DAS 140 / DAS 142 filing software for California public-works contractors.
Automate the apprenticeship contract award notice and the dispatch request for every public-works project on your books. Built around Labor Code section 1777.5, the 10-day DAS 140 window, and the 72-hour DAS 142 lead time — and attached to the certified-payroll record so a single audit pull shows the complete evidence chain.
What DAS 140 and DAS 142 actually require.
On California public-works projects, two short forms decide whether your apprenticeship paperwork survives a Division of Apprenticeship Standards audit. The first, the DAS 140, is the "Public Works Contract Award Information" notice. Any contractor or subcontractor awarded a public-works contract above the statutory threshold — typically $30,000 — that includes a craft with a prevailing-wage determination requiring apprentices must file a DAS 140 with every applicable joint apprenticeship committee within 10 days of the contract being awarded, and in any case before crews begin work on site.
The DAS 140 is not a request for apprentices. It is a notice. It tells the committees in your craft and your geographic area that you have a covered project and that you intend either to employ apprentices directly or to be bound by the apprenticeship standards in lieu of direct employment. The form captures the project name, the awarding body, the contract value, the craft, the estimated journeyperson and apprentice hours, and the scheduled start date.
The second form, the DAS 142, is the operational follow-up. When you actually need an apprentice on site, you file a DAS 142 — "Request for Dispatch of an Apprentice" — with the apprenticeship committee in the relevant craft. Per current DIR guidance the request is intended to be submitted at least 72 hours before the apprentice is needed, excluding Saturdays, Sundays, and holidays. The committee then either dispatches an apprentice or fails to dispatch within the window, and that response is part of the audit record.
Both filings are governed by California Labor Code section 1777.5, the statute that builds apprenticeship participation into the prevailing-wage system on public-works projects. Enforcement runs through the California Department of Industrial Relations (DIR) and its Division of Apprenticeship Standards. The forms themselves are short. The discipline of getting them out the door for every project, every craft, every committee, on the right clock, is what fails.
The compliance gap is not the form. It is the workflow.
Public-works contractors who get cited for missing DAS 140 or DAS 142 filings are rarely operating in bad faith. They are operating from a workflow that was not built for the volume. The DAS 140 clock starts when the contract is awarded — not when the project mobilizes — and on a busy GC or specialty trade, contracts are awarded weeks before anyone in the field touches them. By the time the project manager opens the file, the 10-day window has already started.
The form also has to be sent to the right committees. There is no single statewide inbox. A separate copy of the DAS 140 goes to every applicable joint apprenticeship committee for the craft in the geographic area where the work will be performed. Filing once and assuming you are covered is one of the most common audit findings. Manual workflows that rely on a spreadsheet of committee addresses and an email template are where the gaps appear, especially when a project spans crafts or counties.
The DAS 142 fails for a different reason. Crew schedules change. A foreman calls the apprentice committee the morning a journeyperson goes out and asks for an apprentice tomorrow. Per current DIR guidance the request is intended to be in the committee's hands at least 72 hours ahead. If the committee declines to dispatch on short notice — or simply does not respond — the contractor has to document the good-faith request and the non-response, or face an apprenticeship-ratio violation when the certified payroll is audited.
When the apprenticeship paperwork is missing and the certified payroll has been signed, the consequences are not hypothetical. California Labor Code section 1777.7 authorizes civil penalties of up to $200 per calendar day of violation for apprenticeship-standard violations, including non-filing or late filing of DAS 140 and DAS 142. Penalties accrue per day, per violation, and repeat or willful violations can trigger debarment from future public-works bidding. Manual eCPR filing workflows, where certified payroll is uploaded weekly but the apprenticeship forms live in a separate spreadsheet, are exactly the environment where these violations compound silently between audits.
One contract record drives the entire apprenticeship timeline.
Clerxi is built around the contract as the unit of truth. When a public-works contract is loaded into the platform, the system parses the awarding body, the contract value, the craft classifications, the prevailing-wage determinations, and the scheduled start date. If the contract value clears the public-works threshold and the determinations include apprenticeable crafts, the DAS 140 obligation is opened automatically. The 10-day clock from the award date is scheduled. The applicable apprenticeship committees for each craft and county are surfaced in the project record.
From there, the DAS 140 itself is drafted from the contract data. The project name, awarding body, contract value, estimated journeyperson and apprentice hours, scheduled start, and signatory information populate the form. A separate copy is routed to every applicable committee for the craft and geography — not one email blast, but discrete filings tracked per committee so the project record reflects which committees have received the notice and which acknowledgments have returned. If a committee goes silent, Clerxi flags the gap before the 10-day window closes rather than after.
When the crew schedule advances toward a date that requires an apprentice on site, the DAS 142 timeline opens automatically. Clerxi tracks the dispatch request against the 72-hour lead time the committee expects, captures the committee's response — dispatch confirmed, dispatch declined, or non-response — and attaches the timestamped record to the project. If the committee fails to dispatch, the system retains the good-faith-request evidence that defends the apprenticeship-ratio calculation when the certified payroll is later audited.
