Adding Employees to Payroll

Employees & Loan-outs is the first step of a payroll run. It covers your W-2 employees and your loan-out companies together — they have different tax treatment, but they're reviewed on the same table.

You need the Admin or Payroll role to use the entry steps and change payments. If your role is Approver, opening this step takes you to Payroll Summary to review the run.

Who isn't on this run

When an active employee or loan-out isn't on the run, a panel above the table says who and why. Its header counts them: "3 payees aren't on this run: 1 ready to add, 2 not ready yet", "1 payee is ready to add to this run", or, when no one is ready to add, "2 payees aren't ready for this run". The panel opens on its own while anyone is ready to add, or when nobody is on the step yet. Otherwise it's collapsed, since it's a reference aside rather than the main event.

Ready to add lists the payees who became ready while the run is still open (Draft or In review): "They became ready since this draft was built. Adding one calculates their pay and puts it in this run's totals." On an off-cycle, prepay or amendment run, where everyone starts excluded, an added payee is excluded too, and the note says so before you add: "They became ready since this draft was built. Adding one puts them on this run, excluded: [reason]." The reason is the one the notice after an add gives on that kind of run (below); on an amendment it's "amendments start with every payee excluded. Re-include the payees you're correcting". Each is named, with their type and union (or Non-union), and has an Add of their own. With two or more, Add all adds everyone in the group. Adding puts them on this run with this run's period and rates. While anyone is ready to add, the lone Add (or Add all) is the step's main button and Continue: Vendors & Contractors is secondary. Someone who becomes ready after the run is submitted joins the next one.

After an add, a notice above the panel names who joined, "[Name] added to this run". Its text follows this order, including only the sentences that apply:

• If every added payee is included: "Their pay was calculated and the run's totals now include it." If only some are included, it names them: "Pay for [names] was calculated and the run's totals now include it." If all are excluded, this sentence is omitted.
• For excluded payees, one sentence per reason: "[Name] was added but isn't in this run's totals: [reason]." Payees sharing a reason are grouped together.
• If no existing payee was recalculated: "Payees already on it keep their amounts." Otherwise it names those recalculated, for example "[Name] was recalculated too, because who is on this run changed."
• If recorded approvals were cleared, for example: "The approval recorded on this run was cleared, so it needs approving again."
• If the add leaves taxes out of date: "Taxes sync again with our tax partner when you continue to the Payroll Summary, or when you choose Resync taxes there."

Added payees can still be excluded. The notice gives the reason: "off-cycle runs start with every payee excluded. Re-include whoever this run pays", "prepay runs start with every payee excluded. Re-include who you're recording", or "Prepaid in [run code] ([period]) — already paid for this period". On an amendment it gives none: "[Name] was added but isn't in this run's totals."

An add adds nothing at all if anyone in it is no longer ready: "[Name] isn't ready for this run, so nothing was added." It's refused, too, while taxes are being calculated: "Taxes are being calculated for this payroll right now, so no one can be added to it yet. Wait a few minutes, then add them again." If someone else added them first, it says "[Name] is already on this run."

Not ready yet lists who couldn't be pulled onto the run. When no one is ready to add, they're the whole panel, under its header. Each shows their name, type and union, their reason (Onboarding incomplete, No active pay rate, or Needs a signed child trust with its account set up; for a payee whose rate misses the run's period, what's wrong with it instead, for example Pay rate ended [date]; add one that covers this run or Pay rate starts [date], after this run's period), and Finish onboarding to open their payee record, or Open Finish setup for a child trust. Setup gaps such as "Add a pay rate" or "Collect required documents" appear in the readiness badge's tooltip, and a payee whose rates have all ended reads "Add a current pay rate" there. The badge counts a rate in effect today or one starting later, while a run needs one in effect on its period's last day, so a payee can read Payroll-ready and still be left off a run their rate doesn't cover. A child-trust row has no readiness badge. Above the list: "They're left out until what's left below is done. This run still goes with the payees already on it." When nobody is on the step yet: "Nothing is on this step yet. Once a payee below finishes what they need, they move up to Ready to add, with an Add to put them on this draft. Later runs include them too."

Other notices on this step

Two more notices can sit at the top of this step. Neither stops payroll. Each counts the payees in its title, for example "(2 payees)", and lists them, behind Show the N payees when there are more than three:

• Employer I-9 attestation pending lists W-2 employees whose employer I-9 attestation isn't finished, each linked to their start-work packet: "Payroll can continue. Complete the employer attestation in each payee’s start-work packet."
• Rates need review since a company contract changed lists payees whose rates are worth a second look after a contract change, each linked to their payee record: "You can approve and submit this payroll. Review the affected payee records when ready."

