Payee Management Introduction
Understanding payee types and management in Greenroom
Payees are the individuals and entities you pay through Greenroom. Understanding payee types and the payee lifecycle is essential for accurate payroll processing and compliance.
Admin and Payroll teammates can add, edit, onboard, approve, archive, and restore payees. Approver teammates can read the payee list and a limited payee record, but cannot change it, open private payee documents, or reveal full tax ID or bank numbers. An SSN is never revealed in full on any Greenroom screen.
Payee Types
Greenroom supports four payee types, each with different tax treatment and processing workflows.
| Type | Definition | Tax Treatment | Payment Workflow |
|---|---|---|---|
| Employee | Worker hired directly by production; you control their work and schedule | W-2 with all taxes withheld | Employees & Loan-outs step |
| Loan-Out | Worker whose services are provided through their own LLC or corporation | 1099 (corporate); no taxes withheld | Employees & Loan-outs step |
| Contractor | Individual or business providing labor or creative services | 1099; no taxes withheld | Vendors & Contractors step |
| Vendor | Individual or business providing goods, rentals, or operational services | 1099. A vendor marked W-9 not required (many vendors qualify) has their payroll payments left out of Greenroom's 1099 filing preview from then on (details) | Vendors & Contractors step |
Tip: If you're unsure which payee type to use, see Payee Types Detailed Guide for comprehensive guidance on classification. The New payee page also has a built-in "Not sure? See examples" helper with the same guidance, next to the Tax classification cards.
Payee type is set when you create the payee and can't be changed afterward — there's no "change type" control anywhere on the payee's page. If you picked the wrong type, archive the record (see Archiving Payees) and add a new one with the correct type.
Payee Lifecycle
Every payee moves through a standard lifecycle from creation to active status.
| Stage | Description |
|---|---|
| 1. Adding | Create a payee record on the New payee page: the engagement and its tax classification, then name and contact. The record then opens at Representation and Pay, for any representative and the pay rates. Address and tax ID come later, in finish setup. No invitation goes out at this step. See Adding Payees. |
| 2. Onboarding | A manager fills in engagement, pay, allowances, and deductions on the payee's page, then assigns a start-work packet (tax forms, payment method, signed documents) and either completes it themselves or sends it to the payee. Finish and approve approves a setup completed by Admin or Payroll regardless of the automatic-approval setting, unless approval is refused. Packets submitted by payees are approved automatically unless an Admin turns that setting off. See Payee Onboarding. |
| 3. Active | Payroll readiness is the checklist of what's left for payroll, and the manager's approval of the payee's setup is one of its items (approval also creates the payee with our tax partner if their own setup hasn't already), so a payee is never Payroll-ready before they're approved. A new payroll run includes a payee who is approved and has an active pay rate, or who is on Contract / invoice-based payment, and a minor only once their child trust is signed and set up; vendors are added to a run as vendor payments. The readiness checklist names what else still needs doing, and it also reads what payroll itself holds the payee on: a minor's child trust, a representative's full-payment authorization (a Greenroom admin's review, without which the run can't be submitted — see What can block submitting), a direct deposit account our tax partner can't pay, what our tax partner's record of the payee still needs, and, for a paper check, a signed manual payment certification. So the checklist no longer reads complete while one of those holds payroll. An approved payee's record shows each of them on its Onboarding rail (see The Onboarding rail). |
| 4. Management | Update information, manage documents, configure payments, maintain tax settings |
| 5. Archival | Archive payees no longer active; historical payroll data is retained. There's no separate "delete" — archiving is the only removal action, and it's fully reversible. |
Payee Detail Sections
A payee's page has two tabs, Details and Pay statements (see A payee's Pay statements tab). For Admin and Payroll, the payee editor on Details is one continuous scroll, not a tab for each section. The sections below render in this order during onboarding. After approval, the record opens as a read-only summary with Edit to return to the form (see An approved payee's record); identity fields lock after approval. Approvers stay in the limited read-only view.
