Representatives & Child Trust Payments
How agent, manager, and other representative commissions — and Child Trust allocations — flow through a payroll run
Neither of these is a payee type
A payroll run has four payee types — Employee, Loan-out, Contractor, Vendor (see Payee types). You configure representatives and Child Trust on one of those payees. The run calculates any commission or trust allocation; how you pay it depends on the arrangement below.
Representatives
The Admin and Payroll roles can change a payee’s representatives and setup. The Employees & Loan-outs and Vendors & Contractors steps described below are available to those roles; Approver teammates review the run on Payroll Summary.
A representative — an agent, manager, or other person representing a payee — is set up on the represented payee's own profile, not created as a separate payee. Configuration (contact and agency details, tax ID, fee percentages, the payee-approves-first invitation sequence) is covered in Representatives & Payment Direction; this page covers what happens once payroll runs.
How the fee is set up
Each representative on a payee's profile carries its own commission: a percentage of the payee's full taxable gross pay for the week, meaning base pay plus premiums, side fees, overtime and any taxable per diem, worked out before any retirement deferral. Reimbursements and non-taxable allowances never earn commission. If a payee has more than one representative, each one's commission is calculated separately; they're never blended into a single combined rate.
How the percentage is entered depends on the payee's union:
- AEA, whose rates are split into performance and rehearsal rates, takes a Performance percentage and a Rehearsal percentage, one row each ("A rep with a split deal (e.g. 5% Rehearsal + 10% Performance) uses two rows."). Each week the one matching the payee's rate that week applies.
- Any other union, or a non-union payee, takes one named percentage instead, a Commission name and a Commission percent (for example, a 10% Booking fee), applied to the payee's pay each week.
- On a Development production, whatever the union, there's no performance/rehearsal split: the representation form asks for one percentage ("Typically 5%; use the payee's contract"), and every week takes that one, whatever the rate. A representative saved earlier with two different percentages shows the one runs take until you type a new one.
A representative's onboarding follows an approval sequence: you add them, the payee is emailed to approve having that representative attached (or an Admin or Payroll teammate can record the payee's verbal approval), and only after that approval is the representative emailed a link to supply their tax and banking details. Their status reads Not sent for approval, Awaiting payee approval, Awaiting agent, or Complete. That status tracks onboarding; commission calculation uses the saved payment role and percentage without waiting for Complete. Your production pays the representative outside Greenroom.
Payment role: commission or full payment
Every representative also carries a payment role, set on the payee's Representation card alongside the fee itself:
- Commission only (the option reads Representative receives commission only) — Greenroom withholds the commission from the payee's pay and lists it as payable to the representative. Your production sends that payment; Greenroom does not send it for you. The payee receives the rest of their pay directly.
- Full payment (Representative receives full payment on payee's behalf) — Greenroom records the arrangement but still pays the payee by their own payment method. Any commission percentage is for reference only and is not deducted. Any settlement with the representative happens outside Greenroom. This role needs a separate payment-direction authorization — a signed or uploaded document confirming the payee has authorized the redirect — reviewed and approved by Greenroom staff. Any change to the fee, bank details, or representative's tax ID revokes the current authorization and requires a fresh one.
Our tax partner withholds the commission on an employee's pay
A commission-only representative's commission on an employee paid through our tax partner is sent there as a post-tax deduction at the exact amount Greenroom calculated. Our tax partner withholds it from the employee's pay, so the net it pays matches the net Greenroom shows you, but it doesn't pay the representative: the Representatives card lists what the run owes each one. A loan-out's or contractor's payment already reaches our tax partner net of the commission.
Two things can stop a run over a commission. A commission that can't be sent (one that came out negative, for example) stops the payroll sync with a message that names the payee and the commission and says "Our tax partner would pay it to the payee instead of withholding it, so this payroll was not sent. Contact Greenroom to resolve the commission on this run." And if the employee also has a deduction set up directly with our tax partner, approval may be refused until one is removed, unless that deduction is a child support or garnishment order, in which case both are withheld and a notice says so. See Post-tax deductions and our tax partner.
An incomplete full-payment authorization blocks Submit
If a payee's representative is set to full payment and that authorization hasn't been drafted yet, or hasn't cleared admin review, Submit Payroll refuses the run with a specific per-payee message until it's resolved. See What can block submitting. Commission-only representatives never trigger this — the authorization only applies to full payment.