Reading the table

Each row shows:

Above the table: a grouping control (All / Department / Union — it remembers your last choice), Expand all / Collapse all, a search box, and Approve all once anything is unapproved.

Expanding a row

Click a row to expand it into five boxes:

Jordan EllisEmployeeAEA · Production

Contract pay

Base salary & contracted premiums from onboarding

Assignments+ Add

Recurring premiums saved to the profile — carry every week

This week's activityAdjust salary+ Add

Add overtime, performance changes, or other one-time payments.

Allowances & reimbursements+ Add

Paid on top of wages — allowances and reimbursements are untaxed; additional taxable payments are taxed as wages

Deductions+ Add

Withheld from pay — dues, garnishments, installments

Each box that allows manual entries has an Add button. Where Greenroom has a union-configured menu of options (Assignments, This week's activity, Deductions), it opens a dropdown of those options — with the count of available options shown right on the button — plus a Custom… option for anything not on the list. Each agreement's premiums are listed on its Union rates page.

The menu is scoped to the payee's job title. Many union agreements define premiums per title — Local 764's per-title ladder, Local 798's Head-versus-Assistant rates — and offering all of them to everybody meant a premium could be attached to a payee it cannot apply to.

The ones that belong to other titles aren't removed, though. A checkbox under the menu reads "Show N premiums scoped to other job titles" and brings them back. That covers a deliberate cross-title application and a payee whose title was never set — and it appears even when the scoped menu is empty, which is exactly when you're most likely to need it.

Some contract premiums apply only on a musical or only on a play (Local 802 Broadway's, for example). If the payee's engagement is marked neither, those premiums aren't offered, and a notice under the Assignments menu says how many were held back and why. When the company contract is marked a musical or a play, the notice says to choose Use company contract in the payee's Engagement & union section to take it.

An option paid per occurrence (a holiday, for example) also asks which one, in a Which … field. The line is named after the option followed by what you type (for a holiday, something like Christmas), so two in one week read apart. Add one line per occurrence.

A few premiums are defined by the agreement as the greater of two formulas. IATSE Pink's Holiday pay is the case: the greater of 1/6 of the payee's actual weekly salary and 1/4 of the weekly minimum for their title. Greenroom computes both sides and shows the arithmetic beside the option — for example "1/4 of the $3,400.00 weekly minimum = $850.00, the greater of the two — 1/6 of the $3,000.00 weekly salary would be $500.00" — so the figure can be checked rather than taken on trust. Because it's once-a-year pay, it lives under This week's activity and never carries forward as an assignment. A premium like that isn't offered at all when one side can't be computed — a job title with no weekly minimum in that union's rate column, or an engagement that isn't paid weekly; enter it as a manual line in that case.

Adding allowances, reimbursements and taxable payments

Allowances & reimbursements opens a window titled Add allowance, reimbursement or taxable payment. Each line in it picks one of three tiles:

Additional Taxable Payments is the one that changes tax: it's taxed as wages (income-tax withholding and FICA for employees; 1099-NEC for non-employees, unless the payee is marked W-9 not required), so choosing it is a tax-treatment decision, not just a label — see Payroll Calculations. Lines saved before this window changed keep the names they were saved with.

You can add several lines at once: Add another line opens a new one on the same tile as the line above it, each line can be removed, and the window shows the week's total. Add & recalculate saves every line or none, so a run with three receipts recalculates once. If something's missing, nothing is saved and a summary names each problem by line ("Line 2: Enter an amount."). Closing the window with anything typed asks first (Discard these lines?).

GL codes. If your company has a chart of accounts, each line has a GL code picker:

• a new Reimbursement must have a code;
• a new Allowance or Additional Taxable Payment must have one too, until its row under Settings → QuickBooks is confirmed: Expense — uncoded allowance lines for an allowance, Expense — uncoded earning lines for a taxable payment. The field's hint names that row ("Required until “Expense — uncoded allowance lines” is confirmed in Settings → QuickBooks."), and once it's confirmed the field reads GL code (optional);
• a code that isn't in your chart is refused ("GL code … is not in your chart of accounts.").

Add payment line, on Contract pay, follows the same rule as a taxable payment: its GL code is required until Expense — uncoded earning lines is confirmed. Confirming the allowance row doesn't lift it.

