Troubleshooting
What's actually happening behind common error messages and stuck states, and what to do about them
This page covers what's actually going on behind a handful of situations that look like something's broken but usually aren't. For everyday how-do-I questions, see Common Issues; for things that genuinely aren't built yet, see Known Gaps.
Signing in
Locked out after too many failed password attempts, or need to set up two-factor authentication and recovery codes? Both are covered in detail in Signing In and Authentication & Recovery Codes — the short version is that a lockout clears itself after a wait, and resetting your password clears it immediately without waiting.
A payroll run is stuck at "Paying out"
A run moves through Draft → In review → Approved → Processing → Paying out → Paid. "Processing" is a brief pass-through state right after you submit — you shouldn't see it for long. Paying out is different: it means the run has already been submitted and the checks or direct deposits are genuinely in motion — money is committed — and Greenroom is waiting on final confirmation before marking the run Paid.
Sitting at "Paying out" for a while is normal, not a sign of failure — Greenroom checks in on runs in this state on its own and moves them to Paid automatically once confirmation comes back, with no action needed from you.
If a run has been at Paying out for an unusually long time (hours, not minutes), don't assume it will resolve itself indefinitely — contact support with the run's code. There's currently no separate on-screen indicator that distinguishes "still settling normally" from "something went wrong on the payment side," so an unusually long wait is the signal to reach out rather than keep waiting.
Greenroom raises the alarm too
A run that stalls on the money path now pages a human on Greenroom's side rather than waiting to be noticed. That doesn't replace contacting support — you may well spot it first — but it does mean an unusually long wait isn't going unseen.
A submit that came back refused
If a submit is refused by the payroll provider, the message tells you which of two situations you're in: either the run is back in Review, unchanged and still editable (submit it again), or it's parked and can't be resubmitted from here (contact Greenroom). Those aren't interchangeable — Greenroom only rolls a run back for refusals it has verified left nothing behind at the provider. See Processing Payroll.
A payroll run won't submit
Start with the message itself — Greenroom names what's blocking rather than failing generically, and Processing Payroll lists every block in the order they're checked. Two catch people out most often: every entry on the run is excluded (which is a different problem from an empty run and has a different fix), and the Check funding reconciliation doesn't balance (which has no override, deliberately).
If your company has Require a second approver turned on (Settings → Company — this is the default), a run needs approval from two different people before it can be submitted, and neither of them can be the person who prepared it. A common trap: editing a run after it's been approved resets its approvals, so a run you thought was ready to go may need to be re-approved after a last-minute change. If you're running a one-person show, this setting can be turned off in Settings.
"A submitted run can no longer be edited"
The run left Draft or In review while you had it open — usually because a colleague submitted it. Every edit is checked against the run's status at the moment it's written, under the run's own lock, so a change that arrives mid-submit is refused with this message instead of landing after the fact. Refresh to see the run's current status; if it has genuinely gone out, the correction is a new run (an amendment, once the original is paid). See Payroll Run Status.
A payee won't show up as ready for payroll
Being payroll-ready and being onboarding-approved are two separate, both-required gates — a payee needs both before they can join a run. Hover the status dot on the payee list, or open the payee and check the What's left for payroll card, to see exactly what's outstanding. The hard requirements are:
- A pay rate on file (not required for vendors, who bill per invoice)
- Required documents collected (varies by payee type)
- Tax setup resolved
A missing or pending tax-withholding status shows as a non-blocking advisory ("tax pending") rather than something that blocks payroll — Check, not Greenroom, is the system of record for that. Also worth checking: an archived payee can't join a new run at all — restore them first if they need to be paid again.
"Already uses that email" when adding a payee
Each email address can only belong to one active payee per company. Adding a payee with an email that's already in use returns a message naming the existing payee and their payee code, so you can tell whether it's a genuine duplicate (open that payee instead) or a retry after an earlier attempt seemed to fail. If the original payee was archived, their email is free to reuse — archiving isn't a delete, but it does release the email.
A payee's account-setup link doesn't work
The account-creation link Greenroom emails a payee expires. Once one has (or has already been used), opening it shows "This link isn't valid — it may have expired or already been used. Ask your employer to send a fresh invite." There's no self-service renewal — a company manager needs to open that payee's own page and resend the invite from there (see Resending an onboarding invite).
Bank or routing number rejected
Routing numbers aren't just checked for being 9 digits — they're checked against the actual bank routing-number checksum, so a plausible-looking but mistyped number is caught before it's saved ("That routing number doesn't pass the bank checksum — double-check it."). If you're confident the number is right and it's still rejected, double-check for a transposed digit rather than assuming the check itself is wrong.
Data seems to be missing
Almost always a filter. The payee list hides offboarded (archived) payees by default — switch on the Offboarded chip to see them. Search, type tabs, the Onboarding chip, and the Union/Onboarding filters all narrow the list further and stay applied until you clear them. See Filters and Search for the full list of what's filtering your view at any given time.
Getting help
When something needs a real person, email hello@greenroompayroll.com — the address the product itself uses everywhere it offers support. Include what you were trying to do, the exact error text if there was one, the ref code if you saw a "Something went wrong" card, and the relevant payee code or run code — all of them are visible on their respective pages and make it much faster to look up what happened.
Next steps
See Common Issues for everyday questions, Known Gaps for functionality that isn't built yet, or Filters and Search if what you're looking for seems to have disappeared.