Payroll Run Status
What each payroll run status means, what you can do at each stage, and how a run moves from draft to paid
Every payroll run carries a status that tells you where it is between "just created" and "money has moved," and what you can do with it right now. This page covers the real statuses a run can be in, what triggers each transition, and what your options are at each stage.
The six statuses
| Status | What it means | Editable? |
|---|---|---|
| Draft | You're building it — adding payees, entering hours and amounts. Nothing has been reviewed yet. | Yes, fully |
| In review | You've walked the run through Payroll Summary and Union Reports. Still yours to change. | Yes |
| Approved | Cleared its approval requirement and is on its way to Processing. Usually visible for only a moment. | No |
| Processing | Greenroom is numbering checks, routing union fund payments, and sending the payroll to Check, our payroll provider. Also brief. | No |
| Paying out | Submitted and accepted by Check — check numbers are assigned and funds are routed, but the bank hasn't confirmed the money has landed yet. This is the status you'll typically see for a while after you submit. | No |
| Paid | Confirmed complete. The bank has confirmed the payout. | No |
A run moves forward through this list, and never skips a status. There are two backward moves, both deliberate:
- In review → Draft, whenever you choose it (see Editing a payroll below).
- Processing → In review, automatically, when Check refuses the payroll for a reason Greenroom has verified left nothing behind on Check's side. See below.
A run that lands back in 'In review' after you submitted it isn't broken
It means Check declined the payroll and nothing moved: no vendor approval, no check numbers, no money. In review is the only state you can fix things from, which is why it goes back rather than sitting stuck.
The commonest case is an expired approval deadline — the pay date you chose was no longer reachable by the time the payroll arrived. Pick a later pay date and submit again.
Other refusals roll back too, and the message says which situation you're in: "the run is back in Review, unchanged and still editable. Try submitting it again." If it's refused a second time, contact Greenroom rather than retrying — the cause is on Greenroom's side and repeating it won't clear it.
Not every refusal rolls back — deliberately
Greenroom only returns a run to In review for refusals it has individually verified leave the payroll at Check untouched. Anything else parks at Processing with "the run is parked and cannot be resubmitted from here — contact Greenroom and we'll clear it."
The asymmetry is on purpose: park a run that could have been rolled back and you wait for support; roll back a run Check actually took and you get an editable payroll whose money is already moving. See Processing Payroll for all the branches.
There's one case that moves the run forward instead: if Check reports the payroll as already approved, Check is holding it and the money is in flight, so the run advances rather than parking.
Awaiting reviewer is the same status as In review
If your company requires a second approval before a payroll can be submitted, a run that's been sent for approval displays as Awaiting reviewer instead of "In review." It's the same underlying status — the label changes because the next action belongs to someone else. See If your company requires a second approval below.
Editing a payroll
Only Draft and In review runs can be changed. From In review, click Edit payroll (back to draft) on the Payroll Summary screen to return it to Draft — you'll land back on the Employees & Loan-outs step with every payee still there.
That rule is enforced at the moment each edit is written, not just when the screen loads. If a run is submitted while someone else still has it open, their next change is refused — "…is processing — a submitted run can no longer be edited" — instead of slipping in behind the submission. The same applies to a payee-profile edit that would recalculate an entry on a run that has just left Draft or In review: that run is skipped and any others update as normal.
Once a run reaches Approved, there's no "unlock" — the only way to correct a Paid run is to create an amendment against it (see Correcting a paid payroll).
Note: If your company requires a second approval, sending a run back to Draft clears any approvals already recorded on it. After you resubmit, reviewers need to approve the new revision — an approval never carries over to changed numbers.
If your company requires a second approval
Some companies turn on a company-wide setting that requires two approvals from two different people, neither of them the payroll's preparer, before a run can be submitted. If your company hasn't turned this on, submitting works as a single step — skip to Correcting a paid payroll.
With the control on, the Submit Payroll screen changes for everyone:
- The preparer sees a Send for approval button instead of Submit. Using it doesn't move any money — it parks the run at In review, displayed as Awaiting reviewer, and notifies that it's waiting.
- A reviewer (anyone with payroll access who did not prepare the run) sees an approval panel with Approve this payroll and Return to preparer buttons, plus a running count like "1/2 approvals."
- Approve this payroll records that reviewer's approval. It does not submit the run by itself.
- Return to preparer sends the run back to Draft and clears any approvals recorded so far — a text explanation is required, so the preparer knows what to fix.
- Once two different people (never the preparer) have approved the same version of the run, the panel reads "Approved — ready to submit to Greenroom." Submitting at that point is the step that actually releases money.
Editing resets the count
Any edit to the run clears every recorded approval. If a reviewer approves and then someone changes an amount, both approvals need to happen again against the new numbers.
Deleting a payroll
Only a Draft payroll can be deleted outright. To delete a run that's already In review, send it back to Draft first (Edit payroll, or ask a reviewer to Return it to you), then delete it from there. Nothing past Draft can be deleted — Approved, Processing, Paying out, and Paid runs are permanent records.
Correcting a paid payroll
There's no "Cancelled" status or "undo" for a payroll once it's Paid. To fix an error in one, create an amendment run against it — any Paid run qualifies, with no special company setting required. Amendments record the correction as new payment lines rather than editing the original run, so the original stays an accurate historical record. See Adjustment Runs for how to create one.
If something goes wrong after you submit
By the time a run reaches Paying out, the money is already committed on Greenroom's side — check numbers are assigned and union fund payments are routed, whether or not the bank has confirmed yet. There's no self-service "retry" or "cancel" at this point, and you won't see a stand-alone "Partially Paid" or "Failed" status: if Check reports a problem with a payout, Greenroom is alerted directly and handles it.
If a run sits at Paying out for longer than seems normal, don't resubmit it — contact support with the run's code so it can be checked directly.
A red banner means Check voided the payroll after submission
On rare occasions Check reports a payroll as voided after it was submitted. Greenroom shows this as a persistent red banner on every page of that run rather than changing its status — the run's own status doesn't auto-flip on a vendor void, since undoing check numbers and fund routing needs a person to look at it. If you see this banner, the amounts on that run may no longer reflect real money movement; contact support before relying on them.
A voided run also can't produce a report or export. It stays listed on Reports, marked "— VOIDED at payroll provider", and generating anything from it is refused with a message pointing back here — rather than the run quietly disappearing from the picker, which would leave anyone reconciling a bank statement hunting a discrepancy with nothing on screen to explain it.
Next steps
See Reviewing Payroll for what happens on the Payroll Summary screen before you submit, Processing Payroll for the submit step itself, or Payroll History to find a specific run by status.