How pay is calculated (gross → net)

Two things stand between the hours you work and the money you keep: the pay engine, which builds your gross, and withholding, which turns that gross into net (your take-home). This page walks the whole path, in plain terms, so the numbers you see in the app make sense — and so you can spot when a real paycheck doesn't match.

The two halves of the story

Think of it as a pipeline with a clear midpoint:

1. Gross build-up — the pay engine reads your contract and your logged week, classifies the hours, stacks on premiums and penalties, and produces your gross pay for the period.
2. Gross → net — withholding takes that gross and subtracts federal, state, and local tax, payroll tax (FICA or self-employment tax), and any below-the-line deductions, leaving your net.

The rest of this page follows that order.

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Part 1 — How your gross is built

The guiding principle of the engine is: you log what actually happened, and the engine works out what it's worth. You never label hours as straight time, overtime, or double time yourself. You record real calls, travel, and meal breaks; the engine derives the rest from your contract's rules.

For the full picture of contracts, work types, riders, and premiums, see Contracts & the pay engine. Here's the short version of how a gross is assembled.

Step 1: Classify the hours (ST / OT / DT)

The engine takes each day's worked and travel time and splits it into three buckets:

• Straight time (ST) — normal-rate hours.
• Overtime (OT) — hours past your contract's daily threshold (after 8, 10, or 12 hours, depending on the deal) or past the weekly threshold (typically 40).
• Double time (DT) — hours past the next, higher threshold, where your contract defines one.

Because you logged real start/end times and your meal breaks, the engine can draw these lines consistently. Hours are logged to the minute but billed at your contract's rounding increment — so an odd minute here or there gets rounded the way your agreement specifies, not silently dropped.

Step 2: Price each stretch with premiums

Once hours are classified, each stretch gets a dollar value. Premiums are adjustments stacked on top of base pay. Whether they compound is a term of your contract — its stacking policy is one of multiply (a Sunday worked into overtime layers both multipliers), add (the marginal parts are summed), or highest wins (the premium that would pay the most applies alone, which is what an agreement means when it says premiums "may not be compounded"). The day's work type (rehearsal vs. performance, for instance) also selects the rate and premiums that apply.

Where an agreement's ladder runs past double time, extended-hour rungs carry the upper steps — and they distinguish hours worked from hours elapsed since you reported (meals included), because those are different quantities and a long meal break makes them diverge. See Contracts & the pay engine for the detail.

Step 3: Add penalties

The engine checks your logged breaks and gaps against your contract's penalty rules — meal penalties, turnaround (short rest between calls), minimum-call shortfalls, and sixth/seventh consecutive day rules. Anything triggered is added to the gross.

Step 4: Add event premiums and holidays

Some money is owed because an event happened, regardless of hours — a flat per-performance fee, or a fraction-of-weekly holiday premium. Holidays on your contract's calendar fire automatically; other events (like a pyro or costume fee) you tag by hand. See Event tagging.

Step 5: Fold in allowances — and mind the taxable line

This is the step that most affects your later net, so it's worth understanding:

• Taxable allowances (certain credits treated as income) fold above the line — they add to your taxable gross.
• Vacation paid into gross (where your contract does that) is likewise above the line, and it appears as its own named line in the week's composition rather than as an unexplained part of the total.
• Kit fees are taxable and stay inside the taxed gross.
• Non-taxable reimbursements (per diem, expense repayments) stay outside your taxable gross. They're money you keep, but they are not taxed and do not inflate the base that withholding is calculated against.

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Part 2 — How gross becomes net

Once you have a gross, the Gross → net card shows the honest take-home. It reads as a waterfall: start at Gross, subtract each item, and land on Kept.

The card branches on how you're paid

The single biggest fork is your tax class:

• W-2 (employee) — the amounts shown are withheld for you. The card shows federal, state, local, and FICA (Social Security + Medicare).
• 1099 (self-employed / loan-out) — nothing is withheld, so the card shows what to set aside, and it includes self-employment (SE) tax in place of FICA.

The labels change accordingly ("Fed w/h" vs. "Fed set-aside," "FICA" vs. "SE tax"), so you always know whether the money is already gone or something you need to reserve.

What comes out, in order

1. Federal tax — estimated from your filing status and pay frequency.
2. State tax — from the rate the app resolves for your state (see the affordance below).
3. Local / city tax — only shown when a local rate applies.
4. FICA (W-2) or SE tax (1099) — the payroll-tax wedge.
5. Below-the-line deductions — union dues, PAC contributions, and the like. These come out of your net; they do not reduce your taxable gross.
6. Kept — your net for the period.

Reimbursements are added back as "total kept"

If you had non-taxable reimbursements in the period (per diem, kit rental), the card surfaces them as a separate, un-taxed line and adds them to your net to show total kept. They were never in the taxable base, so they arrive here whole. This is why "total kept" can be higher than "net."

Two rates: effective vs. marginal

The card headlines the effective rate — total withheld ÷ gross — because that's what actually came out of this money. It also shows a smaller marginal badge (your next-dollar rate), sourced from a stable annual basis rather than this one week times 52, so a big week doesn't make it flash a scary top-bracket number.

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How to read your own numbers

Check that your state is set

If the app hasn't resolved a state tax rate, the State row shows a "State — set your state" link instead of a number — it never silently drops to $0. If you see that affordance, your state withholding isn't being estimated yet.

1. Click State — set your state on the card (or open Tax settings).
2. Set your state (and local/city, if applicable) and your filing status.
3. Return to the card — the State row now shows a real withholding.

Reconcile a real paycheck against the estimate

When a check lands, compare it to what the app expected:

1. Match the gross first. Confirm the paystub's earned/worked pay matches the engine's gross for the same period. Watch for definition differences (funds, reimbursements) before assuming an error.
2. Walk the withholding lines. Compare federal, state, local, and FICA/SE line by line against the card.
3. Check below-the-line items. Dues and other deductions should match your net, not your taxable gross.
4. Flag real deltas. A short check, a missing fund contribution, or a wrong withholding is a genuine discrepancy worth chasing — not a rounding artifact.

Money → Paid does step 1 for you, week by week. Each row puts what the app expected next to what the check actually paid, and prints the delta:

A week that does not match keeps its delta and links to its own reconciliation item, so a short check stays visible instead of being averaged away. The Split check control is for the common case where one payment covers several weeks — tell the app how the money divides and each week reconciles on its own.

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Common gotchas

• Reimbursements aren't income. Per diem and expense repayments are added to "total kept" but never taxed — don't expect them in your taxable gross. Kit fees are the exception: they are taxable and sit inside the taxed gross.
• Dues live below the line. They reduce your take-home but not your taxable income, so they never change your tax withholding.
• The engine gross ≠ every paystub gross. Compare like-for-like when reconciling.
• An unset state hides real tax. If you see "set your state," your net is optimistic until you fix it.
• W-2 vs. 1099 changes the meaning of every line. On 1099 the numbers are money to set aside, not money already gone — including SE tax.
• Estimates swing week to week. Effective rate on a single check is not your annual rate.

What you actually do

• Log each week honestly — real times, real breaks, the right work type per day.
• Keep your tax settings current — state, local, filing status, tax class (W-2 / 1099).
• Read the Gross → net card to understand take-home, and note "total kept" for the full cash picture.
• Reconcile real checks against the estimate and flag genuine deltas.