Union Obligations
One-time contract charges owed outside a payroll run — how to open an SDC initiation, see what is due, and record what has already been paid
Some union money is owed because of a contract, not because of a week of work. An SDC director's agreement carries a one-time Health and Pension contribution due at contract signing — often paid before the production has run a single payroll. No payroll run derives it, so it has nowhere to live inside one.
Obligations is the screen for exactly that money. It sits in the sidebar between History and Union Studio.
This is a different thing from the weekly fund contributions on a payroll run. Those come out of the work a payee did that week and are covered in Union Reports and Union Remittance. Obligations are one-time, contract-triggered charges that exist whether or not a run does.
What Greenroom will and won't do for you
Greenroom does not detect a signing. There is no date it can watch and no document it reads. A general manager confirms that a contract was signed, on what date, and by when the funds need the money. Everything after that — which funds are owed, how much, who the cheque is made out to, where it is posted — Greenroom works out from the union agreement you already have loaded.
This is deliberate. The alternative is a system that quietly opens a $5,859 charge on a guess.
Recording a contract milestone
The Record a contract milestone card sits at the top of the page. It appears whenever at least one active payee on your company has a union engagement that resolves to a published rule set today.
| Field | What to enter |
|---|---|
| Payee | The person who signed. The list shows their union, agreement, and job title, so you can tell two similar names apart. |
| Signed on | The date the contract was signed. This is when the money is incurred — not when you intend to pay it. |
| Milestone | A short label, defaulting to on signing. It appears on the worklist and on the record afterwards. |
| Funds need it by | The date the fund must have the money. This is what drives the due/overdue colouring below. |
As soon as you pick a payee, Greenroom previews exactly what it will open — the number of obligations, the total, and each fund by name and amount. The preview uses the same pricing as the write, so what you see is what gets recorded.
Three different answers can come back, and they mean different things:
- "Opens 2 obligations totalling $5,859: SDC League Health Fund $3,043 · SDC League Pension Fund $2,816" — the normal case. Click Open the obligations.
- "[Agreement] owes no initiation for this title — nothing will be opened." SDC Associates are the usual example; the agreement itself says no initial Health or Pension applies to them. Nothing is wrong, and the button stays disabled because there is nothing to open.
- A red message. Greenroom could not work out what this payee owes — usually a rate table that hasn't been loaded for these dates. This is not the same as owing nothing, and it is shown loudly for that reason. Fix the rule set first (see Union Rates Reference) and come back.
A second contract with the same payee can't be recorded yet
Obligations are identified per payee, per milestone — not per contract. If a director signs a second contract with the same production, opening it collides with the first and Greenroom opens nothing, telling you so explicitly rather than reporting success. Contact support if you hit this; it's a known limitation, not a mistake on your part.
Owed
Everything currently outstanding appears in the Owed table, worst first.
| Column | What it tells you |
|---|---|
| Fund | The fund being paid, with the union rule it came from underneath |
| Union | The union the fund belongs to |
| Milestone | The label you recorded |
| Pay to | The legal name the cheque is made out to, from the union's destination registry |
| Act by | A status badge and the date behind it |
| Amount | What this one cheque is written for |
| Record | The control for marking it paid outside Greenroom |
The header carries three running totals: To fund (everything outstanding), Overdue (in red, when anything is past its date), and Reported only.
The status badges
| Badge | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Overdue | The act-by date has passed. Today itself is still actionable — overdue means before today, not on it. |
| Due soon | The act-by date falls within the next seven days. |
| Scheduled | Further out than seven days. |
| Reported only | No money moves through Greenroom for this one — it's reported against the union's own settlement rather than paid by cheque. It is never "overdue", because nothing is owed to send. |
"No remittance address on file"
If the destination registry has no address for a fund, that warning appears in red under the payee name and is never hidden. A cheque nobody can post is a blocker, and one you can't see is worse than one you can. Fix it in the Destinations card on Union Studio before you cut the cheque.
Envelopes
Cheques and envelopes are not the same thing, and this is the section that keeps them apart.
Some unions want several separate cheques posted together. SDC is the standard example: dues, pension, and health are three cheques in one envelope, going to one address. The Owed table lists the cheques; the Envelopes table lists what physically goes in the post, with the total for the envelope as a whole.
Never write one cheque for an envelope total. If the envelope shows $5,859 and the two rows above show $3,043 and $2,816, the fund expects two cheques of those amounts — the agreement says "separate check" on each.
Recording a payment made outside Greenroom
Greenroom does not disburse these. When the production wires or posts the money, tick it off with the Record control on the row. You can add a payment reference (a wire number, a cheque number) if you have one; it's optional, because you may not.
Recorded obligations move to Recorded as paid outside Greenroom, where they stay visible. They're off the worklist so they can't be billed twice, but the row keeps its fund, milestone, reference, and amount.
Every row there has a Put back on the worklist button. A tick you can't untick isn't a tick — if one was recorded by mistake, reverse it.
Greenroom records who asserted the payment and when. If somebody else has already ticked a row, your attempt is refused with a message rather than silently accepted — the record of who said it first is the part worth keeping.
Correcting a date
The Correct a date card at the bottom lets you fix a signed-on or needed-by date you entered wrong.
An obligation already recorded as paid cannot have its dates changed — those dates are what somebody asserted against. Put it back on the worklist first, correct the dates, then record it again.
What this screen does not do
- It does not appear on the printed union remittance. That is a deliberate decision, not an oversight: the agreements don't say which printed report an initiation belongs on, and changing what physically leaves the building on a guess is the one thing this feature must not do. Obligations live here, on their own screen.
- It does not move money. Greenroom never pays these out. Every settlement is something you did elsewhere and recorded here.
- It does not open itself. No signing is auto-detected, ever.
Common questions
The page says "No payee on this company has a union engagement that resolves to a published rule set today." Either no payee is on a union yet, or the rate table covering today's date hasn't been loaded. Assign the engagement (see Union Configuration) or load the rules (see Union Rates Reference).
Why can't I see this page as a super admin? Obligations are a specific company's money. With no company selected, there is nothing honest to render — an empty page would read as "nothing owed". Pick a company first.
An SDC Associate shows in the payee list but opens nothing. Correct. The SDC workbook says in its own notes that there is no initial pension and no initial health for Associates. The picker shows every eligible payee; the preview is where the agreement answers.
I recorded the wrong milestone label. The label is part of how an obligation is identified, so it can't be edited in place. Record it as paid, put it back on the worklist if you need it live, and contact support if you need the row removed outright.
Does this affect what a payee is paid? No. These are employer contributions to union funds. Money a payee is owed under a contract — a negotiated fee, an advance, a weekly royalty minimum — is a different ledger entirely; see Fees, Advances & Royalties.