Child Trust Payments
Configuring Coogan-style child trust accounts for minor performers
Child trust (also labeled Coogan in the product, after California's Coogan Law) sets aside part of a minor performer's earnings into a blocked trust account, the way many states require. It's a direction of payment, not a payee type — it rides alongside a payee's normal record rather than replacing it, and it only applies to minors paid for their own personal services.
Money movement isn't automated yet
Greenroom calculates the correct trust allocation every payroll run and keeps the trust's bank details on file, but nothing in the product today actually moves that money to the trust account — there's no automatic deposit or mailed check. Treat the amount Greenroom calculates as the number to act on, and handle the actual transfer to the trust account through your own banking process until that's automated.
Who this applies to
| Requirement | Detail |
|---|---|
| Payee type | Employee or loan-out only. Contractors and vendors are paid for professional services or goods, not personal services, so they can never carry a trust allocation. |
| Age | Under 18 as of the date in question. The moment a performer turns 18, payroll stops routing money to the trust automatically — see Turning 18 below. |
| Company state | The card only offers to set up a new trust when your company is based in a state with a statutory child-performer trust rate on file (see the table below). If your company's state isn't one of the four, the Child Trust card won't appear for a new setup even if a minor otherwise qualifies — contact Greenroom if you need one configured for an out-of-state production. |
A payee who already has a trust configured keeps seeing the card regardless of the state or age rules above — those rules only gate whether a new trust can be started.
Where it lives
There's no separate "Payment Details" tab or dedicated child-trust page — the payee detail page is one continuous scroll, and Child trust (Coogan) is one card in it, positioned after Representatives (and after the onboarding fork/payment summary, for a payee still being set up) and before Payment History. It renders in that same spot whether the payee is still being onboarded or already fully approved. Like every other section on the page, it saves through the single sticky save bar at the bottom — there's no separate "save the trust" step.
Supported states and rates
Greenroom currently has statutory child-performer trust rates on file for four states. All four are set at 15% of gross pay today:
| State | Citation |
|---|---|
| California | CA Labor Code §6750 (Coogan Law) |
| New York | NY Arts & Cultural Affairs §35.03 (Child Performer Trust) |
| New Mexico | NM Child Performer Act |
| Louisiana | LA R.S. 51:2131 et seq. |
The applicable rate is looked up from your company's state — not the minor's home state or the state where a particular engagement is performed. If your production is based in one of these four states, the statutory rate applies by default to every qualifying minor.
Setting up a trust account
Open the minor's payee detail page and scroll to the Child trust (Coogan) card. If nothing is configured yet, it explains that payroll will flag the statutory allocation as soon as a trust is added, with an Add trust account button. Selecting it opens the entry fields:
| Field | Notes |
|---|---|
| Trust account name | Required. |
| Trustee (parent/guardian) | Required. |
| Bank | Optional. |
| Rate override (%) | Optional. Leave blank to use the statutory rate for your state. |
| Routing number | The trust's bank routing number. |
| Account number | The trust's bank account number. |
| Active | Checked by default — unchecking it stops payroll from allocating to the trust without deleting the configuration (see Stopping a trust below). |
Routing and account numbers are encrypted at rest — only the last four digits are ever shown again once saved, the same PII handling used for the payee's own bank account.
Overriding the rate
Leaving the rate override blank applies your state's statutory percentage. You can enter a different percentage instead, but:
An override below the statutory rate needs contract backing
If you enter a rate lower than your state's statutory minimum, Greenroom shows a warning that the engagement contract needs to support it — compliance risk for going below the statutory floor sits with the production, not with Greenroom. An override at or above the statutory rate doesn't trigger this warning.
How the allocation is calculated
Each payroll run, Greenroom figures the trust's share as a percentage of that period's gross pay — the statutory rate, or your override if one is set. That amount then comes out of the payee's net check: the trust gets its share, and the remainder is what the performer (or guardian) actually receives. The payee's total net pay isn't changed by having a trust — the trust allocation is a split of it, not an add-on deduction.
If a period's net pay is too small to cover the full amount due — a short week, for example — Greenroom pays what it can into the trust and carries the shortfall forward, adding it to what's due on the next run. This continues until the balance is caught up, so a light week doesn't lose money for the trust; it just delays part of it.
If a shortfall is still outstanding when the performer turns 18, it won't automatically get caught up afterward — payroll stops generating trust lines for that payee the moment they age out. Check for any open balance before a minor's 18th birthday and settle it directly if needed.
Corrections (amendments to an already-paid run) never generate their own trust allocation — the original run already allocated its share, and any true-up happens when the trust funds are actually disbursed, not by recalculating the percentage against a correction.
Turning 18 stops it automatically
You don't need to remember to deactivate a trust when a performer ages out. Payroll checks the minor's date of birth against each run's pay period before allocating anything, so the run immediately after their 18th birthday simply won't include a trust line — even if the Active checkbox is still checked and the configuration is still on file.
Stopping a trust
There's no delete or "Remove Trust" action. To stop routing money to a trust before a performer turns 18 — a guardian's request, a court order change, a data-entry mistake — uncheck Active on the card and save. The configuration and its history stay on the payee's record; payroll simply stops allocating to it. Re-checking Active later resumes allocations under the same saved account details.
Reporting
Trust allocations show up as their own line on the payroll run, and roll up across a date range in reporting with the amount allocated, the amount due, and any running shortfall shown separately — so a shortfall carried from a light week stays visible until it's caught up.
Next steps
See Payment Details for how the payee's own payment method works, or continue to Running Payroll to see how trust allocations appear on a run.