Representatives & Payment Direction
Setting up agents, managers, and other representatives — commission tracking and payment-direction authorization
The company-side changes and approval/completion link sends described here require Admin or Payroll. Approvers can read the approved record's payment-direction summary, but cannot change representation or send these links.
A payee can be represented by an agent, manager, business manager, attorney, or other representative. How that representative is paid — and whether any of the payee's own money is meant to go to them — is set by a single setting on the payee record: representation. This page covers the three representation states, how a representative is set up, the commission-only path, the full payment-direction path, and the authorization that governs it.
The governing rule
A representative can prepare a payee's tax and startwork information — filling out forms, entering their own details, getting things ready. Only the payee's own authorization clears a payee whose pay is directed to their representative for payroll. A representative filling out forms, however completely, never substitutes for the payee's own sign-off. Greenroom itself never takes custody of anyone's money — it only passes payment instructions downstream — so the payee's authorization is the record that backs any redirect of their pay.
What this page describes
This page documents the Representation module — the section is labeled "Representation" on the payee record, not "Representatives" — which is live. The three-state selector and the full payment-direction authorization workflow described below are live, not a future model. This replaced an earlier, simpler Representatives section that supported multiple representatives per payee with a flat commission field each; the current module supports exactly one representative per payee.
The three representation states
Every payee has exactly one representation setting active at a time:
- Not represented — the default. No representative is attached, and nothing else on this page applies. The representation panel collapses to a single line so payees without a representative (most of them) don't see empty representative fields.
- Representative receives commission only — a representative is attached and is paid a commission, deducted from the payee's own pay. The payee still receives and is responsible for the rest of their own compensation directly. See Commission-only path.
- Representative receives full payment on payee's behalf — the payee has authorized some or all of their own payment to be redirected to the representative — for example, an agency that collects its client's pay. This is the state that requires the payment-direction authorization described below. See Full payment-direction path.
Switching between states isn't just a label change: it swaps which panel is shown on the payee record, and a payee switched to full payment can't be in a payroll that's sent until their authorization clears admin review. Choosing Not represented on a payee that currently has one attached detaches the representative (with a confirmation prompt) rather than just hiding the panel. The Representation section comes third on the payee record, after Engagement & union and the personal or business info card, and before the pay sections, so representation is settled before you get into pay setup.
Setting up a representative
A representative is a distinct entity, linked to the payee record but never merged into the payee's own identity. This matters in practice: the same agent or business manager may represent several payees on the same production, and a representative's own tax and banking details belong to them, not to the payee they represent.
One representative per payee
A payee can have at most one representative attached at a time. The Representation card shows a single "Attach representative" action when none is attached, and once one is, the card shows that one rep — there's no "add another representative" affordance. To represent the same payee with someone else, remove the current representative first (any payment-direction authorization stays on record but stops applying to new runs) and attach the new one.
Greenroom recognizes five representative types you can pick when attaching one:
| Type | Typical use |
|---|---|
| Agent | Books work, negotiates contracts, usually paid a performance/rehearsal commission |
| Manager | Manages the payee's career and business affairs |
| Business manager | Handles the payee's finances and business administration |
| Attorney | Reviews or negotiates contracts on the payee's behalf |
| Other | Any representative that doesn't fit the categories above |
The type list also shows Lawyer (legacy). It's there so representatives saved before "Attorney" was introduced still display and save correctly; choose Attorney for a new one.
An attorney representative follows the same governing rule as any other type: they may prepare the payee's paperwork, but that alone never authorizes a payment redirect. There's no special "counsel" carve-out in the authorization gate.
When you add a representative, you capture:
- Contact name and email — the person you deal with day to day
- Agency or firm legal name — the business entity, kept distinct from the contact person (an agent's contact might be Maya Calloway, but the agency is Riverside Artists Group)
- Tax ID / EIN — the representative's own tax identifier, captured directly or by the representative themselves when they complete their own details
- Mailing address (street, apt / unit, city, state, ZIP) — where a paper check is sent if that's the representative's payment method
Commission-only path
Commission-only is the arrangement most representatives use: the representative earns a percentage of what the payee earns, and that percentage is deducted from the payee's own pay rather than routed around it.
How the commission itself is entered depends on the payee's union, the same way pay rates do (see Role & Pay):
- AEA payees get two flat percentage fields, Performance and Rehearsal, each resolving against its own pay line — a performance commission calculated off performance pay, a rehearsal commission off rehearsal pay. The two are never blended into a single combined rate.
- Every other union, and every non-union payee, instead gets a single row with a free-text name and one percentage (e.g., "10% Booking fee") — there's no separate Rehearsal field to leave blank, because for these payees there's only ever one commission line.
- On a Development production, every payee gets one commission percentage instead, whatever their union, with the help text "Typically 5%; use the payee's contract". Every week takes that one percentage; see Representatives & Child Trust Payments.
The representative's own tax profile and payment details come from the representative, through their own self-service link (see Completing setup), not from the payee. That link captures the representative's EIN (for Greenroom's own records) and their payment method; the signed W-9 form itself is collected by the company separately and isn't uploaded through that link. The panel says the W-9 is required before a run can pay this rep. Greenroom doesn't check for it when a payroll is sent, so have it on file before you pay the representative.
The panel's Rep payment method box shows what the representative chose, and you can't set it from the payee's page. Until the representative has completed their form it reads Chosen by the representative in their onboarding form. Afterwards it shows their choice, Paper check, mailed to the address above or Direct deposit. Greenroom itself doesn't pay the representative: it withholds the commission from the payee's pay, and the production pays the representative what the run's Representatives card lists.
