Understanding Payroll Calculations
How Greenroom calculates base pay, proration, net pay, and tax withholding
This page explains how a payee's pay actually gets calculated — what builds gross pay, how a partial week prorates, and how tax withholding works before and after it's synced with our tax partner.
Base pay
Every pay rate has one of three bases:
| Rate basis | Formula |
|---|---|
| Weekly | A package rate for a full week: 8 performances, or 6 days in a rehearsal week |
| Hourly | Hourly rate × hours worked. For a non-union employee on a regular payroll, hours past 40 in the week are paid at 1.5× |
| Day rate (an 8-, 10- or 12-hour day) | Daily rate × days worked. A day is a day: there's no proration |
There's no separate "salary" or "per performance" rate type — a weekly rate is the package, and how much of the week a payee actually worked (performances, or rehearsal days) determines how much of it they're paid.
Prorating a partial week
If a payee on a weekly union rate works a partial (or longer) week, open Adjust salary on their entry and enter either Performances worked (out of 8) or Rehearsal days worked (out of 6), never both; entering one clears the other, and leaving both blank means a full week. Their entire weekly package — base pay plus any covered contract premiums — prorates together by that fraction, not by calendar days:
- Fewer than a full week: package × (performances worked ÷ 8), or package × (rehearsal days worked ÷ 6)
- Exactly a full week: the full package
- More than a full week: an overage add-on of one eighth of the package per extra performance, or one sixth per extra rehearsal day
Rehearsal days are whole days, up to 12. Dues, fees and percentage fringes follow the adjusted salary; flat weekly fringes such as health and welfare bill a full week either way. Development productions have no salary adjustment.
This is proration by performances or rehearsal days, not by calendar days. A payee who joins or leaves mid-week is prorated by how many of that week's performances (or rehearsal days) they actually worked, not by counting calendar days in and out of the period.
What builds gross pay
Gross pay for an entry is base pay, plus:
- Increments — contract premiums, session fees, rate bumps, and one-off activity pay, whether they recur every week or are entered just for this one
- Taxable earnings — a taxable per diem or other above-rate/nonaccountable allowance (see the callout below)
- Vacation add-on — some union agreements build a running vacation payout directly into each check, instead of accruing it separately: IATSE at 5% of base pay, for example, ATPAM Off-Broadway at 8.5% of base pay plus recurring contract premiums, and ATPAM Broadway at 8.5% of all covered pay, one-time premiums such as Holiday Pay included (since 2026-10-13; before that, 8.5% of base pay). ATPAM Development has no vacation add-on: its Special Agreement pays no vacation, and Greenroom prices every Development week ending on or after 2025-09-01 on that agreement, not only weeks from 2026-09-01 (see Union Rates Reference)
- Any one-off earning line added directly to the payroll table for the week
Allowances and reimbursements live with net pay, not gross — taxable earnings are the exception
Allowances (per diem, housing, and similar) and reimbursements are non-taxable, and both are added to what a payee takes home after gross, not folded into it. See Payroll Totals for where that shows up.
A taxable earning (most commonly a "taxable per diem") looks similar but works the opposite way: IRS Pub. 5137 treats a nonaccountable or above-federal-rate per diem as W-2 wages, not a tax-free reimbursement, so Greenroom folds it into gross and taxes it — income-tax withholding + FICA for employees, or the 1099-NEC bucket for non-employees. It is not in the union dues/fringe basis by default. See Payroll Adjustments for where it's entered.
From gross to net
Net pay follows this sequence:
Gross wages (base + increments + taxable earnings + vacation add-on)
+ Reimbursements & allowances
− Pre-tax deductions
− Employee taxes
− Post-tax deductions (including any withheld representative fee)
− Post-tax deductions with a lump-sum target, up to what is left
= Net payReimbursements and allowances are typically non-taxable and are added back after deductions and taxes, not folded into gross.
A post-tax deduction with a lump-sum target, such as initiation dues, comes out last. It takes no more than what is left after everything above and any child-trust amount due, so it never takes net pay below zero, and what it can't take stays owed for later checks; see Payroll Adjustments. Every other deduction is taken in full, and an included payee whose net pay still comes out below zero blocks the payroll (Deductions exceed pay, in the table below).
A pre-tax deduction doesn't reduce every tax
Greenroom's local estimate subtracts pre-tax deductions from the basis for income tax — federal, state, and local — while estimating FICA, Medicare, and unemployment taxes from gross wages. After a sync, our tax partner supplies the tax figures. A confirmed pre-tax 401(k) deferral reduces income-tax withholding without reducing the wages used for Social Security and Medicare.
