Company Setup Introduction
Getting started with company setup in Greenroom
Before you can run real payroll, Greenroom needs a complete picture of your production and has to review and approve it. While the company is waiting for approval, Admin and Payroll teammates can start adding payees and building onboarding packets, and every company role can explore the ordinary reports. QuickBooks package actions require Admin.
An Admin completes company setup and submits it for review. Payroll and Approver teammates don't see the setup forms; before approval, opening Company Setup directly tells them Your admins set up the company. Your role on the current company appears under your name in the sidebar.
Approval is also the moment Greenroom registers your company with our tax partner, which funds and files your payroll. Until then, every answer in Company Setup stays editable.
This page describes Company Setup — a checklist you fill out once, not a settings area you return to often. For ongoing changes after setup (updating your address, changing pay frequency, and so on), see Settings vs. Company Setup below.
Starting a new company
Creating a company only asks for three things: Company name (required), Show name (optional — e.g., "The Tempest"), and FEIN (optional; you can add it later). As soon as you save, you're taken straight to Company Setup — it's the natural next step, not a detour.
Right after you create a company, Greenroom tells you up front that our tax partner's company validation takes 24–48 hours and has to finish before payroll can run — and that new companies start on the default processing window with a slower funding timeline, with faster options unlocking after roughly 10 successfully funded payrolls. None of that blocks setup itself; it's just timeline-setting for what happens after you submit for review.
Where to find it
Company Setup lives in an Admin’s left-hand navigation as its own item, labeled Company setup — it isn't a tab inside Settings. It sits at the very top of the nav, above Dashboard, until Greenroom approves your company. After approval the same stages live in Settings, and Company setup's address takes you there (see Settings vs. Company Setup). The nav item stays after approval only while a required answer is still missing, and then opens the Settings tab that holds the first one. It goes once everything is answered, or once one of your payrolls is paying out or paid (see Finishing setup after approval).
The five setup stages
Company Setup is a checklist of five stages, presented as a step-by-step wizard with a clickable stepper at the top. It opens on the first stage you haven't finished; jump to any stage directly, or use Back and Save and continue to move through them in order. Save and continue saves the stage you're on before it advances, and stays put with the reason shown if that save is refused. A stage you didn't change usually saves nothing new. Once connected, Business info can resend the saved company details, and State tax registrations re-sends answers our tax partner still needs. There's no requirement to finish one before opening another.
| Stage | What it covers |
|---|---|
| Business info | Company name, FEIN, business address (with an optional apartment or unit line), business type, phone, website, expected payee count, expected first-payroll date, pay frequency, and (optional) d/b/a name and nonprofit status |
| Production & unions | Your production type (Broadway / Off-Broadway / Development), whether you run under union contracts, and the contract for each union you add |
| Bank & checks | The payroll funding account, your starting check number, and, when mailing is enabled, the account for printed checks and the signatures on checks |
| State tax registrations | Your New York withholding deposit schedule, EFT PIN, and commuter-tax (MCTMT) answers; unemployment fields appear once your first employee exists with our tax partner |
| Payroll signer and history | The authorized signer who e-signs the payroll tax filing authorizations, and whether anyone on the production was already paid through another payroll provider this year |
Each stage shows a one-line status under its heading (for example, "Add the funding account" or "Answers saved — sent to our tax partner at approval"), so you can see what's outstanding the moment you open it. Two stages say it in the form instead: an unfinished Business info lists what's left just above its fields, and Bank & checks shows where your account stands on its Funding account card. Once you attempt to finish setup, any incomplete required stage turns into an error state in the stepper and in a summary you can jump from directly.
Pay frequency (on Business info) defaults to Weekly and the starting check number (on Bank & checks) defaults to #5001 the moment your company is created, so neither needs your attention unless yours differ. After approval, both are edited in Settings: pay frequency under Payroll and approvals on Company, the check number on Banking & payment. Pay frequency is what Greenroom reports to our tax partner; Greenroom itself always processes payroll weekly.
