Role & Pay
Configuring union details, benefits, pay rates, increments, allowances, and reimbursements
Greenroom no longer organizes payee configuration into tabs. The payee detail page is one continuous, always-editable form with a single save bar — every section is visible at once, including Basic Information, Representatives, Trust, and Payment History. Role & Pay, as used on this page, is a documentation grouping for four of those sections: Engagement & union, Pay, Allowances & reimbursements, and Deductions. Unlike the old tabbed layout, all four render for every payee type — employees, loan-outs, contractors, and vendors alike. (Individual fields inside them can still be conditional for a given type — a vendor isn't required to have a standing pay rate, for example — but the sections themselves aren't hidden by payee type.)
Sections
| Section | What it covers |
|---|---|
| Engagement & union | Union or non-union status, agreement, job title, department, union membership |
| Pay | Negotiated pay rates (effective-dated) and contractual premiums (e.g., Dance Captain, Media Fee) |
| Allowances & reimbursements | Per diem, housing, travel, and other allowance or reimbursement line items |
| Deductions | 401(k) participation, health insurance, garnishments, advance repayment, and other withheld amounts |
Engagement & union
Determines the payee's union membership and role classification, and drives rate/minimum lookups and union reporting.
| Field | Description |
|---|---|
| Union | The applicable union, or "Non-union." Only unions configured at the company level are available. |
| Agreement | The union agreement that applies — enabled once a union is selected. |
| Job Title | Selected from the titles defined on the chosen agreement. |
| Department | Free-text department assignment. |
| Union member (dues apply) | Confirms the payee is a dues-paying union member — shown once a union is selected. |
For details on union transitions and acknowledgment workflows, see Union Configuration.
Pay
Set up the payee's compensation structure. This section has two parts:
| Part | Description |
|---|---|
| Rates | The negotiated, effective-dated pay scale — classification, weekly/hourly basis, amount, GL code, and an effective date range. A payroll run resolves whichever rate is active on that run's pay-period date, so adding a future-dated rate row is how you schedule a pay increase — there's no separate "increments" control. |
| Premiums | Contractual add-ons on top of base pay (flat amount or percent of scale), such as Actors' Equity's Dance Captain or Media Fee premiums. This part is config-driven and only appears for unions whose agreement actually offers contractual premiums — most unions won't show it. |
Multiple pay rates can be configured for a single payee, with different rates applying to different classifications or time periods. Both wages and premiums are taxed and counted in the dues & benefits basis.
Allowances vs. reimbursements
Allowances and reimbursements are conceptually different — an allowance is a recurring or one-time extra payment that isn't tied to a specific documented expense (e.g., a wardrobe stipend), while a reimbursement repays a specific, incurred expense (e.g., a submitted travel receipt) — and Check has confirmed (TCG-2010) that they should ultimately be taxed differently. Don't conflate them when entering pay, even though today they share a single entry point.
| Allowance | Reimbursement | |
|---|---|---|
| What it's for | A recurring or one-time extra payment not tied to a specific documented expense | Repaying a specific, incurred expense |
| Confirmed target tax treatment | Generally taxable, flows into wages | Generally non-taxable if properly substantiated (QSEHRA is the one exception, reported via W-2 Box 12 Code FF) |
One shared control today — the tax split isn't live yet
There's a single Add allowance or reimbursement button and a single name dropdown for both — reimbursement options are in that same list, explicitly prefixed Reimbursement — (e.g., "Reimbursement — travel"). There is no separate "Add reimbursement" control; if you're looking for one, you're not missing a feature — use the same dropdown. Right now, everything entered in this section — allowance-labeled or reimbursement-labeled — is calculated identically: paid on top of wages, excluded from tax and the dues basis. The differentiated tax treatment in the table above is the confirmed correct target, not yet enforced by the calculation engine — don't assume a reimbursement line already gets different tax treatment than an allowance line.
Common allowance types: Per Diem, Housing, Wardrobe, Car, Cell Phone, Meal. Common reimbursement types: Travel, Supplies, Other — each listed as "Reimbursement — [type]" in the same dropdown.
Deductions
The old "Benefits" section is now folded into Deductions — one list of amounts withheld from pay. 401(k) participation is the manual, payee-level retirement opt-in — this is what "Benefits" meant historically on this page. The other standard deduction types are Health insurance, Garnishment, Advance repayment, and Equipment.
Garnishment here is a raw deduction line, not a compliant garnishment workflow
Selecting "Garnishment" adds a manually-entered deduction line — there's no order tracking, priority enforcement between multiple garnishments, withholding-limit calculation, or auto-termination when an order is satisfied. If you need to actually process a court-ordered wage garnishment, child support order, or IRS levy, see Known Gaps before using this field — the structured, compliant workflow for that isn't built yet.
This covers 401(k) only — not union-negotiated benefits
Union dues and representative fees are not entered here — dues come from the union configuration (see Engagement & union, above), and representative fees come from the Representatives section. This page also doesn't cover union-negotiated benefit contributions — pension, vacation, and annuity/NBF fund payments. Those are calculated automatically from the payee's selected union agreement, not entered manually per payee anywhere on this page, and the exact formula (e.g., percent of base salary vs. percent of salary-plus-vacation) varies by union and isn't fully documented in these docs yet.
Fee, advance, and royalty-based pay (SDC / USA 829)
SDC directors/choreographers and USA 829 designers are not paid on a weekly-salary/hourly/fixed-fee basis — their compensation is structured as a fee plus an advance, paid out in installments, plus an ongoing royalty or minimum weekly guarantee. This is a materially different pay structure from every other union Greenroom supports today.
Not yet available
This compensation model is in active development and isn't available to select yet. See Known Gaps for current status. If you're onboarding an SDC or USA 829 director, choreographer, or designer, contact Greenroom before proceeding — do not attempt to represent fee-based compensation using the weekly-salary fields, which will produce incorrect pay and tax treatment.
Payroll readiness
Each payee tracks its own "what's left for payroll" checklist rather than a per-section completion badge. The hard requirements that block a payee from being run-ready are:
- A pay rate — not required for vendors, who bill per invoice instead of a standing rate.
- Required documents on file (e.g., I-9) — data-driven by payee type; vendors are generally exempt.
- Tax setup resolved — a tax ID on file.
A missing payment method is never on this list — a payee with no payment profile on file defaults to a paper check, which is a valid state. Tax withholding status is tracked separately as a non-blocking advisory for Check-managed payees, since Check (not Greenroom) is the system of record for W-4/state withholding.
Best Practices
- Configure union details first, in Engagement & union — this affects available pay rates and benefits
- Keep pay rates current by adding a new effective-dated row rather than editing history when changes occur
- Use the correct control for the money involved — an allowance or reimbursement dropdown entry, not a deduction, and vice versa
- Document all rate changes with effective dates for audit purposes
- Ensure compliance with union agreements and applicable labor laws
Next Steps
After configuring Role & Pay, continue with Tax Information or see Running Payroll to process payroll.