Common Issues and Troubleshooting
Verified fixes for payroll, payee, company setup, and data issues, matched to actual current product behavior
This guide covers real, verified causes of the issues ops and support staff run into most — matched against current product behavior, not generic guesses. Where the product uses a specific label or shows you specific wording, that's quoted below so you can match it to what's on your screen.
Payroll Issues
A payroll run won't submit
There's no "Process" button — the action you're looking for is Submit payroll. "Processing" is a status a run moves through after you submit it, not something you click.
A few different things can block submission, at different points:
- Your company isn't approved to run payroll yet. Every company must be reviewed and approved by Greenroom before its first run — and stays gated on this permanently, not just at launch. If your company isn't approved, starting a run fails outright. Getting approved requires finishing company setup first — see Where the setup checklist actually lives, below — and then submitting your company for Greenroom's review.
- The run has already moved past draft/review. Once a run is submitted, its entries lock — you can't go back and edit it. If you need to change something at that point, you're looking at a new run (an amendment, if the original was already paid — see Correcting a run that's already been paid, below), not an edit to the old one.
- Dual approval is on (the default) and only one person has signed off. A run needs approval from two different people, and the preparer can't be one of them. If you prepared the run yourself, you'll need a colleague to review and approve it — Greenroom blocks a preparer from approving their own run. See Payroll approvals if you want to turn this off for a one-person production.
- Some payees aren't ready to be paid. At submit time, Greenroom checks every included payee's tax setup is complete (W-4/withholding for employees, W-9/TIN for 1099 contractors). Payees who fail this check aren't included in the run — you'll see a panel like "N payees aren't ready for this run" — but the run itself still goes through with everyone else. This doesn't block the whole run; it just leaves those specific payees out until they're fixed.
Checking how a payee's pay was calculated
Click a payee's row in the Employees step to expand it — you'll see Contract pay, Assignments, Activity, Allowances, and Deductions, plus Gross, Deductions, and Disbursement totals at the bottom of the expanded row. For a whole-run summary of employer taxes and fees, the Review step has a separate Fee & tax breakdown panel.
Itemized tax withholding for one specific payee (federal, state, etc.) isn't shown in these admin screens — that level of detail only appears on the payee's own pay stub in their portal. If a payee asks why their take-home was a specific number, their pay stub is the source, not the run screens you see.
A payee isn't showing up for a run
Payees aren't hidden from a searchable list so much as automatically excluded from the draft with a reason. When a run is built, Greenroom checks each payee and — if they're not ready — leaves them out and shows why, using one of two reasons:
- "Onboarding incomplete"
- "Work authorization pending"
Separately, payee list and detail screens show an at-a-glance readiness signal: a solid green dot (or a Payroll-ready badge on the payee's own page) means they're good to go; an amber ring (or a "N to finish" badge) means something's outstanding. Per Payroll readiness, what's typically left is a pay rate (not required for vendors), a required document, or unresolved tax setup.
Correcting a run that's already been paid (amendments)
If you need to correct a run after it's already been paid, that's called an amendment in the product (not "adjustment run"). You pick the already-paid run you're correcting and give a reason — Greenroom requires a purpose before it lets you proceed. The correction posts as new payment lines against the original payees; it doesn't rewrite their base pay rate. A draft or review-stage run that hasn't been paid yet doesn't need this — just edit it directly (see point 2 above for when that stops being possible).
Payee Issues
Payee onboarding stuck or incomplete
See Onboarding status for exactly what each status value means and how to follow up with a payee — Greenroom tracks this with specific status pills rather than a generic "stuck" flag, and following up re-sends whatever link is outstanding rather than a separate reminder action.
Can't update a payee's information
Most fields on a payee's record are editable any time by your team. The one real exception: legal name and date of birth freeze once the payee is approved, because they're tied to the signed I-9. If a payee tries to change either themselves, the product tells them directly:
"Legal name and date of birth are locked after approval — they're tied to the signed I-9. Update your address from your profile, or ask your employer to change your name or date of birth."
In other words: the payee can still update their own address, but a name or date-of-birth correction after approval has to come from your team, on the payee's record — not from the payee's own portal.
Not a general "fields lock after payroll runs" rule
Don't assume other fields lock just because a payee has been through a payroll run. The only confirmed freeze is legal name and date of birth after I-9/manager approval. What does lock after processing is the payroll run's own entries, not the payee's profile — see point 2 under A payroll run won't submit.
