Greenroom | Navigation and Interface

Greenroom's navigation lives in two places: a sidebar on the left that never moves, and a thin bar across the top for context that changes with where you are. There's no separate top navigation menu bar — the sidebar is the main navigation.

Every section of the product you use day to day is one click away in the left sidebar. Dashboard sits at the top on its own, and the rest are grouped under three small headings, People, Pay, and Company:

Group	Item	What's there
	Dashboard	Your production's snapshot and status
People	Payees	Employees, loan-outs, contractors, and vendors
People	Packets	The document templates payees sign during onboarding
Pay	Run Payroll	Start or resume the current payroll run
Pay	History	Every past payroll run
Pay	Obligations	One-time contract charges owed outside a run — see Union Obligations
Pay	Invoices	Greenroom's platform-fee invoices to your production (No invoices yet until the first one is issued)
Company	Union Studio	Union agreements and effective-dated rate rules — see Union Studio Versions and Publishing
Company	Reports	Payroll register, remittance, QuickBooks package (QBD), consolidated register, 1099 preview
Company	Settings	Company, team, chart of accounts, and account preferences

If you're an Admin, Company setup sits at the very top of the sidebar, above Dashboard, since it's the first thing to finish. It's there until Greenroom approves your company. After approval the same stages live on as Settings tabs (Company, Banking & payment, and Unions), and the item stays only while a required setup answer is still missing, opening the tab that holds the first one. It leaves the sidebar once everything is answered, or once one of your payrolls is paying out or paid (see Finishing setup after approval). Payroll and Approver teammates don't see the Company setup sidebar item.

Until payroll is unlocked, Run Payroll is greyed out with a small lock. Hover it to see why (for example, that Greenroom still needs to review your company); clicking it opens a page that explains what's still needed.

Our tax partner's final review alone doesn't lock Run Payroll: you can prepare a run while that review is pending, and submission waits until it finishes.

Illustrative — an Admin's sidebar before Greenroom approves the company, and once it's approved with setup finished, from the Greenroom app

None of this applies if you're a super admin, which no company manager is: Greenroom staff work in a separate console mode instead of a company's regular sidebar. Opening the app drops them into the Greenroom admin console (Review queue, Companies, All payees, All payrolls, Check mailing, Health, Sanctions) with no company nav at all; clicking "View as" on a specific company from there swaps the sidebar to that company's normal nav, headed by the company's name, with a back link labelled Greenroom admin above it to leave. The two never show at once, and a super admin's top bar shows a Superadmin portal badge where a manager's company switcher would be.

The sidebar collapses to icons-only with the arrow at its bottom edge, if you'd rather have the screen space; hover a collapsed icon to see its label. Your preference is remembered on that device.

The top bar

The top bar is deliberately thin. From left to right:

On mobile, a menu icon that opens the sidebar as a slide-in panel.
The company switcher — click it to see every company you have access to, jump between them, or start a new one with Create company. It's there even if you only manage a single company today, ready for when you add a second. If Greenroom can't tell which of your companies to open, it asks you first (see Choosing a company).
On the right, while your company is unapproved: a status chip (for example, "Approval pending" or "Changes requested") that links to Company setup.
On the right, whenever a payroll run is in progress: a pill reading Payroll in progress with its run code and status, linking straight back into it.

The chip and the pill only show on wider screens; on a phone, the Dashboard carries the same information.

There's no separate notifications bell or top-right account menu — your account info and sign-out live at the bottom of the sidebar instead (see below).

Choosing a company

When Greenroom can't tell which of your companies you mean, it asks on a page headed Choose a company:

If you work in more than one company and none of them is open in this browser, it reads "You work in more than one company."
If the company last open in this browser is no longer one you can work in, because your access to it was removed, for example, it reads "The company last open in this browser is not one you can work in any more."

Either way, it continues "Choose the one to open. If you were saving a change, it was not saved: make it again once the company is open." Until you choose, every page you open takes you there first. So does saving a change from a page that was already open, and the change isn't saved. Each company you can work in is a button with its name and, if it has one, its show name. Choosing one opens that company on the page you were going to, or back on the page you were saving from. This browser keeps it open after that, as it does a company you pick from the company switcher.