New lines must meet that GL-code requirement. Editing a hand-added line with Edit payment line on the entry step checks the same requirement, including a line previously saved without a code. The edit drawer on Payroll Summary lets you change each allowance, reimbursement, taxable payment and contract pay line's code, while allowing an existing uncoded line to stay uncoded. Saving either edit recalculates pay and clears recorded approvals. With no chart of accounts, there's no picker and the window says "No chart of accounts yet, so lines are added without a GL code.", with a link to Settings → Chart of accounts.

A one-time Reimbursement can carry its receipt: Receipt (optional) takes a JPG, PNG, HEIC, or PDF up to 10 MB. The line then shows a Receipt link, and the receipt also appears under Reimbursement receipts when you expand the payee on Payroll Summary. The same receipt field is in the edit drawer on Payroll Summary.

Lines counted in hours or units

Some lines are counted, not priced. An option priced per unit (per role, per performance, per day, per hour) asks for a count and prices the line from the union's rule. AEA rehearsal overtime is one option, Rehearsal Overtime — $46.00/hour, counted in hours: the box takes a decimal, says Counted in whole hours, rounded up., and rounds what you type (1.2 becomes Rounded up to 2 hours.), so 2 hours saves as $92.00. In the edit drawer on Payroll Summary, a line like this edits its hours, not its dollars. A per-unit option with a weekly maximum stops at it: AEA Off-Broadway League Development's Choreography ($30 a sequence) is capped at 3 sequences a week on Level 1 and 6 on Level 2, and a warning under the count box says so once you go past it.

One-time or saved to the profile

When you add an assignment, you choose where it lands: One-time — this run only (drops into This week's activity, doesn't carry) or Save to payee profile (recurring — shows under Contract pay and Assignments every week until you end-date it). Saving to the profile changes the payee's record, not just this run.

Adjusting a week's salary

For weekly-rate union employees and loan-outs, Adjust salary in This week's activity opens a Salary adjustment drawer. Enter either Performances worked ("Of 8 — each performance pays one eighth. Over 8 adds extra eighths.") or Rehearsal days worked ("Of 6 — each day pays one sixth. Over 6 adds extra sixths."). Entering one clears the other, and leaving both blank means a full week.

The drawer previews how the base salary and contract premiums prorate together before you save with Save & recalculate. Dues, fees, and percentage fringes follow the adjusted salary; flat weekly fringes, such as health and welfare, bill a full week either way. If the result falls below the union's weekly minimum for that amount of work, Greenroom flags it ("Allowed — flagged for your review, never blocked.") but doesn't stop you. Once saved, the box shows a badge such as prorated 6 of 8 or prorated 4 of 6 days.

Development productions don't use this control: their weekly payees have no salary adjustment, and This week's activity is for overtime and one-off payments only.

Tech week (AEA stage managers)

AEA Production pays stage managers a tech week: one week's extra pay of 1/6 of their contractual weekly salary, paid once. It's offered only to the titles the union's rate set gives it to (today the Production Stage Manager, Stage Manager, and 1st and 2nd Assistant Stage Manager); actors, chorus and swings never see it.

For those payees, This week's activity has an Add tech week payment button with the amount beside it (for example "$350.00 · 1/6 of the $2,100.00 weekly salary"). It isn't in the Add menus. One click adds it on the payroll week before the production's First paid public performance, which you set in Settings → Company. On any other week, or with no date set, it asks first (Add the tech week payment?) and says why: "The first paid public performance is [date], so tech week is [week]. This run is [period]. Add the tech week payment to this run anyway?" Confirming is how you pay it on an irregular schedule.

The line carries a Paid once badge. Because it counts as covered pay, AEA dues, pension and the employer 401(k) contributions move with it; the flat weekly health contribution doesn't. Each payee gets it once per company: if it's already on another run, the button is replaced by a note naming that run ("[Name]'s tech week payment is already on [run]. Remove it there to pay it on this run.", or once that run has been paid, "[Name] was paid tech week on [run]. It is paid once."). Removing the line from the entry frees it to be added again. The line isn't editable in the Payroll Summary edit drawer.

Benefits-only weeks

Sometimes a union payee is owed their weekly employer benefits for a week with no wages, typically on a term deal. Weekly union rows (not on an amendment) have a Benefits only this week checkbox at the top of the expanded row: "Keep this person included and remit weekly employer benefits without paying wages."

