Benefits-Only Weeks

Some union agreements make the production pay a person's weekly benefits for weeks in which it pays them no wages. The usual case is a term deal: an SDC director, say, whose own pay comes as a fee, while the agreement has the production send weekly pension and health contributions for every week of the term. A benefits-only week keeps that person on the run so those contributions are remitted, with no wages, deductions, taxes, or net pay.

What a benefits-only week pays

Only the flat weekly employer contributions in the union's rates for the person's agreement and job title: the per-week pension, health, and similar fund payments. Under SDC's Off-Broadway agreement from 2026-09-01, for example, a week carries $215 to the League Pension Fund and $282 to the League Health Fund. That's $497 of employer contributions on a row with $0 wages.

Everything else on the row is zero for that week:

• no wages, premiums, allowances, or reimbursements;
• no deductions, union dues, retirement deferrals, or representative commission;
• no employee or employer payroll taxes;
• $0 net pay, so no direct deposit and no paper check.

Contributions figured as a percentage of pay, and those charged per day, per hour, per performance, or once per contract, aren't charged on a benefits-only week. Weekly contributions don't depend on how much of the week was worked, so each benefits-only week carries the full weekly figure. A one-time contribution owed at contract signing, such as SDC's initial pension and health payment, is recorded on Union Obligations instead.

Setting up a term deal on the payee

You need the Admin or Payroll role to change the payee’s term deal or mark a payroll entry benefits only. Approver teammates can review those entries on Payroll Summary.

Any union engagement on a payee offers Term deal: accrue weekly benefits, in the Engagement & union section of the payee record (and on Add payee). Tick it, then enter Benefits start and Benefits end. Both are required, and the end can't be before the start. The note under the checkbox states the rule:

Accrue weekly benefits on regular payroll weeks that overlap these dates when no wages are due. A saved weekly rate or recurring pay keeps the week normal; choose Benefits only on the payroll entry to override it for that week.

The dates belong to that engagement. Changing the payee's union or agreement clears them, because the new engagement replaces the one they were set on. Once the payee is onboarded, their read-only record shows the dates as Weekly benefits under Engagement & union, marked Term deal, with the rule in one sentence: "Weekly benefits accrue on regular payroll weeks that overlap the term deal's dates when no wages are due." See Role & Pay for the rest of the Engagement section.

When Greenroom marks the week for you

When a draft is built, a term payee is put on it already marked Benefits only when all of these are true:

• It's a regular run covering seven days or fewer. Off-cycle, prepay, and amendment runs never get the automatic default, and neither does a regular run with a longer pay period.
• The run's dates overlap the term, even by a single day. The start and end dates count, so the term's first and last partial weeks qualify.
• They're paid by the week, or have no standing rate at all, and they aren't on Contract / invoice-based payment.
• Nothing else pays them that week: no weekly rate above $0, no recurring pay on their profile, no payment carried forward from the previous regular run, and, for an Actor/Musician, no Local 802 wage.

A term payee with no pay rate at all still joins the draft for those weeks, which they otherwise wouldn't. The usual rule applies first, though: only a payee who has finished onboarding is pulled onto a run.

If you add or extend a term while a draft for that week is still open (Draft or In review) and the payee isn't on it yet, the panel above the table names them under Ready to add, with their type and union. Their Add puts them on the run as benefits only when the conditions above hold. Add all appears for two or more ready payees and adds everyone in that group. A payee who is already on that draft isn't changed; tick the box on their row instead.

The notice after an add names who joined and reports any other payees recalculated, recorded approvals cleared, and taxes needing another sync with our tax partner. It also says when an added payee remains excluded from the totals, and why — for example, because a prepay already covered them. See Who isn't on this run.

A week Greenroom marked for you gives way to pay. If recurring pay or a Local 802 wage is saved on the payee's profile after the draft was built, saving the profile recalculates their row on any open run, the automatic mark comes off, and the week pays normally. A mark you set yourself stays on.

Marking a week yourself

Expand a payee's row on the run. On a weekly union row, Benefits only this week sits at the top of the expanded detail, with "Keep this person included and remit weekly employer benefits without paying wages." underneath. It's offered on Employees & Loan-outs, and for a union contractor on Vendors & Contractors, on any run except an amendment. A fee-installment entry made with Add due fees doesn't get it. Ticking it also puts the person back on the run if they'd been removed from it.

