Royalties Module Configuration - Bulk Upload Spreadsheet

Configuring Royalties Manager module can be a time-consuming process. To ensure that this can be accomplished in a clear and concise fashion, there is a bulk upload process that can take the time out of manually configuring the information.  

The spreadsheet for the upload process is available for download:  Royalties Upload Template.xlsx

There are six tabs to fill in, breaking down the data upload into subsections. We have also included examples of how this data may be look in a set of tabs towards the end of the document. 

Please note that, unfortunately, this upload is not something that you can do yourself, Stison will need to run the bulk upload of the data, and there is a charge for this. It is recommended that you agree this with Stison prior to filling out the spread sheet. Follow these steps, add your data accordingly, and then send the spreadsheet back to Stison. 

Warning

Please note that Author or Payee names included in the spread sheet that are not spelt exactly as they are in the system will cause duplicate entries.

There are 6 tabs of data that you will need to configure they revolve around different aspects of the process: 

Configuration and Sales Types relate to the setup of your Royalty System within Stison.

Contract Details and Contract Rules detail the exact terms that can be found within each of your Royalty Contracts. 

Previous Data is all about historic data and enabling the system to start up from the exact point at which this system is taking over from your old system. 

Outstanding Income - Details about each payee, how much they have earnt on a title, and any monies that might be owing.

Configuration

This tab enables you to specify the regularity of your Royalty periods. It is possible that you have multiple Royalty periods, for example you could have some titles paid on a half yearly basis whilst the remainder are paid on an annual basis. If this is the case please create a single row for each schedule. 

• Publisher Name - Please use the name of the organisation that is configured on your Stison system. 
• Config Name - Give the schedule a name. In the example above, we've called it Annual. 
• Config Prefix - This is the label that will appear on your royalty statements, differentiating the payment schedule. In this example, A represents an Annual statement.
• Frequency - Input the number of months that will be included within the pay run. 
• Date of Last Run - Please list the date when your last royalty statements were run in your previous system. This will then trigger the system to add the Frequency figure from the previous column to the Date of Last Run in order to establish the next end date.
• Generate Empty - If you mark this as a Y, then you are stating that you would like empty statements run even if a title (or titles) have had no sales/royalties in the period.
• Generate Remittance - The system can generate remittance notices that can be sent out separately to the Royalty Statements. If you would like this enter Y else N. 

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Sales types

Sales types enable you to link sales that come onto the system to the correct royalty or sub-rights term in the contract. For each term in your contract you will need a sales type to link to. Example of these could be Trade (or Local) saes, Export Sales or Translation Rights. Each one of these will end up having a line in the system with a payment value attached.

• Sales Type Name: In the example above, we've differentiated local sales (you may call this home sales, trade sales) from export sales. We have also shown you a third example: Ebook Sales. The sales types you record here will then populate a drop-down menu later in the system when you begin to manipulate the Royalties module with your sales data.
• Sales Type Code - Give the sales type a code prefix. Ensure that the code is useful to you and your colleagues, and relates in some way to the full name of the sales type.
• Copy Required - Mark this as a Y (yes) or N (no) depending on the details of the contract. For instance, some contracts will specifically state that, "For every copy sold," a royalty may be applied. This is why you would want the sales type to incorporate the number of specific units.

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Contracts

The contracts part of the system allows you to setup the main details about the contract, ie which book sit under this particular contract, who gets paid and how much. For titles with multiple authors, each author will have a line on the contract. Titles where payments an author has earnt are paid to multiple beneficiaries will also result in multiple lines on contract. Therefore it is likely you will see duplication in the spread sheet as below.

• Contract Number - You can use this to assign a contract number from a previous system or create a new number here.
• Contract Name - The name of the contract, this would normally be the name of the main title.
• ISBNs on Contract - The ISBN13 for each product form included on the contract should be listed here, separating them each with a semicolon. 
• Author First Name & Surname - Think of this as a 'contributor' name, as this could relate to illustrators, editors, etc.
• Payee First Name & Last Name - In some cases, the payee of the royalties may not actually be the contributor. If the payee is the same as the Author Name, please add the name here again. Make sure that it is spelled the same as it was the first time you input the information. If the payee is an organisation then please add the name of the organisation in the First Name only and leave the last name blank. 
• %age Split - Each contributors total can only come to a maximum of 100%, and relates to the percentage that that person will receive of the royalties money earned per run. In an example we've provided in the spreadsheet, contributor Barry Keane's royalties earned are paid to two payees who receive 50% of the money. These payees are Monty Keane and Arianna King.
• Is payee an Organisation? Add a Y or N

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Contract rules

Each royalty contract is made up of a series of contract rules. These are designed to emulate what is written in your contract. So for all Trade sales of  the Paperback sold in the UK market an amount of 10% of the net receipts received by the publisher - would equate to a single line in the spread sheet. A rule that includes escalation might have more lines. One line for each break point, i.e. 10% of net sales for the first 5000 copies and 15% thereafter - would require two lines in the spread sheet.