See General Information, Union Setup, Bank Setup, and Tax Configuration for the details of the first four stages. The fifth, Payroll signer and history, is covered below and in Tax Authorization Forms.
The two cards above the stepper
Two cards at the top of the page report what our tax partner holds for your company:
- State tax registration status says whether our tax partner has confirmed your New York tax details: State tax details confirmed, Not sent yet (nothing is sent until Greenroom approves your setup), or Sent to our tax partner with the number of items still pending and their names. Once your company is connected, Retry tax sync is available while registration is unconfirmed or a sync has failed, and if our tax partner rejected something it shows the response it sent back.
- Payroll setup tasks lists anything our tax partner still needs from you, each marked Blocks payroll or Payroll can continue, with a button to the screen where you fix it. Bank ownership document tasks point to Open Bank & checks, where an Admin can use Upload documents when available. Other tasks are Greenroom's to handle: document requests list what is accepted and say Greenroom will contact you to collect it; other such tasks say "Greenroom will contact you about this task." Before approval it reads "After setup is approved, any remaining tasks appear here."
The Payroll signer and history stage
This stage asks two things.
The year-to-date question. Has anyone on this production been paid through another payroll provider this year?, and after a Yes, Who ran this production's payroll before Greenroom? (a searchable list that starts with "Nobody — this is our first payroll" and ends with "Somewhere else" for anyone not listed). Wages already paid this year have to be carried across, or people can be over-withheld and you can pay employer taxes twice on the same wages. If the answer is yes, Greenroom asks you to email your year-to-date figures so it can load them for you, before your first payroll is approved: after that, our tax partner stops accepting them through the app. You can change your answer before approval. After approval, you can still answer if no answer is saved for the current tax year; changing an answer already saved for that year requires Greenroom.
The authorized signer. Save their first name, last name, email, and a title (Authorized Signer is the default, alongside Owner, Member, Member Manager, Manager, Managing Director, Officer, Partner, and General Partner). It's typically the producer or managing member, and they don't need a Greenroom account. Before approval, saving the signer doesn't contact our tax partner: you'll see "Signer saved. We send it to our tax partner when Greenroom approves your setup." Greenroom creates your company with our tax partner when it approves your setup, and only then do the two ways to reach the tax-filing signature ceremony appear: Email signing link or Open in my browser. Until approval, the signer card reads "Available after Greenroom approves your setup". Change signer updates the signer details saved in Greenroom. After approval, an email already on file with our tax partner selects that existing signer; a new email creates a signer there. Editing the name or title for an existing email does not update our tax partner's record. Switching to a different signer ends the previous signing link; send the newly selected signer a fresh one. The previous signer stays on our tax partner's record, because Greenroom can't remove a signer there, and the card names anyone there besides your saved signer (see Sending the Signer Link). Open in my browser works only when your signed-in email matches the saved signer. If several signers are on file, sending asks who should receive the link; choosing someone else makes them the saved signer. The signatures printed on the checks we mail aren't on this stage: they're Signatures on checks on Bank & checks (Settings → Banking & payment after approval), where a company can keep several signers and require two. See Signatures on checks.
See Tax Authorization Forms for how that ceremony works, or Sending the Signer Link for the signer's own side of it — link delivery, the embedded ceremony, the payroll debit authorization that follows it, and what happens if it fails. Once you've saved a signer, this stage counts as done on your checklist even though the signature comes after approval. After approval, the card tracks tax forms and payroll debit authorization separately, shows the executed forms once signed, and includes a Before your first payroll checklist naming who has to act on each remaining item. After a payroll has run, its heading is Before your next payroll. If only debit authorization remains, the send control moves to that line and names the signer, for example Resend Tegan the link. There is no send control once both authorizations are complete.
