Payee Tax Information
How Greenroom collects tax IDs and handles W-4/W-9 tax forms
Greenroom handles two different kinds of tax information very differently: the payee's tax ID (SSN or EIN) lives directly on the payee record, while the W-4 / state withholding elections are system-of-record in Check, Greenroom's payroll provider — Greenroom's own database never stores filing status, dependents, or withholding allowances (a manager can transcribe values from a signed paper form on the payee's behalf, covered below, but even then they pass straight through to Check rather than landing in Greenroom's database).
Tax ID and tax form by payee type
| Payee type | Tax ID | Tax form |
|---|---|---|
| Employee | SSN | Federal W-4 (plus state, if applicable) |
| Loan-out | EIN | Signed W-9 |
| Contractor | SSN | Signed W-9 |
| Vendor | EIN | Signed W-9 |
Loan-outs and vendors are treated as businesses and carry an EIN; employees and contractors are treated as individuals and carry an SSN, regardless of how either has actually structured their own tax affairs. A loan-out specifically must have an EIN — a single-member LLC filing under the owner's personal SSN can't be saved as a loan-out; see Payee Types for that rule.
The W-9 for loan-outs, contractors, and vendors starts as a signed document you upload, collected alongside the payee's other startwork paperwork. That's the only option early on, before the payee's record is synced to Check — but once it is (once a checkId exists), the payee's own self-service portal instead shows an interactive "Tax form (W-9)" card with a Complete W-9 button that opens Check's own hosted signing page. Which one a given payee sees depends purely on whether they're synced to Check yet, not on payee type — contractors, loan-outs, and vendors are all eligible for the hosted path once synced. See Payee Onboarding for where the upload step fits in the setup flow.
Where the tax ID is entered
The tax ID lives as a field labeled SSN or EIN inside the Personal info (or Business info, for loan-outs and vendors) card on the payee detail page — it isn't a separate "Tax ID" page or tab. While a payee is still being set up (before approval), that card deliberately shows only name and contact info; the tax ID, date of birth, and address are collected later, in the finish-setup flow.
Only a manager can enter the tax ID directly
A payee completing their own setup through their self-service portal never sees an SSN/EIN field — Greenroom leaves that capture to the W-4 step with Check instead (below). If a payee is handling every other step themselves, a manager still needs to add the tax ID directly on the payee's record — either during the manager's own "finish setup yourself" path, or afterward on the approved payee's Personal info card — or the payee will never clear the tax-setup requirement for payroll readiness.
Once a tax ID is on file, it's shown masked (•••-••-1234 for an SSN, ••-•••1234 for an EIN) with a Replace option — Greenroom never redisplays a stored number by default. An audited view action reveals the full value when you genuinely need it. Replacing a number is a clean overwrite: there's no way to recover the previous value once it's replaced.
A W-9-exempt payee owes no tax ID at all
Mark a vendor W-9 not required and the payroll-readiness checklist stops asking for a tax ID entirely — neither as a blocking gap nor as a "pending" note. That's the honest state: an exempt payee isn't 1099-reported, so there's no number for Greenroom to hold. Before this, an exempt vendor read "Resolve tax setup" permanently, with nothing anyone could do to resolve it. See Payee Types.
This is different from a demo company, where the checklist reads "Demo — tax details are collected when this production goes live." That one says later; the exemption says never, and the two aren't interchangeable.
The W-4 and state withholding are recorded through Check
For employees, the actual federal W-4 and any state withholding forms are never stored in Greenroom's own database — the values live in Check, Greenroom's payroll provider, as the system of record. During setup, a manager picks one of three ways to get there, presented as an explicit choice ("How the W-4 gets recorded"):
| Option | What happens |
|---|---|
| Payee completes it themselves | The payee fills out their W-4 (and state withholding) in Check's secure hosted flow. A manager can send the link, but can't fill this one in on the payee's behalf. |
| Enter from a signed paper W-4 | A manager who physically holds the payee's signed paper Form W-4 (plus a state form like NY's IT-2104) transcribes its values directly into Check, on the payee's behalf. |
| Skip for now | Defer the W-4 — it's optional and doesn't block approval — and follow up with the payee directly afterward. |
The manager-entry path still doesn't make Greenroom the system of record
Even when a manager transcribes a signed paper W-4, the entered values pass straight through to Check and are validated against Check's live form on the way — Greenroom's own database never stores the filing status, dependents, or withholding amounts. The manager-entry option (added after this page's original W-4 model) is employee-only; contractors, loan-outs, and vendors sign a W-9 instead, and a manager has never been able to fill out someone else's W-9. The signed paper W-4 itself (the physical document, not its values) can be uploaded and retained as a payee document, separately from the values transcribed into Check.
Whichever path was used, if the payee later completes (or corrects) their W-4 through Check's own hosted flow, Check eventually publishes a signed copy — a manager can see and download it from a "Signed forms on file" list on the payee's record, once one exists. Greenroom only re-authorizes and proxies that download; the underlying file and its vendor URL stay with Check.
What Greenroom's record page shows day to day, instead of the actual elections, is a status per jurisdiction (for example, "Federal" or a state) — Complete, Needs attention, or Not started — reflecting what Check has on file, regardless of which of the three paths above got it there. There's no Greenroom screen listing filing status, dependents, or additional withholding amounts, because Greenroom doesn't hold that data.
State and local tax
Which state and local taxes apply to a payee is worked out automatically from the payee's address and the jurisdictions Check (or, before a company is fully connected to Check, Greenroom's own estimate calculations) determines apply — there's no screen where you manually pick a payee's tax jurisdictions. If a payee's address changes in a way that affects their tax jurisdiction, update their address on the Personal info card; there's no separate jurisdiction field to maintain alongside it.
Best Practices
- Get the tax ID entered as early in setup as possible — payroll readiness depends on it being on file
- Double-check SSN/EIN entries before saving; a replaced value can't be recovered once overwritten
- Follow up directly with a payee who skipped their W-4 during setup — Greenroom won't chase it for you
- Confirm loan-out EINs are genuinely the entity's EIN, not a rekeyed SSN
- Consult a tax professional for complex multi-state situations or unusual classifications
Next Steps
Continue with Role & Pay to configure pay rates and benefits, or see Union Configuration for union-specific settings.