Free checklist
A burdened rate gets challenged line by line. Each percentage load and per-hour cost needs a source document behind it and the overhead pool needs financials that tie out.
11 items across 4 categories. This is a general guide for a typical claim of this type, not an exhaustive or jurisdiction-specific list. Confirm exact evidentiary requirements with counsel before submission.
Rate disputes turn on whether each component is substantiated. A workers' compensation figure backed by the policy declarations and current mod rate survives review; the same figure asserted without backup does not.
A checklist is only useful if you know why each item is on it. Reviewers do not ask for records to be thorough; they ask because each one answers a specific question that the calculation on its own cannot.
What it proves. The base wage every other component is calculated against. Everything downstream is a percentage of, or an addition to, this number.
Where it comes from. Payroll system for the period being claimed. On public work, the certified payroll you already filed.
What it proves. Establishes that the wage and fringe rates are contractually or statutorily fixed rather than chosen by you.
Where it comes from. The collective bargaining agreement in force, or the Davis-Bacon or state wage determination applicable to the contract.
What it proves. Separates fringe paid in cash from fringe paid to a plan. The two are treated differently and conflating them overstates the rate.
Where it comes from. Benefits administrator or the fund's monthly remittance reports.
What it proves. SUTA varies by state, by year and by your own experience rating. This is the document that proves your rate rather than a state average.
Where it comes from. The annual rate notice from your state workforce agency. Use the notice for the year being claimed, not the current one.
What it proves. Workers' comp is usually the largest single burden component and it varies by class code and by experience modifier. This is the source for both.
Where it comes from. The declarations page from your carrier, plus the experience modification worksheet from the rating bureau.
What it proves. Fixed federal percentages, but FUTA applies only to a capped wage base, so the effective rate falls as annual wages rise.
Where it comes from. IRS Circular E for the relevant year. Note the wage base, not just the rate.
What it proves. Defines what is actually in the overhead pool. An overhead percentage with no financial statement behind it is the first thing a reviewer strikes.
Where it comes from. Your accountant. Use the same period as the billable-hours divisor or the ratio is meaningless.
What it proves. The denominator. Dividing an annual overhead pool by paid hours rather than productive hours understates the rate; using an unsupported divisor invites the whole calculation to be reworked.
Where it comes from. Payroll hours less holiday, vacation, sick, training and shop time, reconciled to the same period as the pool.
What it proves. Shows the rate you are applying is consistent with how the company actually ran, rather than assembled for this claim.
Where it comes from. Year-end financials for the preceding period.
What it proves. Establishes whether the contract already fixes a rate for extra work, which may cap what you can recover regardless of your actual cost.
Where it comes from. The rate exhibit to the contract and any approved revisions.
What it proves. Prior acceptance of the same build-up by this owner, or on comparable work, is persuasive and cheap to produce.
Where it comes from. Past change orders and prior approved billings on this or earlier contracts.
These are the omissions that cost real money, in rough order of how often they come up.
Unemployment insurance is experience-rated. Your rate notice is a one-page document and using anything else invites the whole build-up to be reworked by the reviewer.
The ratio only means something if the numerator and denominator cover the same months. This is the most common arithmetic error in a burden calculation.
Dividing by 2,080 rather than by hours actually available to charge understates the rate, often by ten percent or more.
If overhead is recovered separately elsewhere in the claim, including it in the burden rate double-counts it. Decide which exhibit carries it and say so explicitly.
For pricing work, usually yes. For a damages claim, usually no: profit is generally claimed as its own line so that each element stays separately reviewable. The calculator lets you include or exclude it.
The rates in force during the period being claimed, not today's. SUTA notices, the workers' comp mod and the FUTA wage base all change annually and using current figures for a two-year-old period is an easy error to make and an easy one to catch.
Start from paid hours and subtract holiday, vacation, sick, training and shop time from payroll records. Document the subtraction; a reviewer will accept a reasoned estimate far more readily than an unexplained divisor.
The ClaimDuke calculator carries this same checklist. Tick what you already have and add your own items and they carry through to the Excel workbook, the Word document and the PDF report you export, so what you hand over shows exactly which records are in the file and which are still outstanding.
Free to calculate, with a free one-page summary. Paid reports add your branding, a live-formula Excel workbook and the cited methodology behind every line.
Evidentiary expectations and the underlying entitlement both vary by jurisdiction. ClaimDuke carries a cited reference for all 50 states + DC covering statutory interest, actual cash value and labor depreciation, delay-claim limits and injury liability.
