Adding Employees to Payroll
Working the Employees & Loan-outs step of a payroll run
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.
Nobody gets added here — they're already on it
Unlike a typical "add worker" flow, there's no dialog for picking who's on the run. Everyone eligible was already pulled onto it the moment the run was created. This step is where you review and adjust what Greenroom calculated for each of them — see How a run gets built for the eligibility rule.
The not-ready panel
If any active employee or loan-out couldn't be pulled onto the run, they appear in a panel above the table with their name, type, union, the specific gap (for example "Add a pay rate" or "Collect required documents"), and a Finish onboarding link straight to their payee record. The run still proceeds with everyone who is ready — finishing their setup doesn't retroactively add them to this run, though; they'll join the next one.
Reading the table
Each row shows:
| Element | What it shows |
|---|---|
| Name & badges | The payee's name, type (Employee / Loan-out), and union & agreement, or "Non-union" |
| Rate | A dropdown of the payee's configured pay rates, plus an hours field if that rate is hourly. Payees with no standing rate show "one-time payments" instead. |
| Gross | This week's calculated gross for the row |
| Status pill | New, Edited, or Clean — whether this row has changed since it was first pulled onto the run |
| Approved | A checkbox — see Approving rows below |
Above the table: Group by (All / Department / Union — remembers your last choice), Expand all / Collapse all, a search box, and Approve all once anything is unapproved.
Amendments work differently
On an amendment run, the rate dropdown is replaced with "corrections via payment lines" — you re-include the payee you're correcting and add payment lines for the difference (negative amounts claw back) instead of changing their rate. See Adjustment Runs.
Expanding a row
Click a row to expand it into five boxes:
| Box | What's in it |
|---|---|
| Contract pay | Base salary and contracted premiums from onboarding — read-only here for employees and loan-outs; it reflects what's on the payee's profile. |
| Assignments | Recurring premiums that carry every week (a Dance Captain or Media Fee premium, for example). |
| This week's activity | One-time items for this run only — overtime, understudy pay, tech-week bumps, retro pay, or a vacation/sick payout. For weekly-rate union employees and loan-outs, the "+/- performance" proration control also lives here (see below). |
| Allowances & reimbursements | Recurring allowances from the profile, plus anything one-time you add this week. |
| Deductions | Union dues, health insurance, garnishments, advance repayment, and any representative commission withheld from this payee — plus anything one-time you add this week. |
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. Allowances & reimbursements always opens a free-text description and amount instead.
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.
Prorating a week (+/- performance)
For weekly-rate union employees and loan-outs, the +/- performance control in This week's activity opens a drawer where you enter performances or days worked against the usual 8. It previews exactly how the salary, premiums, and any weekly minimum prorate before you save — under 8 prorates the whole package down; over 8 adds overage. If the result falls below the union's weekly minimum for that amount of work, Greenroom flags it but doesn't block you.
Child trust accounts
If any included employee or loan-out is a minor with a Child Trust (Coogan) account configured on their profile, a Child trust accounts card appears below the table — read-only, showing the payee, the trust, and the allocated amount, with a "short — carries" badge if the statutory allocation couldn't be fully covered this week. This card lives on the Employees & Loan-outs step even though the money originates from an employee/loan-out's own pay — it never appears on Vendors & Contractors. 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. 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 approve everyone on the spot.
Removing a payee from the run
Expand the row and click Remove from run in the footer of the expanded detail. 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.
Best Practices
- Check the not-ready panel first — a missing pay rate or document is usually why someone you expected isn't on the table
- Use +/- performance for a partial week rather than editing the rate directly, so premiums and minimums prorate correctly
- Decide "this run only" vs. "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.