Physical Checks
How printed paychecks are batched, where they're mailed, and how to see what actually went out
Not everybody takes direct deposit. A payee whose payment method is paper check gets a printed cheque, and Greenroom has those printed and mailed for you rather than leaving you to write them.
The part worth understanding is where they're posted to: the whole batch goes to one address, normally your production office, not to each payee individually. That's a standard production-office workflow, and it's the reason Greenroom uses the print vendor it does.
Choosing where the batch is mailed
On the Submit Payroll step, above the attestation, a card reads Mail the printed checks to. It's prefilled with your production-office address and is fully editable.
Prefilled with your production-office address. Change it for this submit if the batch needs to go somewhere else — this doesn't touch your saved company address.
Editing it changes the destination for this batch only. Mailing this week's cheques to a touring stage manager costs one edit and no configuration change.
The card only appears when there's something for it to do: at least one payee on the run is being paid by cheque, and cheque printing is switched on for your environment. If either isn't true, it isn't shown — rather than showing a control that would do nothing.
What happens at submit
- Submitting assigns check numbers, continuing from the highest your company has ever issued.
- Once the payroll is accepted, the cheques for that run are batched and sent to the printer, addressed to the ship-to you chose.
- The printer ships the whole batch to that one address.
One numbering sequence, everywhere
The number printed on the paper is the same number the run's payroll register, QuickBooks package, and printed union remittance all show. Greenroom deliberately reads the number the run already issued rather than minting a second sequence — that's what stops the paper saying 1001 while every report says 5001.
Amendment runs never mail anything
A correction run is record-only. It issues no check numbers, so no physical cheque is cut from one. If a correction needs paper, it goes out through your ordinary A/P process.
What the confirmation tells you
After submitting, the confirmation says what happened to the paper. There are three cases, and the middle one is the reason this is spelled out at all:
| What you see | What it means |
|---|---|
| "N checks batched for shipping to your production office." | The printer acknowledged N cheques. A link to the check register sits beside it. |
| "N checks batched … Sent in test mode — nothing was printed or mailed." | The run went through in a test environment. The payroll is real to Greenroom; the paper is not. |
| "This payroll has N check payees, but no checks were sent." (in red) | Cheques were expected and none reached the printer. Nothing was printed or mailed, and the payroll itself is unaffected. Contact Greenroom before re-running. |
That third case matters because a submit can't simply be repeated: once a run has moved into submission, Greenroom refuses a second attempt. So a batch that didn't go is a permanent skip, not a delayed one — and without this message it would look exactly like a run that had no cheque payees at all.
The count is what the printer acknowledged, not what Greenroom queued. A batch the printer rejected still leaves a full set of internal rows behind, and counting those would report a shipment that never happened.
The check register
Reports → Physical-check register (/reports/checks) lists every physical cheque handed to the printer for a run: payee, amount, check number, and its current lifecycle status. Pick a run at the top; it defaults to your most recent one.
| Column | What it shows |
|---|---|
| Payee | Who the cheque is made out to — a business name for a vendor or loan-out, a person's name otherwise. Exactly the name printed on the cheque. |
| Amount | The cheque's net amount |
| Check # | The run's own check number |
| Nonce | The unique reference for this send, for support to trace against |
| Status | Where it is in the printer's lifecycle |
| Updated | When that status last changed |
Reading the status
| Status | Colour | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| Pending · Processing · Ready · Printed · Pre-transit · Transit · Delivery | Grey | In flight — nothing to act on |
| Mailed · Delivered · PDF returned | Green | It has left the printer |
| Failed · Canceled | Red | It definitively did not go |
| Unknown | Amber | Greenroom couldn't determine the outcome — worth a call |
An unknown is the one to chase. It usually means a request timed out or was answered in a way Greenroom couldn't read, so whether the cheque exists is genuinely undetermined rather than assumed either way.
Common questions
Can I have cheques mailed to each payee instead? No. Greenroom deliberately ships the whole batch to one address — that's the workflow it's built around, and per-payee mailing is refused rather than silently substituted.
Why doesn't the ship-to card appear on my run? Either nobody on the run is paid by cheque, or cheque printing isn't switched on for your environment. Both are checked before the card is rendered.
I changed the ship-to and now my company address looks wrong. It won't be — the ship-to on a submit never writes back to your company profile. Check Settings → Company to confirm.
The register says a cheque is Failed. Was the payee paid? No cheque went out for them, and the payroll itself is unaffected. Contact Greenroom with the run code before doing anything else — re-running the payroll is not the fix.
Related
- Payment Details — setting a payee's payment method to cheque
- Processing Payroll — the submit step this sits inside
- Payroll Totals — how postage and cheque payments show up in what you fund