Running Royalties

The Royalties Process

Once all your data is in PubGizmo, you can run royalties. Running royalties is a multi-step process:

1. Enter new Titles since the last period and configure Editions and Contracts.
2. Apply changes that may affect existing Titles. Did you add new editions?
3. Complete importing and entering all sales data for the royalty period.
4. Ensure all relevant contracts are flagged to Calc Royalty.
5. Ensure the last period's Payment records were generated, and create them if not.
6. Set your Minimum Royalty Payment (payout threshold) in Admin.
7. Flag which statements to pay out; any not paid out will have their amounts carried forward.
8. Compose (or edit) your stock messages: one for contractees and one for literary agents.
9. Proof your statements, either in PubGizmo or by generating a PDF.
10. Generate email messages with the statements attached.
11. Personalize those messages as you like and send them.
12. Generate Payment records to lock in the amounts for the next period.
13. Optionally, generate a spreadsheet that summarizes your royalties.

The following details each of the steps above.

Ensure Titles, Editions, and Contracts Are Current and Accurate

Titles published since your last royalty run need to be added, and changes to editions and/or contracts for previous titles need to be applied.

Complete Input of Sales Data

Ensure all sales during the royalty period have been input. This means importing all your sales sheets, as well as manually entering any sales not covered by import. Each Sales Import includes a checkbox to confirm completeness and accuracy.

Important: Any sales sheet containing sales from a royalty period that is imported after that period's royalty run is complete will never be counted, even in the next period, because PubGizmo filters the date range for the selected period to isolate sales for that period.

Ensure Correct Active Contracts/Statements Are Flagged to Calculate

PubGizmo allows you to flag active contracts, to determine whether they are computed and included in your royalty run, by checking the Calc Royalty checkbox. Unlike flagging statements to pay out for the selected period (see below), the status of the Calc Royalty flag persists through all royalty runs; that is, contracts remain active or dormant/dead until you change them. You can set this flag in any of three locations:

• on the Contract itself, at the upper right;
• in Royalty form view;
• in Royalty list view.

Hint: you can list statements by their Calc Royalty status by entering either "calc" or "nocalc" in the search box below the Royalties button on the Home screen, or at the top of the Royalties window.

Ensure Payment Records from Last Period Have Been Generated

If this is not your first PubGizmo royalty run, make sure you have generated Payment records for the last period. These are necessary to bring forward important values such as Advance Remaining, reserve on returns, and carry-forward amounts for statements you chose not to pay.

If you forgot to do it last time, you can do so now:

1. Select the previous royalty period.
2. Open the Bulk Royalty Actions popover.
3. Click Create Payment Records.

After that, set your current royalty period and proceed.

Flag Statements to Pay This Period

For each royalty period, you determine which statements will be paid out and which will carry forward their values (if any) to the next royalty period, where those values will be added to (or subtracted from) those statements. Unlike the Calc Royalty checkbox, which persists until you change it, the statements you will actually pay vary each period and must be set each period. By default, when you start a new period, none of the statements are flagged to pay out. You decide which ones get paid and which ones will have their values carried forward to the next period.

Flag Manually

Without Pay Out flagged, $137.34 will carry over to the next period; check the box to Pay Out 2023 during the 2023 period.

You can flag records manually by clicking the checkbox on the statement record itself, or in list view.

Hint: in Royalty list view, you can see the Statement Amount for all listed records by clicking the header above the right-hand column. That toggles the display of the amounts. This setting is off by default because it requires PubGizmo to compute royalties for every statement in the list, which can be slow. Click the header again to turn off this display.

Flag Automatically

If you have many statements to pay, it's easiest to use the bulk Flag Eligible for Payout function, described below under Bulk Royalty Actions.

Apply Global Settings

Before running royalties, ensure that you set up a couple of things in Admin (only users with Admin access can perform these actions).

Set Your Payout Threshold

You may not want to cut cheques or send payments to contractees owed less than a specific amount. For example, you can hold payments until the next period if the contractee is owed less than $25.

You can find the field to change this value in Admin > second tab > Minimum Royalty Payment.

Hint: if you set this value to $0 and use the bulk process described below, all Calc Royalty statements will be set to pay out.

Compose or Edit Stock Messages

For bulk-sending royalty statements, PubGizmo offers two stock messages:

• one for the contractee (author, translator, editor, etc.);
• one for the literary agent of record for the contract, if relevant.