The employee's own Equity-League 401(k) deferral is not capped: 10% of a $10,000 week defers $1,000. The $7,500 weekly cap in the AEA agreement applies to the employer contributions instead: on AEA Production, the employer 401(k) 1% and 3% are calculated on at most $7,500 of the week's gross, so a $10,000 week pays $75 and $225, and a $5,000 week $50 and $150. A payment covering two weeks gets two weeks' cap. That caps the basis, not the resulting amount.
A deferral larger than the week's gross can't produce a negative basis — it floors at zero rather than reading as a credit.
Employer costs never come out of a payee's check
Employer-paid taxes (the employer share of FICA and Medicare, FUTA, and so on) and employer union fringe contributions are real costs to the production, but they are never subtracted from what a payee is paid — they're tracked and shown separately. See Payroll Totals for where they show up in what you owe.
If a minor performer's contract carries a statutory child-trust requirement, part of their already-calculated net pay is allocated to a trust account rather than paid directly to them — this changes where the money goes, not the net amount itself.
For how to see any single payee's actual line items, see Payroll Breakdown and Details.
Tax withholding: estimate vs. synced
Until a run is synced with our tax partner, every tax figure you see is Greenroom's own estimate — annualized effective-rate tables for federal income tax plus statutory FICA/Medicare/FUTA calculations, and, for payees working in New York, estimated NY state income tax, NY PFL, NY SDI, NY SUTA, the NY Re-employment Service Fund, and NY MCTMT (and NYC local income tax for NYC residents). Social Security uses the wage base for the pay date's year ($176,100 for 2025, $184,500 for 2026, $192,300 for 2027), the same base our tax partner charges. Additional Medicare's 0.9% starts at $200,000, and FUTA stops at $7,000; both are fixed in statute.
What the estimate leaves out
If your company's year-to-date wages were loaded at our tax partner from a previous payroll provider, Greenroom stores only that they were loaded, never the amounts, so the estimate starts every wage base at its own runs. Until our tax partner calculates the payroll, the Employees step and Payroll Summary say so: "Estimated taxes and net pay on this payroll leave out this company’s year-to-date wages from its previous payroll provider, so some may be off until our tax partner calculates them."
New York employer lines
The New York employer lines use your company's own figures. NY SUTA is charged at the unemployment rate stored for your company (4.025%, New York's rate for new employers, when none is on file, and nothing at all for a nonprofit that reimburses New York instead of paying the tax) on that year's wage base, $17,600 for 2026. The Re-employment Service Fund is a separate line at 0.075% of the same wages, as our tax partner bills it. NY MCTMT uses your company's own zone rate and shows no line when that rate is 0%. NY PFL uses the rate for the pay date's year, up to that year's annual maximum.
With our tax partner connected, a chip reading "Taxes: estimated" appears whenever a run hasn't been synced. Admin and Payroll teammates see "Calculate taxes before submitting." beside Calculate taxes. An Approver sees the status without a sync button. (Before Greenroom is connected to our tax partner at all, the chip reads "Taxes: estimated" too, with no button, and its tooltip says "Payroll taxes are computed from current rate tables as estimates. Final withholding comes from our tax partner at go-live.")
For Admin and Payroll, when our tax partner is connected, continuing from Vendors & Contractors to Payroll Summary syncs its real numbers automatically, and so does moving on from Payroll Summary to the next step (Union Reports, or Submit Payroll on a run without it). Those roles can also sync manually with Calculate taxes. An Approver on an In review run goes straight from Payroll Summary to Submit Payroll without a confirmation or tax sync; if taxes need calculating, they ask an Admin or Payroll teammate. Once synced, the chip reads "Taxes: synced", with the time of the sync (New York time) beside it, and if you edit the payroll afterward, it flips to "Taxes out of date — recalculate before submitting" (button: Resync taxes) until you resync.
For an employee paid through our tax partner, a sync works out each lump-sum-target deduction again from our tax partner's own tax figures, then checks that what our tax partner applied matches. If it can't confirm that, the sync fails with "Installment deductions could not be confirmed with our tax partner. Sync again before continuing this payroll." An Admin or Payroll teammate uses Retry sync; an Approver sees "Ask a Payroll or Admin teammate to resolve this before you approve the payroll."
The same Taxes out of date — recalculate before submitting status remains if an included entry is recalculated while taxes are syncing, or an included payment owed through our tax partner was not part of that sync. A newly added row with no payable amount does not by itself cause this status. An Admin or Payroll teammate uses Resync taxes to price the current entries; an Approver asks them to do it before approving.
