Vendors and Contractors in Payroll

Vendors and contractors are processed in their own step, separate from employees and loan-outs, because they're paid differently: no tax withholding, usually a payment entered for the week rather than a standing pay rate, and 1099 reporting instead of a W-2.

You need the Admin or Payroll role to use the entry steps and change payments. If your role is Approver, opening this step takes you to Payroll Summary to review the run.

Understanding the Separation

Vendor and Contractor Payments

Greenroom recognizes exactly two payee types in this step: vendor and contractor.

A vendor or contractor must complete onboarding before joining a run. Add a vendor payment can create and approve a new vendor together with their first payment; see below. Vendors and contractors have no employer I-9 attestation in their start-work packet, since the I-9 only covers employment eligibility for W-2 employees.

Two notices can appear at the top of this step, each with its payee count in the title. "Manual payment certification needed before you send this payroll" ("certifications" when there's more than one) lists everyone paid manually (by paper check) whose signed certification isn't in their start-work packet yet; the payroll can't be sent for approval or submitted until it is. "Policy acknowledgments pending" covers vendors and contractors who still need to sign required policies; payroll can continue without them. Its names sit behind Show the N payees, which starts open when there are three or fewer. A policy taken off a payee's packet doesn't count toward this notice (see Taking documents off an assigned packet).

Entering a Payment

Most vendors and contractors bill per invoice rather than carry a standing pay rate the way employees do, so each payment is entered directly on the run as a one-time payment line: a name/description, a dollar amount and, if your company has a chart of accounts, a GL code (see Entering this week's payment). A contractor can instead carry standing rates like an employee. A non-union contractor can also be set to Contract / invoice-based payment on their Pay card ("For stipends, flat fees and other negotiated pay."), with no tax ID needed. That puts them on every new run with no rate, and they need none to be ready for payroll. On the run, their Contract pay box reads "This run's stipend, fee or invoice amount"; its Add takes a description, the amount and, with a chart of accounts, a GL code, and nothing has to be uploaded. A payment is a fixed amount: there's no percentage-based payment, and an attached invoice is kept with its payment, not matched against it.

You can keep the invoice itself with the payment: Attach invoice on the payment's row uploads it, for a vendor, or for a contractor or loan-out on contract / invoice-based payment. It's optional. Each payment holds one invoice, and the link appears only while the run can still be edited.

Editing or removing a payment line

Expand the payee's row on Vendors & Contractors. For a hand-added line under Contract pay, choose Edit, or select its name or amount, to open Edit payment line. Change Description, Amount, the GL code where your company has a chart, or Memo, then choose Save & recalculate. The current GL-code requirement also applies when editing here. The save recalculates pay, makes synced taxes out of date, clears recorded approvals, and appears in Settings → Activity as Payroll line updated.

To delete that one line, use its remove icon and confirm with Remove line; Activity records it as Payroll line removed. Lines supplied by the payee's profile say From the payee's profile and stay read-only here; edit those on the payee record. Line edits and removals wait while taxes are syncing.

A vendor who isn't on the run yet

Entries are seeded when a run is created, from everyone eligible at that moment — so a vendor added afterwards isn't on it at first. Two paths:

• They already exist as a payee, and finished onboarding after the run was created. A contractor or vendor the run would include (one with a pay rate for the run's week, payments carried from the last regular run, a benefits-only term week, or, for a contractor, Contract / invoice-based payment) appears under Ready to add in the panel above the table. Each shows their name, type and union, with an Add of their own; Add all appears for two or more ready payees. If you don't add them, they'll be on the next run. A vendor with none of those is never added to a draft, so the ready group never offers them, and on an empty step the not-ready group doesn't promise it either ("Nothing is on this step yet. Finish what each payee needs below."). To pay a vendor you already have, add a rate on their payee page. When the panel above the table is showing, its last line says so: "Approved vendors with no rate and nothing carried from the last run aren't listed here. To pay one on this run, add a rate on their payee page."
• They don't exist yet — an invoice turned up mid-week. Use Add a vendor payment next to the search box on this step. It creates the vendor and their payment together, and refuses rather than creating one who couldn't be paid. See Add a vendor payment for the fields and why the address is mandatory there.

