User Guide for Sales File Management

A step-by-step guide to uploading and processing sales files for digital aggregated output files and royalty runs is now available.

Sales Templates

RoyaltyShare provides standard sales templates for uploading digital and physical sales to the revenue tab, enabling you to quickly add any sales needed for royalty processing.

The current templates and specifications are available for download here, and can be used to upload any outstanding sales you may have.

General Information

The "Revenue" tab, also called the "Royalty Status Tracker", provides an interface for uploading and processing sales files from distributors and digital service providers (DSPs).

"Sales Period Name" section

The sales period name appears as a header at the top of the page. From here, you can navigate to previous closed periods through the "Previous Period" link, or adjust the name of the current period. By default, the current sales period name is automatically configured with the date when the last period was closed and noting it is to the present, as in "Nov 01, 2009 – Present (Current)." When selecting the revenue tab, the first period seen is always the current period.

The current period name can be renamed by clicking on the notepad icon and accessing the "Edit Period Name" page. Note that closed period names cannot be changed.

"Download Current Period Reports" section

This section contains reports relevant to sales files being processed in the current period. These reports provide different data sets taken from the sales file information in the "Open Files" and "Finished Files" sections.

Current Reconciliation Report

provides revenue, unit, and record information for all current and suspense files from the "Open Files" and "Finished Files" sections of the revenue tab, including the totals received, previously processed, processed for the current period, and unprocessed.

• Note: files that have been fully processed (all exceptions matched) in a previously closed period do not appear in the Current Reconciliation Report.

File Summary

provides a snapshot of the current files in the "Open Files" and "Finished Files" sections.

• Note: this report excludes manually entered license income files.

All Exceptions

provides a tab-delimited text file containing all exceptions remaining in sales files in the "Open Files" section. The exceptions file contains the information seen in the original sales file.

• Note: this report must be initially generated by the user through the "Generate Exceptions Report" link, and must be continually generated for the report to reflect exception resolution.

"Upload Sales File" section

Sales files can be added to the "Royalty Status Tracker" for data aggregation and royalty processing by browsing for and uploading sales files in the "Upload Sales Files" section.

Sales files in text (.txt, .csv, .tsv) and Excel 97 – 2003 (.xls,) formats can be uploaded. Summaries received with sales files in PDF or Word, zipped folder formats, and Excel 2007 (.xlsx) files cannot be processed and are automatically rejected by the system.

"New Files" section

Sales files appear in the "New Files" section of the "Royalty Status Tracker" immediately after they are uploaded. This section is present on the tracker page only when files are processing or attempting to process.

The following fields appear in the "New Files" section after a file is uploaded:

Service

the name of the distributor or DSP providing the sales file. The initial service name for all files appears as "Unknown" until processing begins and the system can recognize the distributor or DSP. It will remain "Unknown" if the system cannot recognize the file.

File Name

the name of the file, including the file format extension. Files uploaded to the "New Files" section can be downloaded by clicking on the file name link.

Delete File

clicking this icon deletes the sales file from the "New Files" section. Once clicked, a pop-up window will ask you to confirm the deletion before any action is taken.

Errors

defines any errors encountered while the file was processing or attempting to process.

Received

the date the file was uploaded to the "New Files" section.

Status

defines the status of the sales file as it relates to processing. You must refresh your webpage in order to view changes in processing after a file is uploaded.

• "In Queue" is the initial status of all files until processing begins.
• "Processing" will appear once the system has recognized the file. A processed record count will appear in parentheses, starting with "(0)."
  • During processing transactions are automatically matched to catalog data based on Album Title, UPC, Artist Name, Track Name, and ISRC.
  • As transaction lines within a sales file are processed, the record count will increment.
• "Invalid" appears if the file contains errors that prevent it from being processed or if the file was not recognized by the system as from a currently supported service.

"Open Files" section

The "Open Files" section of the "Royalty Status Tracker" contains all sales files accepted into the system. Sales files that are "Finished" and included in a closed period will be included in aggregated output files and are available for royalty processing.

Files can be viewed in groups of 25, 50, 100, or all files available can be viewed. Filters are also available for showing only current files, suspense files, $0.00 revenue files. These settings can be adjusted using the "Now Viewing" dropdowns.