If a sync attempt itself fails — our tax partner rejects it — the chip turns red and reads "Payroll sync failed" (or "Payee setup needs attention" when a payee's setup with our tax partner is what stopped it). Admin and Payroll teammates see the reason underneath and a Retry sync button. This is distinct from the neutral pre-sync "estimated" state: it means a sync was tried and didn't go through, not that one hasn't happened yet.
For an Approver, the failed-sync message is "Ask a Payroll or Admin teammate to resolve this before you approve the payroll." For Admin and Payroll teammates, sync failures and retry notices use Greenroom's explanation of the problem, including refused address or ZIP details, rather than our tax partner's internal error text.
A sync also stops if it runs past its time limit. The chip then reads Payroll sync failed, and the reason underneath says so: "Syncing this payroll with our tax partner took longer than its 9-minute limit, so it stopped before finishing and the amounts shown are our own estimates. Sync again; if it stops here again, contact Greenroom before approving this payroll."
Single-state scope
Tax estimation and sync currently cover New York (including NYC local tax). A payee working outside New York only gets the federal + FICA/Medicare/FUTA portion estimated locally — no state withholding estimate is calculated for them yet. See Known Gaps for current status.
Union calculations
Union pay rates, increments, and fringe contributions come from each union's rate book, resolved for the payee's job title and the run's pay period. Fringe contributions (health, pension, and similar funds) that a union's agreement defines as automatic are calculated and added to the run without manual entry; anything that depends on week-specific context (which sessions were worked, which role was covered, and so on) is added as a line for that week instead. These amounts flow through to the Union Reports step for that union's compliance reporting.
Automatic warnings
Greenroom flags a handful of situations automatically, shown at the top of Payroll Summary. Most are informational. A list premium with no rate for the week blocks approval; Deductions exceed pay blocks sending for approval, approval, and submission:
| Warning | What triggers it |
|---|---|
| Installments reduced | A post-tax deduction with a lump-sum target was cut to what the payee's check can cover; the rest stays owed for later checks. Payroll can continue. See Payroll Adjustments |
| Deductions exceed pay | An included payee has negative net pay. Payroll Summary names them and the shortfall; correct the deductions before sending, approving, or submitting. Zero-net and excluded rows do not trigger it. See What can block submitting |
| Below union minimum | A payee's covered pay for the period is under their union agreement's minimum for their role (prorated the same way as a partial week, if applicable). Not checked on a correction run, a benefits-only week, or a fee installment |
| Below New York's minimum wage | A non-union employee's rate is under New York's minimum wage for the pay period's end date, in the region taken from the company's ZIP code. A weekly rate is compared as 40 hours and a day rate as its own 8, 10 or 12 hours, and the message says so, for example "[Name]: $500.00 a week is below New York's minimum wage for a 40-hour week: … This assumes a 40-hour week, and takes the region from the company's ZIP code." The same warning shows on the payee's rates; see Role & Pay. Not checked on a correction run, a benefits-only week, or a fee installment |
| A premium from the union's list has no rate this week | A premium saved from the union's list has no row in the rate set for this run's week, so it was left out of the run. Approval is refused until it's fixed on the payee's Pay card; see What can block submitting |
| Missing fringe | A union payee's agreement defines automatic fringe contributions, but none were calculated — usually a sign the union assignment needs a second look |
| Mid-period rate change | A union's rates step up partway through this pay period; the period is governed by its end date, so the new rate applies to the whole week |
| Rates not yet checked against the agreement | The rate set governing this period hasn't yet been checked against the executed agreement: either the union's rate book was never delivered, or it was loaded and is still awaiting confirmation. This one is a note, not a warning. On a Local 802 Broadway payroll whose period falls in Year 1 or Year 3, for example, it reads "Local 802 Broadway rates have not yet been checked against the agreement. Confirm the Local 802 deductions and fringes with the union before remitting.", and at submit the attestation adds "including verifying the amounts for Local 802 Broadway myself (rates not yet checked against the agreement)". In Union Studio each version is marked Checked against the agreement or Not yet checked; see Union Studio Versions and Publishing |
These warnings are separate from the checks that can block submission — an employee our tax partner can't pay yet or whose tax status can't be read (an unfinished W-4 alone doesn't block), a 1099 payee whose tax ID our tax partner doesn't hold yet, or whose tax ID hasn't passed validation (an unsigned W-9 alone doesn't block once our tax partner holds the tax ID), an unauthorized representative payment direction, a foreign-payee gate, and a few others. See Processing Payroll for the current, complete list rather than a count here that can drift out of sync with it.
Next steps
See Payroll Breakdown and Details for where these numbers show up per payee, Payroll Totals for how they roll up into the run's headline figures, or Platform Fees & Billing for how Greenroom's own fee is calculated.