With it on:

• The row carries a Benefits only badge, and the note under the checkbox reads "Weekly employer benefits only. No wages, deductions or net pay. Turn this off to restore saved pay.", adding "Selecting a rate returns this entry to normal pay." when the payee has rates to choose from.
• A Weekly benefits panel above the five boxes lists each employer contribution and their total.
• The five boxes stay available underneath.

Nothing you saved is lost. The row's rate and any lines you'd added are held, not deleted, and come back when the row returns to normal pay. Any of these returns it:

• unticking Benefits only this week;
• choosing a rate in the row's rate dropdown;
• adding a line that pays something, such as an earning, premium, allowance, or reimbursement with an amount. Adding a deduction doesn't.

When the box is holding back recurring pay saved on the payee's profile, the row names each payment: "Benefits only is on for this week; turn it off to pay the [amount] [payment name]." For an Actor/Musician with a Local 802 wage it says "Benefits only is on for this week; turn it off to pay the Local 802 wage."

Each change recalculates the row and the run's totals. It also marks any tax figures our tax partner has already priced as out of date, and clears any approval already recorded on the run. Every change is logged under Settings → Activity (filter: Entries) as Benefits-only setting changed, with the detail Benefits only this week or Normal payroll restored.

What Payroll Summary shows

• The row. It carries the Benefits only badge and has no edit pencil. To change it, go back to the step it's on and use the checkbox there.
• The expanded detail. Wages are $0. The contributions sit under Employer taxes & fringe — not deducted from payee, which a benefits-only loan-out or contractor gets too, though their panels don't normally have that column. The payment line reads No wage payment this week, with $0.00 net.
• The tax chip. When every payee on the run is on a benefits-only week, the chip in the funding card's header reads Benefits only · no payroll taxes. With no wages there are no taxes to calculate, and nothing to sync with our tax partner. (A run that was synced while it still paid wages keeps the usual chip until you re-sync; see Common questions.)
• The funding. The contributions are in the Employer union fringe line of the funding card, like any other union contributions. The person also counts as a head for your platform fee, the same as anyone else on the run.

Submitting

Nobody on a benefits-only week is sent to our tax partner. What happens at submit depends on who else is on the run.

If the run also pays people, it's submitted as normal. Our tax partner gets a payroll for the people being paid, and the benefits-only contributions go through the union reports alongside everyone else's. The run moves to Paying out until our tax partner confirms the payout.

If every included payee is on a benefits-only week, the run can finish without a payout when it carries employer contributions, every included entry has no wages, deductions, taxes, reimbursements or net pay, and no payroll remains with our tax partner. Submitting numbers the run's union fund checks, saves where each fund's money goes, and moves the run straight to Paid.

Because nothing is paid to a benefits-only payee, the checks that guard a payment don't apply to them: their withholding and contractor setup with our tax partner, the manual payment certification a paper-check payee needs, a minor's child trust account, and a representative's payment authorization. They get no personal paper check, no check number and no payment number. These checks are skipped only for a row whose amounts are all zero.

Reports and statements

Common questions

The term covers this week, but Greenroom didn't mark the payee benefits only. Check the conditions under When Greenroom marks the week for you. The usual reason is saved pay: a weekly rate above $0, a recurring payment, or a payment carried forward from last week keeps the week normal on purpose. If the week really should pay benefits only, tick Benefits only this week yourself.

Submit says the run "still has a previous payroll sent for tax calculation". The run was synced with our tax partner while it still paid wages, before it became benefits only. Go back to Payroll Summary and re-sync taxes from the chip in the funding card's header. That clears the old payments there. Then submit again.

Can I mark a week benefits only on a correction? No. The checkbox isn't offered on an amendment run.

We pay the director's fee on an off-cycle run. Is there anything to watch? It depends on how the fee gets onto the run. A fee installment added with Add due fees (see Off-Cycle Payroll) makes that payee's entry a fee-installment entry: only contributions and dues figured as a percentage of pay apply to it, and the flat weekly pension and health stay with the benefits-only weeks, so they aren't charged twice. A fee paid any other way is a row that pays wages, and that accrues the person's weekly benefits too. Greenroom doesn't compare runs, so if the regular run for the same week also has them as benefits only, that week's contributions are charged twice. Take them off the regular run for that week with Remove from run (keeps entries).

Related

• Adding Employees to Payroll: the row and its five boxes
• Role & Pay: where a term deal is set on the payee
• Union Reports: the run's union step
• Payroll Run Status: when an all-benefits run can go straight to Paid
• Union Obligations: one-time contributions owed at contract signing
• Fees, Advances & Royalties: the director's own fee