• Contract Name & Number: These must match with the contract details you uploaded within the Contract Details tab of the spreadsheet.
• Format: You should indicate here the product formats that the rule applies to, i.e. paperback / hardback / eBook …
• Author First Name & Surname: Please note that this field relates to any contributor for which royalties will be paid (not just an author).
• Sales Type: This relates to the sales type against which the calculation will be made, these will have been defined on Sales Type tab. A contributor may earn royalties on export sales, home sales, bookclub sales, etc, and each sales type will have a different royalty calculation (rule).
• First Break (%'age or Unit): It is possible for a royalty rule to combine two different break points both by number of units sold and percentage discount. If this is the case you will need to specify which break should be reviewed first. In almost all cases this will be Units first and discount second. In the unlikely event that you believe this should be discount please let us know. 

Note
The next two points relate to rules that have a break point included. If there is no break in the rule then you would leave all of these blank.

• %'age Break Start & End: For any rule that is based upon a discount rate these are the start points and end points of the break. For example one line may read from 0 - 55 (translates to up to 55% discount) the next line way read 55 and 70 (from 55% to 70 %) and then a final line would have  70 & 100 (from 70% - 100% discount). 
• Unit Break Start & End: Input the number where the unit break begins and ends. This works in the same fashion as a discount break with except that the start and end points are number of units sold. 
• Lump Sum:  In this instance the rule would imply that every time a sale is set against this rule a fixed sum is payable. 
• %'age Due: This is the rate payable when the a sale is passed against the rule. ie 10%.
• Net / Gross / Fixed Rate: Net = Net receipts received by the publisher, Gross indicates royalties are calculated on the RRP where as fixed rate would indicate a fixed amount per unit sold. 
• Influencer: Influencers enable the qyt of units sold from other titles to impact the escalators in the current rule. IE sales of Vol 1 could increase the escalator for Vol 2 and vice versa. You will only need to add this information if the royalty contract is influenced by other titles. Please use a semicolon between each ISBN.
• Withholding Rate: (Or Returns Retention)This will be a percentage of the total royalties earned within the pay period that are held back from being paid to the payee for a specific period of time.
• Withholding Period: This is the amount of time you will hold onto the withheld amount before returning to  the publisher.
• Rolling Withholding: An amount withheld is predominantly only held back form the first royalty period. However sometimes this amount can be indefinite. So that at each royalty period the withheld amount is returned to the payee, and a new amount is withheld based on the royalties earnt in that period. To add this include a Y in this field else add an N.

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Previous Data

It is likely that you will be using the Stison Royalties module after having previously used a different system. If this is the case, then there will be historical data for your titles that you'll want to maintain/take into account. For any Royalty rule that includes a unit escalator it is mandatory that that this information is included here. However if you also want to store an historical record the copies sold and total royalties' paid to date then you can include this here as well. 

This will be lump sums per title rather than break downs of who your titles were sold to previously and for how much. 

In the example above, you will see that for Title 2, the historical data shows they sold 3,541 units since publication date. With this information uploaded onto the system, Title 2's royalties records will begin from 3,541 rather than 0. For Title 3, you can see that there are three types of escalation points, and so the total figures have been laid out separately against each escalation point.

• Contract Number & Name: These must match with the contract details you uploaded within the Contract Details tab of the spreadsheet.
• ISBN: This will be the ISBN of the product to which these sales or values correspond.
• Sales Type: This will be the Sales types that the sales correspond to - if your historic data does not provide this. Then you can put all sales against a single sales type. 
• Units Sold: The number of units sold, this is very important if there is an escalator involved.
• Net Value: The net value of all sales to date.
• Gross Value: The gross value of all sales to date. 
• Percentage: This is an approximate value to ensure that the units get placed in the correct percentage break. 
• Escalated Units: If units are impacted by the sales of other volumes or product forms that do not / will not exist in Stison, then adding the value of these escalations is important for configuration of the system. For example, if you are entering the details for a second edition, but you do not have the first edition in the system, and the sales of the first edition affect the escalation in the royalties of the second edition, you will need to enter the units sold for the first edition here. 

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Outstanding Balances

If you are switching over to the Stison Royalties module from a previous system, there is a possibility that your contributors still have advances that have not been fully earned back from their royalties' schedules. If this is the case, then you will want to add the information in this tab.

For Title 1 in the example, £175 is being held against possible returns to be added back at the start of the next period. For Title 2, Brian Dougherty has a £750 advance that has not yet be earned out. When Brian's publisher begins to generate pay runs using your Royalties module, the system will immediately start taking royalty figures direct from the 'unearned advance' first. This ensures that Brian is not given more royalty payments then he is entitled.

• Contract Number and Contract Name: These must match with the contract details you uploaded within the Contract Details tab of the spreadsheet.
• ISBN:  The isbn of the title that the balances relate to.
• Author and Payee First Names & Surname: The author and payee names, please note that these should be exactly the same as the Contract Details tab. 
• Royalties Earnt: This is the sum total of the Royalties that this payee has earnt from this ISBN to date. 
• Balance Due: Any outstanding balance that is due to the Payee for this ISBN. This may be because of not meeting a minimum payment. (This should not include any values in the Returns Retention Column).
• Returns Retention: The value of any royalties that have been retained from a previous period. 
• Unearned Advance: Any unearned advance that is attached to this ISBN.

Once this spread sheet has been completed then Stison will should be able to upload your Royalty Data. 

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