Vendors & Contractors

Vendors & Contractors is the second step of a payroll run — where you pay the companies and individuals your production owes for goods and services, outside of staff payroll. It uses the same table and row layout as Employees & Loan-outs; this page covers what's different for vendors and contractors.

You need the Admin or Payroll role to use the entry steps and change payments. If your role is Approver, opening this step takes you to Payroll Summary to review the run.

How payees get here

Vendors and contractors join a run automatically, based on eligibility. See How a run gets built, including the caveat about vendors with no rate and no payment history yet.

The panel above the table names who isn't on the run, in two groups:

• Ready to add lists each contractor or vendor the draft would take now, with their name, type and union (or Non-union). Use their Add to put them on this run, or Add all when two or more are ready. Eligibility follows the draft's rule: a pay rate, carried pay from the last regular run, a benefits-only term week, or, for a contractor, Contract / invoice-based payment. Its note is the one on Employees & Loan-outs, so on an off-cycle, prepay or amendment run it says an added payee joins the run excluded.
• Not ready yet lists the reason each remaining payee is out: Onboarding incomplete, No active pay rate (never for a vendor), or Needs a signed child trust with its account set up. Each has a Finish onboarding link to their payee record, or Open Finish setup for the child trust. When no one is ready to add, the panel's header introduces this list on its own. On an empty vendors step its note reads "Nothing is on this step yet. Finish what each payee needs below."

Below both groups, the panel names who is in neither: "Approved vendors with no rate and nothing carried from the last run aren't listed here. To pay one on this run, add a rate on their payee page. Add a vendor payment is for a vendor who isn't set up yet." The panel opens on its own while anyone is ready to add or nobody is on the step yet. After an add, a notice names who joined, says which other payees were recalculated, and reports any approvals cleared or taxes needing another sync with our tax partner. If a payee was added but is excluded from the run's totals, it names them and explains why — off-cycle, prepay, or already prepaid; on an amendment it gives no reason. See Who isn't on this run for the exact notices and refusals.

There are no tabs on this step for Vendors vs. Contractors vs. anything else — it's one list, groupable by All / Department / Union the same as Employees & Loan-outs.

Add a vendor payment

There's one exception to "no add dialog", and it's on this step only: an Add a vendor payment button next to the search box. It exists for the invoice that turns up while you're already building the run — a rental company you've never paid before, billing once.

It creates the vendor and their payment in one action ("Create a vendor and put their payment on this run."), and Add to run saves both:

With a chart of accounts, GL code is a searchable picker of that chart's codes. Leaving No GL code selected while a code is required shows "Choose a GL code." and creates neither the vendor nor the payment. Once an Admin confirms Expense — uncoded earning lines in Settings → QuickBooks, the field reads GL code (optional) and No GL code is allowed. With no chart, you can type an optional code or leave it blank; the drawer keeps that text on the payment.

A vendor added this way is paid by paper check ("Paid by check. The memo names the line on the run and the remittance."). That has a consequence the drawer tells you up front: "Because this vendor is paid by check, they need to sign a manual payment certification in their start-work packet before you can send this payroll for approval."

Once created, the vendor is an ordinary payee on your roster with an ordinary record. Add a vendor payment is a shortcut for the first payment, not a different kind of vendor.

If the run is submitted in the moment between the vendor being created and the payment being written, quick-add says exactly that: "[Vendor] was created, but the run was submitted before the payment could be added. Pay them from the next run — the vendor is ready on the Payees page." The vendor record is real and payable; only this run was closed to it.

Entering this week's payment

Most vendors and contractors bill per invoice rather than carry a standing weekly rate, so their row's rate area reads "one-time payments" instead of showing a rate dropdown. To enter what you owe them this week:

1. Expand their row.
2. In the Contract pay box, click Add.
3. Enter a description (for example, "Costume rental — week 14"), and an amount.
4. If the payee's role can file either way, choose 1099-NEC or 1099-MISC for that payment; otherwise Greenroom applies the correct bucket automatically and just tells you which. For a payee marked W-9 not required there's no bucket to choose, and the window says "W-9 not required — the 1099 filing preview leaves this payment out. If our tax partner disburses it, they may still report it."
5. If your company has a chart of accounts, choose the payment's GL code. It's required until Expense — uncoded earning lines is confirmed in Settings → QuickBooks, and the field's hint says so: "Required until “Expense — uncoded earning lines” is confirmed in Settings → QuickBooks." Once that row is confirmed, the field reads GL code (optional). With no chart of accounts there's no field, and the window says "No chart of accounts yet, so lines are added without a GL code. Add one in Settings → Chart of accounts."
6. Click Add & recalculate.

If a required GL code is missing, Add & recalculate saves nothing: the window lists the problem under Fix these before adding, and the field reads "Choose a GL code."

A payment line that was saved without a code can be coded afterwards, on Payroll Summary: click the pencil on the payee's row, choose the code on the line under Wages & earnings, and click Save & recalculate. Saving there resets the run's approval, so code your lines before the payroll is approved. See Reviewing Payroll.

