Off-Cycle Payroll
Paying select workers outside your regular payroll schedule
Off-cycle payroll pays select workers outside your regular payroll schedule — bonuses, reimbursements, advances, or other one-time payments that don't need to wait for the next scheduled run.
When to Use Off-Cycle Payroll
| Scenario | Example |
|---|---|
| Bonus payments | Discretionary or performance bonuses, contractual bonus payouts |
| Reimbursements | A one-off expense reimbursement that shouldn't wait for the next regular run |
| Advances | A payment made ahead of when it would normally be due |
| One-time payments | Any single payment that doesn't belong on the regular schedule |
Creating an Off-Cycle Payroll
You need the Admin or Payroll role to create or edit this run and send it for approval. An Approver can review and approve a run they did not prepare. The approval that completes your company's required approvals submits the run automatically; see Processing Payroll.
- Choose Run Payroll in the sidebar (or Run payroll on the History page).
- Start a new run and choose Off-cycle as the run type. If another payroll is still open (Draft or In review), Off-cycle is the type selected for you.
- Pick the pay period and a check date, the same way you would for a regular payroll (any Monday–Sunday week — off-cycle isn't restricted to periods that already have a paid regular payroll).
- In Employees & Loan-outs (and Vendors & Contractors), re-include the payees you're paying with Re-include in run on their row. An off-cycle run starts with every payee excluded, so nothing carries forward from your last payroll automatically.
Greenroom keeps one off-cycle run per pay period. Starting another off-cycle run for a week that already has one doesn't create a second: it takes you to the existing run (its Employees & Loan-outs step if it's still open, its detail page in History if it has been submitted).
Starting an off-cycle run doesn't require finishing or closing out any in-progress regular payroll first. It's normal to have both open at once.
If you're weighing off-cycle against an amendment instead, the create-run screen has an "Off-cycle vs amendment — which do I use?" link right under the run-type cards: off-cycle issues a brand-new payment outside the schedule and never touches history; an amendment revises an already-processed run. See Amendment Runs if it's the latter you need.
The Payday Guardrail
For a weekly company, an off-cycle check date is blocked when it lands on a weekday used by regular payroll. For any pay frequency, the exact pay date of an existing regular run is blocked too. The check-date field says: "off-cycle payrolls cannot be run on the same day as a regular payroll cycle".
This exists to keep off-cycle runs from being used to dodge the weekly minimum that applies to regular payroll — Broadway's $250; Off-Broadway and Development have no minimum, so the rule costs them nothing. See Platform Fees & Billing. For a weekly company, Greenroom finds the regular payday weekdays from its regular runs (defaulting to Thursday if it has none), and the Run payroll header names them, for example "weekly · checks Thursday". Biweekly, semimonthly, and monthly schedules use the exact-date check only.
If you need to pay someone on your actual regular payday, that's what the regular run is for.
Fee installments due by the pay date
A director's or designer's fee can be split into installments on their Pay card, each with Greenroom pays this chosen (see Fees, Advances & Royalties). An off-cycle run is where those are paid. When any are due by the run's pay date, the step shows "N fee installments are due by this run’s pay date" with an Add due fees button, which adds each due installment to its payee's entry ("Added N fee installments."). A fee that can't be added gets its own note saying why, for example a payee who isn't ready for payroll yet, or an installment already on another run.
An entry added this way is marked Fee installment only: it has no rate picker and no Benefits only control, and the fee line itself is locked. The only way to take it off is Remove from this run. Fee installments are paid through the contractor rail only, so a payee who is no longer a contractor or loan-out has to have the fee removed (or their payee type restored) before you submit. Only off-cycle runs offer this.
Processing Steps
For Admin and Payroll, off-cycle runs go through the same steps as every other run type, Union Reports included only where unions are in play. An Approver reads Payroll Summary and continues directly to Submit Payroll once the run is In review:
| Step | Name | Description |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Employees & Loan-outs | Re-include the employees and loan-outs you're paying — everyone starts excluded |
| 2 | Vendors & Contractors | Re-include any vendors or contractors you're paying, or use Add a vendor payment — see Vendors and Contractors for who belongs here |
| 3 | Payroll Summary | Review payroll details and totals |
| 4 | Union Reports | Review union-specific data for included payees. Left out when nothing on the run is union and your company has no union contract; Submit Payroll is then step 4 |
| 5 | Submit Payroll | Finalize and pay |
Fees
An off-cycle run waives your tier's weekly minimum, but is otherwise billed normally — the base and per-payee charges still apply. A one-off shouldn't trip a weekly minimum, but it isn't free.
For Broadway that means $10 per payee with no $250 floor underneath it. Off-Broadway and Development carry no weekly minimum anyway, so an off-cycle run on those tiers is priced exactly like a regular one. See Platform Fees & Billing for the full schedule.
Best Practices
- Re-include only the payees who actually need this off-cycle payment — nothing carries forward automatically
- Put the reason in each payment line's description (for example, "Q1 Bonus — March 2026"): an off-cycle run has no name or note field of its own, only its run code
- Communicate with payees in advance so they understand the timing and amount
- Check the payday guardrail early — if your intended check date is blocked, plan for the next available day
- Process with enough lead time to meet direct deposit timing
Next Steps
Return to the Payroll Introduction for an overview of all payroll types, or see Creating a Payroll Run for standard payroll creation.