• Current files – lists only new files that have been uploaded into the open period
• Suspense files – lists only files that have been split in a previous period.
• $0.00 revenue files – lists only files that do not have any revenue associated with them.
• All Files – Lists all files that are available in the current period.

Within a filtered view, the "Open Files" section can be sorted in ascending or descending order by clicking on the header for any available field.

The following fields appear in the "Open Files" section:

Service

the name of the distributor or DSP providing the sales file.

File Name

the name of the file, including the file format extension.

• New files that have not previously been finished can be downloaded by clicking on the file name link.
• Split files cannot be downloaded. These files were originally processed in a prior period, and were finished with exceptions remaining in the "Open Files" section. Their file name has been appended with "-b," "-c," "-d," etc., depending on the number of times the file has been split.

Delete File

clicking this icon deletes the sales file from the "New Files" section. Once clicked, a pop-up window will ask you to confirm the deletion before any action is taken.

Notes

clicking this icon takes the user to the "View/Edit Notes" page where a text string can be entered for informational purposes. Only the first three letters of the text string entered will be viewable in the "Open Files" section.

Received

the date the file was processed and first appeared in the "Open Files" section.

Units

the total number of units being processed in the sales file.

Dist. Fee

the user entered distribution fee. This field provides a method to deduct a % distribution fee from the net revenue amount being processed from the file. If the service is a recognized distributor, a link will be available that allows the user to access the "Distribution Fee Entry" page.

Revenue

the amount of revenue being processed from the file in the base currency of the RoyaltyShare website.

• Foreign revenue amounts will appear in parentheses next to the base currency amount, with the base currency appearing as a link in order to access the "Currency Conversion" page.
• Note: Conversion rates can be entered against multiple sales files by clicking on the “Conversion Rate Entry” button at the top of the “Open Files” section.
• If no revenue is present in the detail of the sales file, a link will appear that allows the user to access the "Input Revenue" page.

Records

the total number of records, or lines, being processed in the sales file.

Exceptions / Initial

the total number of records from the sales file that could not be automatically matched to catalog data when the file was received.

Download Error File

clicking this icon downloads an Excel report of all records from the sales file that currently have not been matched to catalog.

Exceptions / Left

the number of records from the sales file that currently have not been matched to catalog data. If any records are left as exceptions, the number appears as a link which allows the user to access the "Resolve Exceptions" page.

"License Income (Manual Entry)" section

The "License Income" section allows users to manually enter sales information for master use income by creating sales files that connect sales directly to contracts, albums, and tracks.

By clicking the "Add File" button, the user is taken to the "Edit License Income" page where new manual sales files can be added. Once a file is created, clicking the file name will also take the user to the "Edit License Income" page.

The following fields appear in the "License Income" section:

Type

defaults to "License Income."

File Name

the name entered by the customer for the manually entered license income transactions. Clicking on this link will access the "Edit License Income" page where transactions can be edited and updated.

Delete File

clicking this icon deletes the sales file from the "License Income (Manual Entry)" section. Once clicked, a pop-up window will ask you to confirm the deletion before any action is taken.

Notes

clicking this icon takes the user to the "View/Edit Notes" page where a text string can be entered for informational purposes. Only the first three letters of the text string entered will be viewable in the "Open Files" section.

Date Added

the date the license income file was created and first appeared in the License Income Section.

Units

the total number of units being processed in the sales file.

Revenue

the amount of revenue being processed from the file in the base currency of the RoyaltyShare website.

"Finished Files" section

The "Finished Files" section shows all files for the current period that will be included in the close of the current period. Once the period is closed, all sales in these finished files will move to the closed period and will then be eligible for royalty processing. All closed digital sales will appear in the aggregated output file for the period and will show in the corresponding reconciliation report.

The information available in this section is the same as the information available in the "Open Files" section, with a few exceptions:

• Exceptions Left will always appear as zero once a file has been finished.
• The field "Closed" replaces "Status," showing the date the file was finished.
• Files cannot be deleted from the "Finished Files" section. Instead, files can be re-opened and added back to the "Open Files" section, removing them from being part of the closed period. To re-open a file, click on the "Reopen File" button.

At least one file must be processed and included in the "Finished Files" section before a period can be closed. If no files have been finished and fully processed, the "Close Current Period" button will be unavailable."