| Section | What it covers |
|---|---|
| Engagement & union | Union and agreement, job title (or a custom Alt job title), a department for a union that uses a department list, and effective start date. Choosing the AEA job title Actor/Musician reveals a required Sub-type. Changing the union here end-dates the current engagement and opens a new one rather than editing in place. See Union Configuration. |
| Personal info (Business info for a loan-out or vendor) | Legal name (business name for a loan-out or vendor), email, and phone. Once the payee is approved, this section also shows date of birth, tax ID, and mailing address. |
| Representation | Agent, manager, business manager, attorney, or other representative assignments, fee splits, and payment-direction authorization. See Representatives & Payment Direction. |
| Pay, allowances & deductions | Pay rates (weekly, hourly, or an 8/10/12-hour day), per diem/housing/other allowances, taxable earnings, and any deduction lines. For a union engagement, an Automatic union deductions card between allowances and deductions shows the dues and contributions the agreement computes on every payroll. For an Actor/Musician, an 802 Reportable Wage card also renders inside Pay, below the AEA rates — see Actor/Musicians. See Role & Pay. |
| Child trust (Coogan) | Shows where a minor's child trust stands: whether it's signed and whether payroll can pay into it. The trust itself is set up and signed in the start-work packet; the card has nothing to edit. Shown for a payee of any type who is under 18 on their engagement's start date, or for anyone who already has a trust. Sits near the end of the scroll, after Deductions. See Child Trust Accounts. |
| Payment history | Read-only — recent payroll entries, up to 104, with excluded entries omitted, each with its run, period, status (Voided for a payroll our tax partner voided after submission), how it was paid (for example Direct deposit #E000001 or Check #5001), gross and net. It opens on the newest five, with Show all [N] for the rest. Lives in a separate read-only view once a payee is fully approved, not in the editable scroll above. |
| Fee, advance & royalty | Only for the SDC and USA 829 job titles that take a negotiated fee and advance rather than a weekly wage (directors, choreographers, and designers, depending on the agreement). Shown only on the read-only record view. See Fees, Advances & Royalties. |
A few more pieces of the record sit alongside these sections rather than inside the numbered scroll:
- Start-work packet: the card where you assign the payee's packet and choose who completes it, with a row per item and its status. It sits right after Deductions while you're filling in the payee's page, and moves near the top of the page once the setup has been submitted. For an employee it's joined by the Employer I-9 attestation card. See Payee Onboarding.
- Payment method: direct deposit or paper check, shown in its own card with account numbers masked to the last 4 digits. It stays locked until the payee is approved, because payment is collected in finish setup. See Payment Details.
- Tax ID: collected in finish setup. Once the payee is approved it shows on the Personal info card (Business info for a loan-out or vendor) as its last four digits, with Replace. A full EIN on file can be revealed with the eye button, and each reveal is audited; an SSN is never shown in full on any screen. An approved employee also gets a Tax withholding card showing where their W-4 and state forms stand with our tax partner. See Tax Information.
- Payroll setup tasks: anything our tax partner still needs for this payee, marked Blocks payroll or Payroll can continue.
Status at a glance
Rather than per-section badges, the payee's header shows several independent signals side by side:
- An onboarding status pill — Not started, Review submission, Changes requested, or Complete. This tracks where the payee is in filling out their own setup. See Payee Onboarding for what each value means.
- A payroll-readiness chip: a green Payroll-ready once nothing on the payee's checklist is outstanding, or an amber count (like 2 to finish) otherwise. Hover it to see exactly what's missing. The same checklist appears on the page as What's left for payroll (or Ready for payroll), with each item linking to where you fix it: a pay rate, required documents, a tax ID on file, and approval of the payee's setup, which links to their Finish payee setup. Once the payee is approved it also lists what payroll itself holds them on: a child trust, a representative's payment authorization, a deposit our tax partner can't pay, what our tax partner's record still needs, and a paper check's manual payment certification. Outside a demo company it also lists any of our tax partner's tasks that block payroll, and, for an approved payee who still isn't connected to our tax partner, Connection to our tax partner is missing. Advisory items, such as an employer I-9 attestation that's still pending, are listed separately under Advisory — doesn't block payroll.
- A login-status badge: Login active once the payee has claimed their Greenroom portal account, or Login invited while an invite is outstanding, and no badge otherwise. This is a separate fact from onboarding status: a payee can be mid-onboarding with no login yet if a manager is completing their packet for them.
The header also shows the payee's type, their union and agreement (or Non-union), their tax-form bucket (W-2, 1099-NEC, or MISC-capable; for a payee marked W-9 not required, the chip reads that instead), and Archived when they've been archived. Three of these chips show at once: the type, the union, and then the onboarding status pill until the payee is approved, or the readiness chip once they are. The rest sit behind a +N badge; hover over it to see them.