Submitting for review
When every required stage is filled in, Submit for review lights up on the last stage, at the foot of the wizard (the page header shows your status, not the button). Until then it's greyed out with the tooltip "Finish every required step before submitting for review"; click it anyway and a summary headed Finish these required steps to submit for review appears, each unfinished step a link that jumps to it. While the button is off, a line above the stepper names the stages still missing something, for example "To submit for review, finish Business info, State tax registrations below. Greenroom approves your company before payroll unlocks." It disappears once Submit works.
State tax registrations counts as done as soon as your New York answers are saved. Nothing goes to our tax partner before approval, so until then the stage reads Answers saved — sent to our tax partner at approval (a demo company, which is never sent, reads Answers saved — a demo company is not sent to our tax partner). Our tax partner's confirmation comes after approval, and some fields wait for your first employee's setup to be approved. An unconfirmed registration status alone does not lock payroll. A jurisdiction or task that our tax partner explicitly reports as blocking still does.
After you submit, the wizard shows Setup submitted for review and your answers stay editable below it until Greenroom approves your setup. Meanwhile it suggests adding payees or uploading your chart of accounts; the signing link only goes out after approval. A company that's suspended sees This company is suspended ("Payroll is paused while the account is suspended. Contact Greenroom to reactivate.") in place of that card, and no Submit button.
| Status you'll see | What it means |
|---|---|
| Not submitted | Setup isn't finished, or you haven't submitted yet |
| Under Greenroom review | Submitted — Greenroom is reviewing your company |
| Changes requested | The reviewer left notes (shown right on this page) — address them and resubmit |
Once Greenroom approves, the Company Setup page gives way to Settings: its address takes you there, and the Payroll setup tasks and State tax registration status cards move to Settings → Company. The tasks card sits just above Payroll signer and history and identifies actual blockers, such as funding verification, debit authorization, or a blocking jurisdiction; a setup task with no more specific direction says "Complete it in the setup sections on this page." there instead of offering a button. The tax status card sits just above State tax registrations, only while there's something to send: a send that failed, or an answer our tax partner hasn't confirmed and can take now. An unconfirmed status is a warning, not a payroll lock.
When the review ends, Greenroom sends your company's users an email: "Your company is approved" ("Your practice company is approved" for a practice company), or "Changes requested for [company]" with the reviewer's notes.
When Greenroom approves, it creates your company with our tax partner and sends your business details, bank account, New York registrations, and signer in the same step. If our tax partner rejects one of your values (a New York account number, say), approval stops there until that value is corrected on State tax registrations.
Greenroom automatically sends your company for our tax partner's final review once its setup is ready. This is separate from Greenroom's approval. While only that final review is pending, you can prepare payroll, send it for approval, and record approvals; submitting payroll to our tax partner waits until the review is done. The signer-stage checklist shows Our tax partner's final review as Not started, In review, or Done; Not confirmed means Greenroom still needs its status.
Company approval is required before real payroll can run; our tax partner may still have blocking tasks to clear afterward. Your role's setup, payee, packet, and ordinary reporting actions work before approval — Admin and Payroll teammates can start onboarding payees while Greenroom reviews the company.
Settings vs. Company Setup
These are two different places, and mixing them up is the most common source of confusion:
- Company Setup (
Company setupin the nav) is the approval checklist described on this page. It's in the nav until Greenroom approves your company, and after that only while a required answer is still missing. - Settings (
Settingsin the nav) is where you manage the company on an ongoing basis. Before approval an Admin sees six tabs: Me (your own profile, sign-in, and two-factor recovery codes), Company (show name, first paid public performance, the funding timeline, and the approval switches), Chart of accounts (your GL codes), QuickBooks (export account mapping and chart-of-accounts upload), Team (who has access), and Activity (an audit log of changes).
After approval, setup moves into Settings. Company setup's address takes you to Settings. Company then holds the business details, payroll details, state tax registrations and the payroll signer and history, in four groups that show what's saved first, each with an Edit that opens its form in place, and two more tabs appear for Admins: Banking & payment (funding account, account for printed checks, starting check number, and signatures on checks), and Unions (production type and union contracts). They hold the same forms as the wizard, each with its own Save, and the same locks after approval. See Company Settings.