On each payroll run, the Vendors & Contractors step shows a read-only Representatives card: Commissions withheld from payees this run, payable one check per rep. The same agency entered on several payees is grouped into one row, and a row that represents payees at your company shows how many (for example 1 client). Select it to list those payees, each linking to their record.
Commission calculation uses the saved commission-only setting and a positive percentage. It does not wait for the representative's onboarding status to read Complete; finish collecting their details and W-9 before paying them.
Full payment-direction path
Full payment direction is a different, stricter arrangement: instead of a commission deducted from the payee's pay, the payee authorizes some or all of their own payment to go to the representative. Because that concerns the payee's own money rather than a separate fee, it's gated more tightly than commission.
What Greenroom does with this setting is record the arrangement and the payee's authorization, and refuse to send a payroll that includes the payee until that authorization has cleared admin review (below). It doesn't route the payee's pay to the representative itself: the payee is paid by their own payment method, as on any run, and the panel says Any settlement between the rep and the payee is handled outside the run.
The Tax ID / EIN, if applicable field on this path is deliberately worded to avoid promising a blanket answer about reportability — whether the payment is reportable to the representative depends on the specific arrangement (see tax treatment below).
If the representative still has commission percentages on file, for example from before they were switched to full payment, the panel shows them under Commission (reference only). Greenroom does not deduct those percentages or create a commission payable for a representative set to full payment.
The payment-direction authorization gate is keyed to the payee's own authorization — never to the representative's data entry. A representative can complete every field in their own profile and it still won't clear that gate on its own. The one thing that has to be true is that the payee's payment-direction authorization has cleared admin review (see below). That single status is what Greenroom checks before a payroll is sent; there's no second, separately-tracked gate for the representative's own tax profile.
Until the authorization is admin-reviewed, a payroll that includes this payee can't be sent. Greenroom names the representative and where the authorization stands, for example Rep [name] authorization is [status], must be admin-reviewed before payroll, or Payment direction authorization not yet drafted for rep [name] when none has been started.
Below the authorization, the panel ends with the same read-only Rep payment method box as the commission-only path: Chosen by the representative in their onboarding form. until the representative has completed their form, and then the method they chose. There's no payment method, "c/o" line, or memo to set for a representative on the payee's page.
Tax treatment: payee vs. representative
Full payment direction changes where money goes, not whose income it is. The representative is the payment destination, not the income recipient — the payee remains the party the income is reported against, even when the money ends up with the representative. Don't read "full payment direction" as reassigning income to the representative; it doesn't.
The authorization artifact
The payee's authorization for full payment direction isn't a checkbox — it's a captured artifact, either e-signed on a tokenized link or uploaded as a signed document, then reviewed by a Greenroom super-admin before it's active. It records:
- The payee's legal name and payee type
- The representative's legal name and representative type
- The production it applies to
- An effective date
- The specific payment method(s) it authorizes
- A revocation rule
Uploading a signed PDF isn't wired up yet
The workflow and the data model both support recording an authorization from an uploaded signed document instead of an e-signature — a manager can start the request either way. But the "upload signed doc" file control on the manager's side is currently rendered disabled, with a note that it's a follow-up still to be built. In practice, today, the only way to actually get an authorization signed is the payee's tokenized e-signature link.
Revoking an authorization applies to future payments only, after notice — it doesn't claw back or invalidate payments already made while the authorization was in effect.
A material change to the representative resets the authorization back to "Required." An existing authorization doesn't silently carry forward — changing the representative's bank details, EIN, commission rate, or representative type invalidates the active authorization and drafts a fresh one the payee has to grant again, rather than editing the old one in place. This is deliberately broad: it's not limited to the authorized method or the mailing/bank destination named on the authorization itself.
Completing setup
The representative's own onboarding is a separate, two-step invite sequence that lives directly inside the Representation card — it is not part of the payee's own start-work packet (the packet card's Assign and complete as manager and Assign and send to payee cover the payee's own identity, payment, tax forms, and documents, not the representative's; see Payee Onboarding).
Before the save, the panel explains why it can't act yet rather than issuing an instruction: both links are emailed to a real inbox, so they can only be created once the representative record exists. Every other field on the row — type, contact name, agency, email, EIN, address, commission — saves in the same pass as the payee, and the panel comes back in place afterwards. There's no second trip.
Once a representative is attached and saved, a "Representative onboarding" panel appears with two links, always in this order, so the agent is never contacted before the payee has approved them:
- Payee approval link — emailed to the payee; they review the representative's identity and fees and approve them. A manager can also approve on the payee's behalf (for a verbal approval) instead of waiting on the email.
- Agent completion link — sent to the representative only after step 1 clears. The representative uses it to enter their own agency name, EIN, mailing address, and payment method (paper check, or direct deposit with bank details) — a one-time form, not a persistent account. The panel describes it as The representative confirms their address, EIN, and payment details. Collect their W-9 separately. Direct deposit is preselected on the form. The signed W-9 itself is still collected by the company separately; this link doesn't take a document upload.
Both links are tokenized, single-purpose pages rather than a login — there's no ongoing "Agent Portal" with a client list or activity log. If the payee also needs to sign a payment-direction authorization for the full-payment path, that's a third, separate tokenized link (see the authorization artifact above) — completing the representative's own onboarding doesn't imply the authorization is done too.
Related
- Role & Pay — pay rates that a representative's commission is calculated against
- Payee Onboarding — the payee's own onboarding flow, separate from the representative-invite sequence on this page