These can disagree one way: a payee can show Complete on onboarding status while the readiness chip still says something's missing (a required document that was never uploaded, for example). The reverse can't happen, because readiness includes approval. A new payroll run includes a payee who is approved and has an active pay rate or contract / invoice-based payment (and, for a minor, a signed and set-up child trust); the readiness checklist tells you what else still needs doing before they can be paid (the checklist and the record's Onboarding rail read the same holds).
An unresolved mailing-address refusal from our tax partner adds a notice to the payee page and marks the payee list's Status indicator Needs attention. The dashboard also links to the payee. It is separate from onboarding and readiness: even an approved payee can need an address correction. Admin and Payroll see the next step; Approvers are told to ask a Payroll or Admin teammate to correct it. See Address refusals.
Profile Changes After Approval
Editing a payee's information doesn't go through a separate review queue — changes save immediately from the one page. The exception is a payee's legal name, business name, and date of birth, which lock once they're approved; correcting one takes Greenroom support. See Payee Profile Changes for details.
Payee Status
Greenroom tracks payee state along these signals:
| Signal | Where it shows | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| Needs attention | Notice on the payee page, the list's Status column, and a dashboard link | Our tax partner has refused the mailing address; the notice remains until the correction is accepted |
| Onboarding status | Pill in the payee header | Not started → Review submission / Changes requested → Complete |
| Payroll readiness | Chip in the payee header, dot in the payee list's Status column | Whether anything on the payee's what's-left-for-payroll checklist is still outstanding |
| Start-work packet | Card on the payee's page, and the payee list's Packet column | How far the payee's packet has got: unassigned, in progress, needs review, or complete |
| Login status | Badge in the payee header and the payee list's Login column | Whether the payee has claimed a portal account, has an invite outstanding, or has neither |
| Bank verification | The payee list's Bank column | What our tax partner reports about the payee's bank accounts. See Bank Verification |
| Active / Archived | "Offboarded" filter chip on the payee list | Archived payees are hidden by default and can't join new payroll runs, but nothing about them is deleted |
Archiving Payees
Payees who are no longer active can be archived from the payee list or from their own page. Archiving is a soft-delete: historical payroll records and tax documents are preserved for compliance, and the payee can be restored later. Archived payees cannot be added to new payroll runs.
For details, see Archiving Payees.
Payee List View
Access payee management by clicking Payees in the main navigation. The payee list displays all payees with filtering, sorting, and search capabilities.
From a window about 1,024 pixels wide the list is a table, and it shows as many columns as its own width can hold: Name, Type, Union, Rate and Status always, then Job title and Login, then Bank and Packet as it widens. Below 1,024 pixels each payee is a card with every one of those facts. See The list itself for the widths.
Filtering Options
| Filter | Options |
|---|---|
| Type | All, Employees, Loan-outs, Contractors, Vendors — shown as tabs with live counts |
| Search | Matches name, email, or department as you type |
| Onboarding (quick chip) | Off (default) or on — narrows the list to payees whose onboarding isn't yet Complete |
| Offboarded (quick chip) | Off (default, active payees only) or on — reveals archived payees instead |
| Bank verification (Filter panel) | Never received a payment, Pending, Disabled, Verified, No account, or Status unavailable |
| Union (Filter panel) | Any union, a specific union, or Non-union |
| Onboarding status (Filter panel) | Complete, Review submission, Changes requested, or Not started |
Sorting Options
Click a sortable column header to sort by it; click again to reverse the order. In a window narrower than about 1,536 pixels, a Sort payees dropdown beside Filter also offers the same four sorts in both directions, and on a phone, where each payee is a card and there are no column headers, it's the way to sort.
| Sort By | Description |
|---|---|
| Name | Alphabetical — the default |
| Type | Groups by payee type |
| Union | Groups by union |
| Rate | Highest or lowest pay rate |
Export and Import
Use Export CSV in the top right to download matching payees across pages. Without a Bank verification filter, the export includes up to 5,000 matches; with that filter selected, it includes every match. See Exporting payees. Admin and Payroll can use Import CSV to add many payees at once; see Adding Payees for the template and validation rules.
There's no bulk-edit or bulk-archive action — archiving is done one payee at a time, from that row's ··· menu (or from the payee's own page). With a mouse, the row's ··· button appears when you hover over the row or tab to it; on a touch screen it's always shown.
Next Steps
Continue with Adding Payees to learn how to create new payee records, or see Payee Onboarding to understand the onboarding process.