With it on, the row pays no wages, deductions, or net pay. It shows a Benefits only badge and a Weekly benefits panel listing the employer contributions that will be remitted, and the payee's detail on Payroll Summary reads "No wage payment this week". Turn it off to restore their saved pay; selecting a rate does the same.

You don't always have to tick it yourself. If the payee's engagement is marked Term deal: accrue weekly benefits with benefits start and end dates, a regular weekly run whose week overlaps those dates adds them as Benefits only automatically, provided they have no pay due that week. A saved weekly rate or recurring pay keeps the week normal. See Benefits-Only Weeks for how these weeks are submitted, funded, and reported.

Musician-track performances (Actor/Musicians only)

A payee whose job title is Actor/Musician and who has a Local 802 reportable wage saved gets one extra field on their row: Musician-track performances. It's the number of performances the Local 802 side of their pay fires on this week, and it's independent of the AEA performance count above.

Leave it blank and the default depends on their sub-type — an Actor follows the AEA week, while a Swing or Understudy defaults to zero and the row shows an amber "Musician-track performances not set — the 802 wage fires on 0" flag. The flag warns; it doesn't block. See Actor/Musicians for the full model.

Child trust accounts

If any included employee or loan-out is a minor with a Child Trust (Coogan) account, a read-only Child trust accounts card appears below the table. It explains where the money goes: "Allocations are computed on gross and paid from net. Direct deposit sends the trust amount first and the remainder to the personal account. For paper checks, the employer remits the trust amount separately and the payee receives the remainder." Each minor's row shows the trust, the Current contribution due, and the amount Allocated to trust. If this week's pay couldn't cover everything due, a note says so, for example "Allocated $X of $Y due; $Z shortfall carries forward", and the shortfall is collected from later pay.

A minor paid as a contractor or vendor gets the same card on the Vendors & Contractors step instead.

The trust account itself is part of the minor's start-work packet. Until the child trust authorization is signed with its trust account set up, they aren't pulled onto a run, and re-including them is refused: "[Name]: payroll needs a signed child trust authorization with its trust account set up. Open the payee's Finish setup to complete it, or assign a start-work packet on the payee page if they have none." See Representatives & Child Trust Payments for how a trust gets configured in the first place.

Approving rows

The Approved checkbox is a reviewed-it flag, not a lock — an approved row is still fully editable. Use Approve all to clear a whole batch at once; it asks you to confirm first ("Approval is your reviewed-it flag — approving everyone at once skips the row-by-row look. Rows stay editable either way."). Approving everyone (or getting to zero unapproved) is what unlocks the Payroll Summary step; if you try to continue with unapproved rows left, a modal lets you Go back, Continue anyway, or Dangerously approve all & continue.

Removing a payee from the run

Expand the row and click Remove from run (keeps entries) in the footer of the expanded detail, then confirm ("Their entries will stay saved. Use Re-include in run to put them back."). This sets the row to excluded — it disappears from the run's totals but nothing is deleted, and the row dims rather than vanishing so you can see it's there. Click Re-include in run on the same row to bring them back. Their payee record and pay configuration are never touched by this — only their inclusion in this specific run.

Removing a single line you added (the trash icon beside it) also asks you to confirm before it goes.

Removing a payee or using Re-include in run recalculates pay that depends on who is included. For example, a sole Company Manager premium can change when another company manager is removed or put back. Your entered lines stay saved. Review the recalculated amounts on Payroll Summary and follow its tax chip before sending the run on.

You cannot remove or put someone back while taxes are syncing. The refusal reads, "Taxes are being calculated for this payroll right now, so no one can be removed or put back yet. Wait a few minutes, then try again."

If an included payee's pay has not finished calculating after Add, sending the run for approval, approving it, or submitting it is refused until that calculation finishes. See Pay hasn't been calculated yet.

Best Practices

• Look at the panel above the table first: it names anyone ready to add, and says why each of the others isn't on the run (a missing pay rate or document, usually)
• Use Adjust salary for a partial week rather than editing the rate directly, so premiums and minimums prorate correctly
• Choose One-time — this run only or Save to payee profile deliberately for any recurring premium — the profile option changes future runs too
• Approve rows as you finish reviewing them rather than all at once at the end, so a skipped row is easier to spot

Next Steps

After working through Employees & Loan-outs, continue with Vendors & Contractors to add vendor and contractor payments, or see Payroll Calculations to understand how pay is calculated.