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
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.
Every other part of setting this payee up is identical to any other payee — identity, engagement, documents, payment method. Only the Pay section is different, 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 | Director (Musical), Director (Dramatic), Choreographer, Director/Choreographer, Co-Director (Musical), Co-Director (Dramatic), Co-Choreographer | Associate Director or Choreographer (Musical), Associate Director (Dramatic) |
| 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 take a weekly minimum
They belong to the same fee unions, so it's easy to assume they take the same kind of deal. They don't: their agreements give them a weekly rate, 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 their representation summary and above their payment details.
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 |
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 | First rehearsal day · First paid public performance · Per contract terms (often at opening) |
| 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 | Signing · Acceptance of designs · Opening |
Each is an equal third, with any odd cent falling 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.
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.
Recording a payment that has already been made
The same form has an optional Payment already made block. This exists because the first fee and advance payment is very often made before the production has run any payroll at all.
| Field | Notes |
|---|---|
| Milestone | The label for this payment, defaulting to On signing. |
| Paid on | The date the production actually paid it. |
| Against the fee | How much of this payment draws down the fee. |
| Against the advance | How much draws down the advance. |
The two allocation amounts must add up to the whole payment. This isn't bookkeeping fussiness: the allocation is what carries the 1099 box onto the money. A payment allocated to nothing reports as nothing.
Greenroom refuses a payment that draws down more than the obligation is worth, and says which one is over.
Greenroom does not move this money. Everything recorded here is a record of a payment the production already made directly. Nothing on this card causes a disbursement.
Once saved, the button becomes Record a payment, and the card shows how many payments are on file.
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.
With no payments recorded, Remaining equals Total. That's correct, not a placeholder.
When the payee is ready
Two gates apply to a fee payee, and they are deliberately set at different heights:
| Gate | What it needs |
|---|---|
| Ready to send to the payee | At least one obligation exists — any deal at all |
| Ready for payroll | A fee and an advance are both recorded, no obligation is over-drawn, and every payment is fully allocated |
So you can invite someone to complete their own onboarding as soon as there's a deal, well before you've finished pinning the split.
Anything still outstanding is listed under the table in plain words:
- No contract structure yet — this payee needs a fee or an advance.
- The fee is missing from this contract structure.
- The advance is unanswered — record it, or record it as zero if there is none.
- The [fee/advance] is over-drawn — its installments exceed the agreed total.
- An installment is not fully allocated across the fee and the advance.
What isn't built yet
- Greenroom doesn't pay these out. Every payment recorded here is
prepay_recorded— money the production moved itself. Disbursement through Greenroom is a separate piece of work. - 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.
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); they must be fully onboarded, 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 four installments, not three? Record the payments as they actually happen with your own milestone labels — the default schedule is a display of what the agreement specifies, not a constraint on what you can record. A four-way split is a known open question with the client and is not yet reflected in the defaults.
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.