For a contractor on Contract / invoice-based payment (set on their Pay card, for stipends, flat fees and other negotiated pay), the Contract pay box reads "This run's stipend, fee or invoice amount", and the description suggests e.g. Stipend, week 3. Nothing has to be uploaded.

That's the payment line for the week — there isn't a separate "vendor payment" form. The same Allowances & reimbursements and Deductions boxes described in Adding Employees are also available here for one-off reimbursements or withholdings tied to a vendor or contractor payment.

Editing or removing a payment line

Expand the payee's row on Vendors & Contractors. For a hand-added line under Contract pay, choose Edit, or select its name or amount, to open Edit payment line. Change Description, Amount, the GL code where your company has a chart, or Memo, then choose Save & recalculate. The current GL-code requirement also applies when editing here. The save recalculates pay, makes synced taxes out of date, clears recorded approvals, and appears in Settings → Activity as Payroll line updated.

To delete that one line, use its remove icon and confirm with Remove line; Activity records it as Payroll line removed. Lines supplied by the payee's profile say From the payee's profile and stay read-only here; edit those on the payee record. Line edits and removals wait while taxes are syncing.

Attaching the invoice

You can attach the actual invoice to a payment: a PDF, JPG, PNG, or WEBP file, up to 10 MB. There are two ways in:

• When you add a new vendor, use Attach invoice in the Add a vendor payment drawer. The file uploads as you pick it; the payment is written afterwards, and the two are linked once the vendor exists.
• For a payee already on the run, expand their row and click Attach invoice in the footer. It's offered on a vendor's payment, and on a contractor's or loan-out's payment once they're set to Contract / invoice-based payment on their payee profile. Attaching one is optional. Employees are paid wages, so it never appears for them.

A payment that has an invoice attached shows a link to it on its row, opening through a short-lived signed URL rather than a permanently readable address. Each payment holds one invoice ("This payment already has an invoice attached."), and attaching only works while the run is still editable. A payment that can't take an invoice shows nothing.

If the invoice Greenroom receives isn't the upload it set up for your company, you see "That upload could not be verified." and nothing is saved: Add to run adds no vendor or payment, and a row's Attach invoice attaches nothing. Attach the invoice again (in the drawer, choose Remove beside it first), and reload the page if the message comes back.

Payment method — direct deposit or paper check — follows what's on file on the vendor's or contractor's own payee profile; there's nothing to choose here on the run.

Paper-check payees need a certification

Anyone paid by paper check needs a signed manual payment certification in their start-work packet before the run can be sent for approval. If anyone on this step is missing one, a warning at the top reads "Manual payment certification needed before you send this payroll" and links each payee to their record. Have them sign it there, or finish linking their bank for direct deposit. Sending the run for approval is refused, naming each payee, until it's done.

Representatives

Below the table, a read-only Representatives card lists every agent, manager, or other representative owed a commission this run ("Commissions withheld from payees this run, payable one check per rep."). There's one row per representative, or per agency when the representative belongs to one, with the total withheld this run and the number of withholdings it adds up. Where the agency has clients on your roster, click its name to see its Linked clients, each linking to that payee's record; this works for an agency with a single client too. This is derived entirely from what's configured on each represented payee's own profile; you can't add, edit, or remove anything from this card. See Representatives & Child Trust Payments for the full picture, including where the commission is withheld on the payee's own side.

Continuing from this step

Clicking Continue here is a real transition, not just moving to the next tab: it submits the run into In review status. Steps 1 and 2 no longer carry a separate "submit" of their own — Employees & Loan-outs just navigates forward, but finishing Vendors & Contractors is what advances the run's status. If any row is still unapproved, you'll get the same warning as on Employees & Loan-outs (go back, continue anyway, or approve everyone) before it proceeds.

Removing a payment

Expand the row and click Remove from run (keeps entries) in the footer, then confirm, the same as on Employees & Loan-outs — this excludes the payee from the run's totals without deleting anything. Click Re-include in run to bring them back.

Remove from run (keeps entries) and Re-include in run also recalculate any pay that depends on who is included. Your entered payment lines stay saved; review the new totals on Payroll Summary. You cannot remove or put someone back while taxes are syncing. See Removing a payee from the run.

If an included payee's pay has not finished calculating after Add, sending for approval, approving, or submitting is refused with the payee's name and the tax-sync control to use. See Pay hasn't been calculated yet.

Best Practices

• Put invoice numbers and any reference details in the payment description — there's no dedicated invoice-number field, though the invoice file itself can be attached to the payment
• Choose the correct 1099 bucket when you're prompted for one — it's not something you can fix later from this screen
• Check the Representatives card before you continue — a missing or wrong commission traces back to the represented payee's profile, not to anything on this step
• Remember that Continue on this step moves the run to In review — make sure everything's entered first

Next Steps

After completing Vendors & Contractors, continue to Payroll Summary, then Union Reports where the run has that step — see Payroll Processing Introduction — or see Representatives & Child Trust Payments for more on agent, manager, and child trust payments.