Fees, Advances & Royalties
How Greenroom records a negotiated deal for SDC directors and USA 829 designers — the fee, the advance, the milestone schedule, and what reports as 1099-NEC versus 1099-MISC
Recording or changing a fee, advance, or royalty requires Admin or Payroll. Approvers can read the deal and its balances on the approved payee's record, but cannot edit them.
Most payees are paid by the week. A director, choreographer, or designer usually isn't. They negotiate a fee and an advance for the whole engagement, drawn down by dated milestones, plus a weekly royalty minimum once the show is running.
Greenroom records that deal on the payee's own record, and reports each part in the right 1099 box.
Setting this payee up is identical to any other payee: identity, engagement, pay rates, documents, payment method, and the same setup and payroll-readiness checks. What's different is one extra card on their record, the Fee, advance & royalty card, and only for the job titles listed below.
Who gets this treatment
The compensation model is a property of the job title, not of the payee or the union. Two people on the same SDC agreement can be on different models.
| Union | Titles on the fee/advance/royalty model | Titles on a weekly wage |
|---|---|---|
| SDC | Broadway: Director (Musical), Director (Dramatic), Choreographer, Director/Choreographer, Co-Director (Musical), Co-Director (Dramatic), Co-Choreographer. Off-Broadway: Director, Choreographer, Director/Choreographer. Off-Broadway Developmental: Choreographer, Director/Choreographer | Broadway: Associate Director or Choreographer (Musical), Associate Director (Dramatic). Off-Broadway: the associate and assistant directors and choreographers. Off-Broadway Developmental: those, and Director |
| USA 829 | Designer | Assistants |
Everybody else — every AEA performer, every IATSE title, every non-union payee — is on the weekly wage model, and the section described here does not appear on their record at all.
Associates and Assistants are paid weekly
They belong to the same fee unions, so it's easy to assume they take the same kind of deal. They don't: they're paid a weekly rate (on SDC Broadway, against a weekly minimum), and they are configured exactly like any other weekly payee. See Union Configuration.
Where to find it
Open the payee and look for the Fee, advance & royalty card. It renders on the record view — the read-only screen a fully onboarded payee opens into by default — below the Payment card and above Automatic union deductions and Payment history.
Because the card lives only on the record view, you can record a deal once the payee's setup has been approved, not before.
The card's subtitle names the agreement it's reading, for example SDC · Broadway — fee and advance by milestone, royalty weekly.
The three parts of a deal
| Part | What it is | Reports as |
|---|---|---|
| Fee | The negotiated total for the engagement | 1099-NEC |
| Advance | Money paid up front against future royalties | 1099-MISC |
| Royalty (weekly minimum) | The guaranteed weekly figure once the show runs — SDC's MWG, USA's AWC | Set per line at recoupment |
Payments recorded as already made count on the 1099 filing preview for the year they were paid: the fee part as 1099-NEC, the advance part as 1099-MISC, flagged there as paid outside Greenroom (our tax partner didn't pay it and won't file it). An installment Greenroom pays reaches the preview through its payroll line instead, so nothing is counted twice. A W-2 employee's fee recorded as paid outside is wages, not 1099 income, and is kept off those columns.
A payee marked W-9 not required is the exception. Their payroll lines carry no 1099 box, so an installment Greenroom pays them stays off the preview, while a payment recorded as already made still counts there. Reports as says so: the fee row reads "W-9 not required — out of the 1099 filing preview through payroll; 1099-NEC if paid outside Greenroom", the advance row the same with 1099-MISC, and the royalty row "W-9 not required — out of the 1099 filing preview".
The royalty's box is genuinely not fixed, and Greenroom says so rather than guessing. While the weekly payment is the guaranteed minimum it is compensation, and files as NEC. Once the advance has been recouped, the balance is a royalty and files as MISC. That decision is made per line on the payroll run, where the recoupment position is actually known — the run screen tells you the same thing at the point of entry.
You never pick NEC or MISC by hand. The obligation a payment is recorded against carries the box with it.
The milestone schedule
Under the obligations table, Greenroom shows the agreement's own default schedule — the milestones and the share of the fee that falls at each. It appears whether or not you've recorded a deal yet, because the structure is a fact about the agreement, not about the payee.
| Agreement | Default milestones |
|---|---|
| SDC Broadway | On signing · Start of rehearsal week 1 · Start of rehearsal week 2 · Start of rehearsal week 3 (no later than one week before the first performance) |
| SDC Off-Broadway | Signing or first audition day (whichever is first) · First day of rehearsal · First paid public performance |
| USA 829 Broadway | Signing · Acceptance of designs · Opening |
| USA 829 Development | Designer signing · Acceptance of designs · Opening |
SDC Broadway's are four equal quarters, as its agreement says (25% on signing, then the balance in three equal payments); the others are equal thirds. Any odd cent falls on the last installment so the parts sum exactly to the fee. Once you record a fee, the shares are replaced by real dollar amounts.
