Payroll Period Validation and Locking

Period Dates

A pay period has a start date, an end date, and a check (pay) date. When you use the standard weekly picker, the period end is computed automatically from the start (a full Monday–Sunday week) — you don't set it independently.

Duplicate Period Prevention

Greenroom blocks creating a second run of the same type for the exact same period — same company, same period start, same period end, same run type (regular, off-cycle, prepay, or amendment). This stops an accidental double-click or a second draft for a period you've already run from ever being created.

This check is exact, not a general overlap check — a period that merely overlaps an existing one but doesn't match it exactly isn't blocked. It's also scoped by type: you could have a regular run and an off-cycle run covering the same week, since they're different run types.

Amendment runs are the one exception. Because a paid run may need more than one round of correction, amendments are exempt from this same-period rule — you can create several amendments over time against the same original run. What's limited instead is having more than one open (not-yet-paid) amendment against the same original run at once; once that one is paid, another can be started if needed. See Amendment Runs for the full correction workflow.

When a Run Locks

A run's payees, line items, and amounts can be edited only while it's in Draft or In review status. Once it moves to Approved, Processing, Paying out, or Paid, that run itself is fixed — you can view it, download its reports, and see it in history, but you can't change what's on it.

This is the same rule for every company and every run type — there's no company setting that makes a paid run more or less locked.

Correcting a Paid Run

Once a run is paid, the only way to correct it is to create an Amendment — a separate run type built specifically for this. Any paid run, regardless of type, can be amended; there's no eligibility gate beyond the original run actually being paid. See Amendment Runs for the full walkthrough of how corrections are entered and how the numbers recalculate.

Status Transitions

A run moves through statuses in one direction, with one deliberate exception for sending it back for edits:

There's no "Pending" status and no "Partially Paid" status in Greenroom — a run in the "Paying out" state has already committed its money and is treated the same as Paid for reporting purposes; it just hasn't received final confirmation yet. See Payroll States for what each status means day-to-day.

Payee Eligibility

A run can't be submitted with zero payees — but beyond that, eligibility is checked per payee, not as a generic checklist. A payee is blocked from being added to a run for one of two reasons:

Once a payee clears that gate, Greenroom separately checks whether they're actually ready to be paid, and — if not — tells you exactly what's missing, such as "Add a pay rate" or "Collect required documents," rather than a vague incomplete-profile message. Vendors are exempt from the pay-rate requirement, since they're typically paid per invoice rather than off a standing rate.

Best Practices

• Double-check the period and check date before creating a run — there's no system guardrail catching a wrong date, since dates are intentionally unrestricted
• Use Draft/In review status while you're still confirming numbers — once a run moves to Approved, you can no longer edit it directly
• If you need to send an in-review run back for more edits, use "edit payroll" rather than trying to fix it after it's approved
• Plan for corrections through Amendment runs rather than trying to prevent every possible error before submitting
• Remember amendments are exempt from the duplicate-period rule — don't be surprised to see more than one amendment against the same original run over time

Troubleshooting

Next Steps

See Payroll States for status management details, or review Amendment Runs for correction procedures.