In Add a vendor payment, a company with a chart gets a searchable GL code picker. A code is required until an Admin confirms Expense — uncoded earning lines in Settings → QuickBooks; leaving No GL code selected before that shows "Choose a GL code." and creates neither vendor nor payment. After confirmation, GL code (optional) allows No GL code. Without a chart, the drawer keeps its optional free-text GL code.

The same panel lists anyone still missing something under Not ready yet, with their reason and Finish onboarding, or Open Finish setup for a missing child trust. After an add, a notice names who joined, any other payees recalculated, approvals cleared, and taxes needing another sync with our tax partner. It also names anyone added but excluded from totals, with the reason — off-cycle, prepay, or already prepaid. See Who isn't on this run for the full notice and refusals.

1099 Reporting

Contractor and vendor payments carry no tax withholding and are reported on a 1099 at year-end. They file as 1099-NEC by default. A contractor, loan-out or vendor on an SDC or USA 829 contract is marked MISC-capable instead, because those unions' advances and royalties are reported on 1099-MISC. The union decides this, not the payee type or the role.

A payee marked W-9 not required is the exception. Their payroll lines carry no 1099 bucket, a payment line you add on the run included, so Greenroom's 1099 filing preview leaves those payments out. Adding a payment line for them offers no bucket to choose, and the window says "W-9 not required — the 1099 filing preview leaves this payment out. If our tax partner disburses it, they may still report it." The exemption reaches any payroll not yet approved, because saving the payee recalculates it; a payroll already approved or paid keeps the treatment it had. See Do all vendors need a W-9?.

Representatives

Agents, managers, lawyers, and similar representative types are representatives — they attach to the payee they represent, not to a vendor or contractor record of their own. For a commission-only representative, Greenroom withholds the commission from the represented payee; your production pays the representative separately. For a full-payment representative, the commission is recorded for reference and is not withheld. That setup carries its own authorization requirement, but Greenroom does not route the full payment to the representative. See Representatives & Child Trust Payments for the full breakdown of both.

The Vendors & Contractors step does show a Representatives group, listing one payable row per representative — but that row is derived from the represented payees' pay elsewhere on the run, not a separate payment you enter here. An agency row can show a client count; expand it to see the agency's linked clients and open any of their records.

Child Trust Accounts

Child trust (Coogan) accounts are an allocation for a minor — a percentage of their own gross pay routed to a trust account. Because it's a payment direction for the minor's own earnings, not a separate payee, it lives with the minor's own entry, on whichever step that minor is on: a minor paid as a contractor or vendor shows a Child trust accounts card on this step, the same way a minor employee or loan-out does on Employees & Loan-outs. The trust share really is paid out: by direct deposit it goes to the trust account first and the rest to the minor's personal account, and on a paper check the employer remits the trust amount separately. See Representatives & Child Trust Payments.

Best Practices

• Confirm a vendor or contractor payee is fully onboarded before expecting them to appear as eligible on a run, and have them finish their W-9 before you submit. Until our tax partner holds a 1099 payee's tax ID, submitting is refused (for example "[name]: W-9 not signed"), unless their W-9 is marked not required. Once it holds the tax ID, an unsigned W-9 no longer holds up payroll; their readiness checklist lists W-9 not signed as an advisory until it's signed, or a signed copy is uploaded. Submitting is still refused, signed or not, while their payment method isn't finished with our tax partner (see Processing Payroll)
• Put a clear description on every payment line, and attach the invoice to the payment with Attach invoice where you have it
• Don't look for agents or managers as payees in this step — their commissions come from the payee they represent (see Representatives); a child trust sits with the minor's own entry
• Review the 1099 bucket (NEC vs. MISC) for any vendor or contractor on an SDC or USA 829 contract, since those are MISC-capable and it affects year-end filing

Common Issues

Next Steps

After configuring vendor payments, continue with Reviewing Payroll to verify all payments, or see Payroll Totals to understand the total breakdown.