A commission-only representative's commission is tracked in their own 1099-NEC bucket, independently of the payee they represent. For a full-payment representative, the payee remains the tax-reporting recipient and Greenroom still pays the payee directly.
How it shows up on a run
The table below describes a commission-only representative — the common case.
| Where | What you see |
|---|---|
| The represented payee's own row (Employees & Loan-outs or Vendors & Contractors, wherever that payee is) | The commission appears as a line in that payee's Deductions box — it's withheld from their pay like any other deduction. |
| Vendors & Contractors step | A read-only Representatives card below the main table, showing one combined payable row per representative — every payee's withheld commission for that representative, added together into a single amount, regardless of which step the represented payees are actually on. Where the agency is known, its row shows a client count; expand it to see the agency's linked clients and open any of their records. |
That combining is deliberate: if the same agency represents three people in your cast, the run owes them one check, not three (the card says "Commissions withheld from payees this run, payable one check per rep."). You can't edit or remove anything from the Representatives card directly — fix the source by updating the fee or the representative on the represented payee's own profile.
Commission missing or wrong?
Check the represented payee's profile first: is the representative set to Representative receives commission only? Is the fee percentage what you expect, and for an AEA payee, on the correct line (performance vs. rehearsal)? The Representatives card reflects those settings; Complete is an onboarding status, not a commission-calculation requirement.
Child Trust (Coogan)
Child Trust is an allocation for a minor — a portion of their gross earnings set aside in a blocked trust account, required in states with Coogan-style child performer laws. It's set up through the child trust authorization in the minor's start-work packet, which a parent or guardian signs in Finish setup; the Child trust (Coogan) card on the payee's own page shows the trust but doesn't edit it (see Child Trust Payments). It applies to a minor of any payee type: employee, loan-out, contractor or vendor.
A minor isn't put on a payroll until that authorization is signed and its trust account is set up. A minor paid by direct deposit also needs the trust account set up with our tax partner. For an employee, approving their setup does that. For a contractor, loan-out or vendor, request the child trust authorization again in Finish setup once their setup is approved, so the parent or guardian can re-enter the trust account; it's set up with our tax partner then. Including a minor before then is refused: "[Name]: payroll needs a signed child trust authorization with its trust account set up. Open the payee's Finish setup to complete it, or assign a start-work packet on the payee page if they have none." The trust card on the payee's page says which part is missing.
How it shows up on a run
A Child trust accounts card appears on whichever step the minor is on (Employees & Loan-outs, or Vendors & Contractors for a minor paid as a contractor or vendor) whenever an included minor has a trust. It's read-only, listing the payee, the trust, the Current contribution due, and the amount Allocated to trust for the week. If that week's net pay couldn't cover everything due, a note says so, for example "Allocated $150.00 of $200.00 due; $50.00 shortfall carries forward." The shortfall is added to the next run's allocation.
Where the trust money goes
The allocation is paid out of the minor's net pay; their net pay itself doesn't change. How it reaches the trust depends on how the minor is paid:
- Direct deposit: the trust amount goes to the trust account first and the rest to the minor's personal account, as one split payment through our tax partner.
- Paper check: the employer sends the trust amount to the trust as a separate remittance with its own check number, assigned when you submit, and the minor's check carries the rest. The union remittance report on Reports lists these under Child trust — employer remittances, with where to send each one. See Physical Checks.
The payroll register shows each minor's split: the current contribution due, the amount allocated to the trust, and their personal payment.
Best Practices
- Finish the representative's onboarding and check their payment details before your production sends their commission. Review the withheld amount on the run separately from their onboarding status
- If a payee has multiple representatives, double-check each one's percentages separately — they don't share a combined rate
- For Child Trust, check the share shown on the minor's Child trust (Coogan) card. It comes from the signed authorization, so a correction goes back through Finish setup, not the payee's page
- Get a minor's child trust authorization signed in Finish setup before the run you need them on; until it is, and its trust account is set up, they're left off the payroll
- For a minor paid by paper check, send the trust remittance alongside their check
Next Steps
Continue with Payroll Summary to verify all payments, or see Payroll Breakdown for detailed payment information.