Every filed copy of DAS 140 and DAS 142, every committee acknowledgment, every dispatch response, and every related correspondence attaches directly to the certified-payroll record for the project. When a DIR auditor or a labor compliance officer pulls the WH-347 file, the apprenticeship paperwork is in the same evidence chain — not in a separate spreadsheet, a shared drive, or a former project manager's inbox. The audit trail is complete by construction, not by heroics at audit time. And if a committee fails to acknowledge a DAS 140 within the expected window, or a dispatch request goes unanswered past the lead time, the compliance owner is notified before the deadline closes, not after the violation accrues.
An integrated workflow,
not another form library.
Contract intake with PW detection
Public-works contracts are parsed on upload. The system flags prevailing-wage determinations that require apprentices and queues the DAS 140 timeline against the award date automatically.
DAS 140 generated from contract data
Project name, awarding body, contract value, craft, estimated journeyperson and apprentice hours, scheduled start — pulled from the contract record into a DAS 140 draft ready for signature.
Committee routing built in
A separate DAS 140 goes to every applicable apprenticeship committee in the craft and geographic area. The system tracks which committees received the filing and which still need a copy.
DAS 142 dispatch tracking
When a crew is scheduled, the system opens the DAS 142 request 72 hours ahead of the dispatch date and tracks acknowledgments from each committee so the project record reflects who responded.
Attached to certified payroll
Filed copies of DAS 140 and DAS 142 attach directly to the certified-payroll record so the WH-347 audit trail and the apprenticeship paperwork live in the same evidence chain.
Anomaly alerts on silence
If a committee does not acknowledge a DAS 140 within the expected window, or a dispatch request goes unanswered, the project manager and the compliance owner are notified before the deadline closes.
DAS 140 and DAS 142, answered.
Who is required to file a DAS 140?
Any contractor or subcontractor awarded a California public-works contract above the statutory threshold (typically $30,000) that involves a craft for which a prevailing-wage determination requires the employment of apprentices must file a DAS 140 — the "Public Works Contract Award Information" form — with the applicable joint apprenticeship committee. The obligation flows down: a general contractor files for its scope, and every subcontractor working in an apprenticeable craft files for its own scope.
What is the deadline for filing the DAS 140?
Per current DIR guidance, the DAS 140 must be filed within 10 days of the contract being awarded — and in any case before the contractor begins work on the project. Because the clock starts on award rather than on mobilization, missed DAS 140 filings are the single most common apprenticeship violation cited during certified-payroll audits.
What are the penalties for not filing DAS 140 or DAS 142?
California Labor Code section 1777.7 authorizes civil penalties of up to $200 per calendar day of violation for apprenticeship-standard violations, including non-filing or late filing of DAS 140 and DAS 142. Repeat or willful violations expose the contractor to higher penalties and possible debarment from bidding on future public-works projects. The DIR and the Division of Apprenticeship Standards (DAS) enforce these provisions.
Can a DAS 142 be filed late?
The DAS 142 — the request for dispatch of apprentices — is intended to be submitted to the apprenticeship committee at least 72 hours before the apprentices are needed on the job, excluding weekends and holidays. A late DAS 142 does not relieve the contractor of the obligation to make a good-faith request for dispatch, and committees may decline to fill a request that was not submitted with adequate lead time. Late filings are also a common audit finding and should be documented with the reason for the delay.
What is the difference between DAS 140 and DAS 142?
DAS 140 is the contract-award notice. It tells the apprenticeship committees in the area that you have been awarded a public-works contract that will employ apprenticeable crafts and signals your intent either to employ apprentices on the project or to be bound by the apprenticeship standards. DAS 142 is the operational follow-up: when you actually need an apprentice on site, DAS 142 is the request you send to the committee to dispatch one. DAS 140 is filed once per project per craft; DAS 142 is filed each time you need a crew member dispatched.
Do public-works contractors need a separate DAS 140 filing for every apprenticeship committee?
Yes. A separate DAS 140 must be sent to every applicable apprenticeship committee for the craft and the geographic area where the work will be performed. A single filing to one committee does not satisfy the obligation. This is one of the reasons manual workflows miss filings — the same form has to be reproduced and routed to multiple committees, each with its own address and intake process.
How does Clerxi integrate with existing certified-payroll workflows?
Clerxi treats the contract as the unit of truth. The same contract record that drives certified-payroll generation also drives the DAS 140 and DAS 142 timeline. Filed copies attach to the certified-payroll record so when a DIR auditor or a labor-compliance officer pulls the WH-347 file, the apprenticeship paperwork is already in the same evidence chain. If you currently produce certified payroll in a separate tool, Clerxi can ingest those files and still own the apprenticeship-filing workflow on top of them.
Have a question we did not cover? Write to support@clerxi.com and we will route it to the compliance team. Reference our public-works compliance overview for related certified-payroll (WH-347) coverage.
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DAS 140 / 142 on your projects.
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