Payroll and Approver teammates see Me, Team, and Activity. Team lets them see who their Admins are; only an Admin can invite teammates or change their roles or access. A link to an Admin-only Settings tab opens Me for someone without that access.
Pricing is one more tab, but only Greenroom staff see it
A Pricing tab exists in the same Settings area, showing a read-only look at plan costs — but it's filtered out for anyone who isn't a Greenroom super admin. Company managers have no decision to make there.
So there's one place to edit each fact at a time. Before approval, every Business info field (company name, FEIN, address, business type, phone, website, d/b/a, nonprofit status, expected payee count, expected first-payroll date, pay frequency) is edited on the Business info stage here; after approval, in the Business info and Payroll and approvals groups of Settings → Company, where whatever the stage locks after approval stays locked.
Production type is locked once you're approved
Production type is editable on the Production & unions stage, but only until Greenroom approves your company. After approval it shows, locked, on Settings → Unions. After approval it reprices every future platform fee, so changing it becomes a request to your Greenroom contact rather than a self-service edit. It also decides which unions and contracts the Production & unions stage offers you.
Best practices
- Fill in Business info and Bank & checks first — they unblock the most (payees can't be paid without them). Business info needs a website too; your producer's or general manager's will do.
- Answer every New York question on State tax registrations before you submit. Our tax partner won't accept your signer's signature until New York setup is far enough along, and approval itself stops if it rejects one of your values.
- Save the authorized signer before you submit. Greenroom can't approve a company without one, and the signing link only goes out once you're approved, so the sooner the signer is on file, the sooner they can sign.
- If you're not sure whether something is missing, open each stage and read the one-line status under its heading.
Common setup issues
A stage won't show as done
Re-open it and read what it says is missing. On Business info that's the "Still needed to finish this step" line above the fields (for example, "Business type, Phone"), and it's a check that the fields are filled in, not that they're correct; nothing there is validated against outside records. It includes missing City, State, and ZIP along with the other required fields. State tax registrations is done once your answers are saved; after approval it tracks our tax partner instead and is done only once it confirms your New York details. Bank & checks is done once an account and a starting check number are saved, and its Funding account card reports where our tax partner's verification stands.
Submit for review is greyed out
The line above the stepper names the stages still missing something. Hover the button for the tooltip ("Finish every required step before submitting for review"), or click it to see each unfinished step, with what it's missing and a link straight to it.
Changes requested after submitting
Read the reviewer's note (it's in the Changes requested email, and displays directly on the Company Setup page, under "Greenroom requested changes"), fix what it describes, and use Resubmit for review — you don't need to redo stages that weren't flagged.
Company setup is still in the nav after approval
A required answer is still missing. The nav item opens the Settings tab that holds the first one, and the Dashboard's Finish company setup card names every stage still needed. Both go once those are answered. See Finishing setup after approval.
The signing link buttons are missing
Before approval the signer card shows "Available after Greenroom approves your setup" in their place. The link can only go out once Greenroom has created your company with our tax partner, which happens at approval. After approval, look on the payroll-debit line if the forms are already signed. When both authorizations are complete, the card no longer offers a send control.
My edits disappeared when I moved to another stage
The button that moves you forward is Save and continue on every stage that has something to save, and it writes your edits before it moves — or stays on the stage and shows why if the save is refused. Back and the stepper don't save: they go straight to the other stage, and anything you hadn't saved on the stage you left is dropped. Each stage's own save button (Save business info, Save contracts, Save bank details, Save registrations, and so on) saves it too.
Next steps
Continue with General Information for Business info, then Union Setup, Bank Setup, and Tax Configuration for state tax registration. See Tax Authorization Forms for how the tax-filing signature actually gets set up with our tax partner.