Payment method and bank detail errors
Bank account and routing numbers go through real validation, not just a length check:
- Routing numbers must be 9 digits and pass the standard ABA bank checksum — a routing number can be the right length and still fail this check. Greenroom's own message: "That routing number doesn't pass the bank checksum — double-check it."
- Both the routing number and the account number require double-entry — you type each one twice, and pasting is disabled specifically so a copy-paste error can't silently duplicate a typo. A mismatch between the two entries is rejected with "The routing numbers don't match — re-enter them" / "The account numbers don't match — re-enter them."
This applies to a payee's own direct deposit setup (see Payment Details) and, separately, to your company's own bank account under company setup — the validation logic is the same in both places, just with slightly different wording.
Duplicate payee errors
You don't need to search manually before adding someone — Greenroom checks for you. Creating a payee with an email that's already in use is blocked automatically, with a message that names the conflict directly, for example: "[Name] already uses [email] (payee [code]) — they may have been added on an earlier try. Open that payee, or use a different email." If you hit this, open the named payee to confirm it's the same person rather than re-entering them.
Company Setup Issues
Where the setup checklist actually lives
The setup checklist is its own page — Company setup — not something embedded in the dashboard. The dashboard only shows a banner that links you there while your company is still unapproved; once Greenroom approves your company, that link disappears from the main navigation entirely (which is expected — it's not a bug or lost data, the checklist's job is done).
The real stages are:
| Stage | Covers |
|---|---|
| Production info | Your company's basic identity |
| Pay schedule | Pay frequency and related payroll timing |
| Unions on this production | Which unions apply, or confirming a non-union production |
| Bank & checks | Bank account details |
| Payroll provider | Only required if your company connects a payroll-processing provider |
All required stages need to be complete before you can submit your company for Greenroom's review — and approval of that review is what actually unlocks running payroll (see A payroll run won't submit).
Bank authorization
Authorization isn't a separate signature step or a waiting period — successfully saving valid bank details (details that pass the checksum and double-entry checks above) is the authorization. If bank authorization isn't going through, the fix is the same as any other bank-detail error: check the routing number and both double-entered fields match exactly.
Union setup
Setting up unions at the company level is simpler than older materials suggest: you select which of your production's applicable unions apply, or confirm "this production runs non-union." There's no separate AEA-specific sub-form, and no "production ID" field anywhere in company or union setup — if you're looking for one, it doesn't exist.
Agreement type is a real field, but it's chosen per payee (in that payee's Engagement section), not during company-level union setup — see Engagement & union.
Data Issues
"My changes aren't saving"
The fix depends on which screen you're on — Greenroom saves changes in three different ways depending on context:
| Where | How saving works |
|---|---|
| Settings, a payee's record, union rule editing | One save bar appears at the bottom once you've changed something. Nothing saves until you click Save there. Look for it if you've made edits and navigated away without noticing it. |
| Company setup checklist | Each section has its own small Save button, active only once that section has unsaved changes. |
| Editing entries in an open payroll run | Saves automatically as you make each change — there's no Save button at all here, so if something looks wrong, it's already been applied and needs to be changed again rather than "saved." |
Whichever screen you're on, a validation error (shown directly on the field) blocks saving until it's fixed — that part is consistent everywhere.
Missing or filtered-out data
If the payee list looks incomplete, check for active filter chips — the Payees list shows removable chips for each filter you've applied, plus a Clear all button once any are active. Payroll History works a little differently: it uses two dropdown filters (status and year) and a single Clear filters button rather than individual chips. Don't expect identical filter controls on every list — check for whichever pattern that specific screen uses.
Performance Issues
If a page feels slow, narrowing date ranges and other filters before loading a large list or report generally helps, as does closing unused browser tabs. If a page seems stuck rather than just slow, a refresh is usually a faster fix than waiting.
Getting Help
Greenroom doesn't currently have an in-app help center, tooltip-help system, or chat widget — so if something in this documentation doesn't cover your situation, contact Greenroom directly at hello@greenroompayroll.com rather than looking for a help button inside the product.
When you reach out, include:
- The exact error message (copy the text rather than paraphrasing it)
- What you were doing right before it happened
- A screenshot, if possible
- Relevant IDs — a payee code or payroll run code, if one's involved
Next Steps
See Running Payroll for payroll workflows, Payee Management for payee help, or Company Setup for setup guidance.