Breadcrumbs

Breadcrumbs only show up on pages with real depth — a payee's detail page, a specific payroll run, a company detail page in the admin console — not on top-level pages like Dashboard or Payees, where they'd just repeat what the sidebar already tells you. They're short: typically a section name and the item you're on, for example Payees / Jordan Alvarez or History / GR-2026-0041. The last item is plain text, never a link, since it's where you already are.

Tabs and step-by-step flows

A few pages organize content into tabs or steps instead of one long page:

Page	Structure
Payees list	Tabs to filter by type: All, Employees, Loan-outs, Contractors, Vendors
A payee's page	Two tabs: Details, the payee's record, and Pay statements
Reports	Two tabs: Reports, with the report cards, and Pay statements
Settings	Admin: Me, Company, Chart of accounts, QuickBooks, Team, Activity; plus Banking & payment and Unions after company approval. Payroll and Approver: Me, Team, Activity
Run Payroll	A 5-step bar: Employees & Loan-outs, Vendors & Contractors, Payroll Summary, Union Reports, Submit Payroll. A run with nothing union on it, at a company with no union contract, has four: no Union Reports

Illustrative — the Settings tab bar an Admin sees after approval, from the Greenroom app.

A payee's Details tab is worth calling out: it's one continuous scroll, not a tab for each section — see Payee Onboarding for how that page is actually organized.

As an Admin or Payroll teammate, you can open the first two Run Payroll steps. Payroll Summary opens once the Employees and Vendors steps are complete, and Union Reports, where the run has it, once the run is in review. Submit Payroll opens at the same point, unless a union report is still missing the hours worked it bills on. Marking the union reports reviewed is optional and doesn't hold it back. Hover a locked step for what's still needed, for example "Enter hours worked on the union reports first".

As an Approver, you can read Payroll Summary at any stage and open Submit Payroll when the run is ready for it. The editing steps are disabled with "Your role reviews and approves payroll. Someone with Payroll or Admin edits it." Run Payroll leads you to the payroll in progress instead of a date picker.

On Submit Payroll, review and tick the attestation before approving. The final required approval submits automatically; if it is refused, a reviewer whose approval still counts can retry submission or use Resume submit when offered.

Getting to these docs from the app

At the foot of the sidebar, just above your name, a Need help? / Read our docs link opens this documentation site in a new tab — deliberately, since the question usually arrives mid-payroll-run or mid-onboarding form, and navigating a wizard away would lose the work in progress. It's in both the manager sidebar and the payee portal's, and it's there whether the sidebar is expanded or collapsed to icons.

Your account and signing out

Your name, your Admin, Payroll, or Approver role on this company, and a sign-out button live at the bottom of the sidebar — click sign out and you're immediately logged out, no confirmation dropdown involved. To change your name, email, or manage two-factor authentication and passkeys, go to Settings → Me (covered in Authentication & Recovery Codes).

On a narrow screen, the sidebar becomes a slide-in panel triggered by the menu icon in the top bar. It's the same grouped list of sections as the desktop sidebar, with nothing hidden behind expandable sub-menus: tapping a section takes you straight there and closes the panel.

Keyboard basics

Standard browser behavior works throughout: Tab moves between fields, Enter submits forms or activates the focused button, and Esc closes open menus, dropdowns, and popovers (including the company switcher and filter panels) and puts you back on the button that opened them. When a list is open inside a dialog, the first Esc closes only the list; the next one closes the dialog. Opening the Payees Filter panel moves you into its first control.

Quick actions

Buttons for common actions sit beside the work. Every role can use Export CSV and Filter on the Payees list. Admin and Payroll also get Add payee and Import CSV, and Run payroll or Resume payroll on the Dashboard. An Approver gets Review payroll when the open run is in review, or Open payroll at another stage.

Getting help

Most forms show plain help text under a field when it needs explaining, right where you're filling it in. Where a field needs a longer explanation, mostly in Company setup (your unemployment account number, the bank you choose, the authorized signer), a small ? beside its label shows it when you hover or tap. One dedicated helper is worth knowing about: on the New payee page, a "Not sure? See examples" link beside Tax classification opens a "Which type should I choose?" panel walking through Employee vs. Loan-out vs. Contractor vs. Vendor if you're not sure which applies.

Next steps

Now that you know your way around, head to Dashboard Overview to learn what's on your dashboard, or start Payee Onboarding to build your roster.

Navigation and Interface

The sidebar