On SDC Broadway the agreement treats the advance as part of the fee, so each default payment shows a Fee part and an Advance part, and the card says: "Greenroom pays only the fee through payroll. When the production pays an advance part, add it as its own installment under Payment already made."
The schedule is a default, not a rule
Agents routinely negotiate off-CBA schedules, and the card says so on screen. The milestones shown are what the agreement specifies — the actual contract in front of you governs. Greenroom never auto-detects a milestone; a general manager confirms and dates each one.
Recording the deal
Click Record the contract on the card.
| Field | Notes |
|---|---|
| Fee | The negotiated total. |
| Advance | Enter 0 if the deal has none — that's an answer, and Greenroom treats it differently from leaving it blank. |
A deal needs at least one of the two. You can record a fee-only contract; you can't record a contract that is neither.
Adding an installment
The same form has an optional Add an installment block, with two choices for who pays it:
- Payment already made: "The production paid it directly. Greenroom records it." This exists because the first fee and advance payment is very often made before the production has run any payroll at all.
- Greenroom pays this: "Added to an off-cycle run dated on or after its due date, with Add due fees." See Off-Cycle Payroll.
| Field | Notes |
|---|---|
| Milestone | The label for this installment. |
| Paid on / Due on | The date the production paid it, or the date Greenroom pays it. |
| Against the fee | How much of this installment draws down the fee. |
| Against the advance | How much draws down the advance. |
The installment is the sum of the two amounts, so every dollar of it is allocated. This isn't bookkeeping fussiness: the allocation is what carries the 1099 box onto the money. Greenroom pays only the fee part through payroll, so an installment Greenroom pays must have some of it against the fee and none against the advance; record an advance part as a payment already made, once the production pays it.
The form checks the figures before it saves. If payments against the fee or the advance would add up to more than the contract says, Save stays disabled with "Payments against the fee add up to more than the fee on the contract. Lower a payment or raise the fee." (or the same for the advance), and the server refuses it again if anything slips past.
Once saved, the button becomes Record a payment, and the card shows how many installments are on file. Saving keeps every installment already on file: the form lists them under Installments on file, each with its status (for example Paid outside Greenroom, Due, On [run], or Paid on [run]), and you can tick Remove on save beside one that isn't attached to a payroll yet. One that a payroll is using is locked.
Reading the balances
The obligations table shows three numbers per row:
- Total — what the contract says this part is worth.
- Remaining — the total less everything allocated against it. It is worked out from the recorded payments every time the page loads, never stored, so it can't drift out of step with the payments beneath it.
- Reports as — the 1099 box, as above, or, for a payee marked W-9 not required, which payments the preview leaves out.
With no payments recorded, Remaining equals Total. That's correct, not a placeholder.
What's still missing from the deal
Before anything is recorded, the card reads No contract structure yet: "Their fee and advance haven't been recorded. The schedule below is what this agreement specifies — record the deal to draw it down."
Once a deal is recorded, a missing half is listed under the table in plain words:
- The fee is missing from this contract structure.
- The advance is unanswered — record it, or record it as zero if there is none.
These notes are reminders. They don't hold the payee back from setup or from payroll, and nothing else on the page waits for them. A fee payee goes through the same setup and payroll-readiness checks as any other payee, including the pay rate those checks ask for: see Payee Onboarding and Role & Pay.
What isn't built yet
- Greenroom pays only the fee part, and only on an off-cycle run. An advance part is always recorded as paid outside Greenroom.
- The weekly royalty isn't priced from this card. Royalty minimums are applied on the payroll run against the union's rate table, the same way any other union minimum is.
- A second contract for the same payee can't be recorded separately. The ledger identifies obligations per payee, not per contract.
Related
- Union initiation contributions — the one-time Health and Pension an SDC director's contract triggers at signing — are a different ledger, going to a fund rather than to the payee. See Union Obligations.
- 1099 boxes and which payee types are MISC-capable: Payee Types — Detailed Guide.
- Loading the SDC and USA 829 rate tables: Union Rates Reference. The rates on file: SDC Broadway, USA 829 Broadway.
Common questions
I don't see the Fee, advance & royalty card on my director's record. Three things to check, in order: their engagement's job title must be one of the fee titles listed above (an Associate title won't show it, and neither does Director on SDC's Off-Broadway Developmental agreement); their setup must have been approved, since the card lives on the read-only record view rather than the edit screen; and they must have a union engagement on file at all.
Why does the Remaining column show the full amount? Because no payment has been allocated against it yet. Record the payment, and Remaining drops.
Can I change the milestone labels? The schedule shown is the agreement's default and isn't editable in place. When you record a payment you type your own milestone label, which is what appears against that installment.
What if my contract has a different number of installments? The default schedule is a display of what the agreement specifies (four for SDC Broadway, three for the others), not a constraint on what you can record. Add each installment with its own milestone label and amount.
The royalty row says "Set per line at recoupment" — what do I do? Nothing here. It's decided on the payroll run, per line, where the recoupment position is known. The run screen states the rule at the point you enter the money.