemption, select the employee from the drop-down list and check the ‘Exempt Address’ box. The Contractor can now move forward with entering and certifying records for that employee without receiving a Payroll Notice. Reference the Address Validation Guide for additional information on this setting.

View Admin Notices

There are multiple filters you can use to narrow down the admin notices you want to look at. The buttons to the right of each notice will allow you to edit, resend or close. Edit will give you the ability to add additional notes to the Admin Notice, however you cannot edit the previously entered message.

LCPtracker highly recommends closing out Admin Notices once they are complete to keep your view clean and organized. You can hide and unhide closed notices as need be by clicking on the highlighted checkbox as shown above.

Add Admin Notices

You can create an Admin Notice by clicking on the Add New Notice button. This functionality is only available after the Agency/Admin has setup an Admin Notice Type. This notice type would be a template that populates a message in the Notice Message field once a selection is made.

Ensure that all the fields with the red asterisk are filled out completely. The Notice Title will show in the subject line when the email is sent. The Notice Date needs to be the day you are sending the Admin Notice. You are not able to forward date this field. Once you are ready to send, click on Save and the contractor will be sent an automatic email with the information entered.  

Typically, the majority of all the standard LCPtracker reports are available to a Prime Approver, however the Agency/Admin can restrict access to specific reports if required.  

Please contact the Agency/Admin if you need to request access to a report you are not currently seeing available under the Reports tab.

For detailed examples on the standard LCPtracker Admin reports, please see the most recent Reports Catalog, which is available under the Training Materials.

Should you need additional assistance please contact our LCPtracker support team. They are available Monday through Friday 5:00am until 5:30pm PST at:

• 714-669-0052 option 4, or 
• Live Chat, or 
• Support@LCPtracker.com