Prepay Payroll
Recording wages paid outside Greenroom, and how it prevents a payee from being paid twice
What Prepay Is For
Sometimes a production pays someone directly — outside Greenroom — before that person's regular pay period comes around. Common reasons:
| Scenario | Example |
|---|---|
| Hiatus or break-week pay | Paying a cast or crew member during a scheduled hiatus, ahead of the week it will formally cover |
| Holiday advances | Issuing an advance before a holiday break, for a period that hasn't run yet |
| Signing or guarantee payments made off-system | The production already cut a check or wired funds directly, and that payment needs to be on the books |
A prepay run puts that already-made payment into Greenroom's records and, when applicable, calculates and remits the payroll taxes on it. It does not initiate a new payment.
Creating a Prepay Run
- Navigate to Payroll in the main navigation.
- Start a new run and choose Prepay as the run type.
- Pick the pay period the recorded payment applies to, and the check date.
- In Employees & Loan-outs, re-include the payees whose outside payments you're recording — a prepay run starts with everyone excluded, the same as off-cycle.
- Enter the amounts that were actually paid outside Greenroom.
There's no date restriction on a prepay's period — the platform doesn't gate any run on dates. In practice, prepay is used for a period that hasn't been run as a regular payroll yet.
How Double-Pay Protection Works
Because a prepay records money that already moved, Greenroom needs to make sure that same person and period never gets paid again through a later regular run. It does this automatically:
- Prepay recorded — you re-include the payee and enter what they were actually paid outside the system.
- A regular run is created (or already exists) for an overlapping period — Greenroom checks every prepay run that overlaps that period.
- The prepaid payee is excluded automatically — on the regular run, that payee is marked excluded with a visible reason: "Prepaid in [run code] ([period]) — already paid for this period." This is never a silent removal; the exclusion and its reason are shown on the run so whoever is reviewing it can see exactly why that payee isn't included.
This is exclusion, not netting — the regular run does not calculate "regular pay minus the prepay amount." The prepaid payee simply doesn't get a second payment for the same period through Greenroom. If you void (delete) the prepay run, the exclusion it created is lifted and the payee becomes available on the regular run again.
A draft prepay creates this exclusion the moment it exists — before it's even submitted. The double-pay risk is treated as real as soon as the prepay is on the books, not just once it's finalized.
Tax Handling
When applicable, Greenroom calculates and remits the payroll taxes owed on the recorded amount — the same tax engine used for a regular run. "When applicable" mainly means W-2 employees and loan-outs: contractor and vendor payments carry no tax withholding either way (see Vendors and Contractors), so there's nothing for a prepay to calculate on those.
Fees
A prepay run carries no platform fee at all — not the flat/percentage charge, not the per-payee charge. The reasoning: a prepay only records payment and taxes for a period that hasn't run for real yet. The actual platform fee bills later, when that period is processed as a regular payroll — charging a fee on the prepay too would double-bill the same period. See Platform Fees & Billing for the full fee model.
Processing Steps
Prepay runs go through the same five-step flow as every other run type:
| Step | Name | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Employees & Loan-outs | Starts with everyone excluded — re-include who you're recording |
| 2 | Vendors & Contractors | Record any vendor or contractor payments made outside Greenroom the same way |
| 3 | Payroll Summary | Review the recorded amounts and any tax calculated |
| 4 | Union Reports | Review union-specific data for included payees, same as any other run |
| 5 | Submit Payroll | Finalize the record |
Best Practices
- Only record what was actually paid outside Greenroom — a prepay is a record, not a way to issue an early payment
- Re-include only the payees whose outside payment you're documenting; leave everyone else excluded
- Double-check the pay period the prepay is tied to — that's what drives the later exclusion on the regular run
- When the regular run for that period comes around, confirm the prepaid payees show the exclusion reason rather than re-adding them manually
- Void a prepay promptly if it was created in error, so the exclusion it caused doesn't linger on other runs
Next Steps
Return to the Payroll Introduction for an overview of all payroll types, or see Creating a Payroll Run for standard payroll creation.