Merge Tags

Message text is merged with recipient data at the time the message is composed. The subject and body text of these messages are set in Admin > Bulk Mail Templates tab. The templates include a number of merge tags, each enclosed in angle brackets (< and >), into which relevant data is substituted when the message is composed. These tags include:

• <Year> The royalty year, if your press uses the calendar year as its statement period; otherwise, the start and end dates of the royalty period.
• <Title> The book's title, or titles if the author has multiple active contracts, in a comma-delimited list (Title1, Title2, etc.).
• <GreetingName> The value in the Correspondence Name field on the recipient's Contact record (defaults to the Contact's first name but can be edited). For Organization contractees, the system will attempt to use the name of the Organization's representative, if defined on the Contract; otherwise, it will use the Organization's name.
• <Artist> The contractee's first and last name. Note: in the agent email, this is replaced with the phrase "(refer to attached PDF)".
• <Address> The recipient's mailing address on one line.

Contractees/Agents with Multiple Statements

Rather than sending out multiple individual statements to an author, PubGizmo "rolls up" statements (that is, gathers all relevant statements into a single PDF) and attaches them to one email message under these circumstances:

• the author/contractee has multiple active contracts (a summary page of all statements is included);
• the literary agent is the agent of record on multiple active contracts.

Bulk Royalty Actions

While you can configure and send statements individually, PubGizmo's superpower is handling royalty functions in bulk: processes that might have taken days or weeks can be accomplished in minutes.

The Bulk Royalty Actions Popover

Bulk actions are executed in a popover accessed with the royalties button (a crown – get it?) in the list view of the Royalties module.

Actions are performed for the current royalty period on the Found Set (the records currently showing in the list), and only on those records in the Found Set that have Calc Royalty checked. Statistics at the upper right of the popover describe the composition of your total and current Found Set of records and how many will be processed with the buttons.

You have four ways to configure the Found Set that the royalty buttons will run against:

• click the Show All Records button (hidden if you are already seeing all records) to do a complete run of all Calc Royalty statements;
• load a Snapshot of Royalty records you created previously (see Tags & Snapshots for how to create Snapshots);
• close the Bulk Royalty Actions popover and use the Find box with criteria to generate a Found Set of the records you want to process;
• close the Bulk Royalty Actions popover, tag the records, and show only the tagged records you want to process (see Tags & Snapshots for how to tag records and show only tagged records).

Bulk Processes

The processes are typically run in order. However, you can choose to perform the actions on a subset of records, then move on to another set and start again from the beginning of the process. This is handy if you are working with a large volume of statements and/or working as a team where different users handle different sets of records.

1. Flag Eligible for Payout

The Flag Eligible for Payout button automatically flags statements for payout in the selected period when both of the following are true:

• Calc Royalty is checked;
• the total amount payable across all contracts for at least one contractee on the statement equals or exceeds the Minimum Royalty Payment amount in Admin.

Payment Total Is for All Statements

Because the purpose of the payout threshold is to avoid making payments to contractees below a specified amount – no one wants to write and mail a cheque for $1.87 – PubGizmo considers all statements for each contractee when computing whether the total exceeds the threshold.

Example:

• The Minimum Royalty Payment is set to $25.
• An author has three statements with the following amounts owing: $10, $12, and $5.

In this case, although no single statement reaches $25 by itself, the bulk process will flag all three statements because the total amount to pay that author is $27, which is greater than your $25 threshold. You will send those three statements (which, when sent in bulk, will be bundled into one PDF with a summary page), along with a payment of $27.

2. PDF of Royalty Statements

Most presses have found that the best way to proofread statements before sending them is to generate a PDF, or a series of PDFs, containing the statements and to work from those.

Click this button to generate a PDF on your Desktop containing the Calc Royalty statements in the Found Set.

3. Email Royalty Statements

Click this button to have PubGizmo generate draft email messages in your default email software. Your default email program must be Apple Mail (Mail) if you are on macOS, or Outlook if you use Windows (let us know if you use something else). You can customize each email message as you like and send each one individually.

Every Contact, whether they have their own individual contract or share a single contract for a Title, will receive an email with the relevant statement(s) attached. This includes contractees who are the only signatory to a contract, as well as contractees who share a contract with other contractees. In the latter case, each statement will show the full earnings for the contract, plus the contractee's own share as a percentage and an amount, as specified in their contract.

Contractees, whether they are Contacts or Organizations, will receive the following in their PDF:

Contacts

• all their own Calc Royalty statements in the current Found Set;
• a summary page of all their Calc Royalty statements (including those not in the Found Set), if the contractee has more than one Calc Royalty statement.

Organizations

• all relevant Calc Royalty statements in the current Found Set;
• a summary page of statements (including those not in the Found Set), if the contractee has more than one Calc Royalty statement.

Literary Agents

The process also generates draft emails to the agent of record on each statement, with the relevant statements attached.

4. Create Payment Records

This essential step "locks in" amounts, such as Advance Remaining and carry-forward values, which inform the calculations for your next royalty run.

Important notes:

• All of the steps above must be complete (all sales records imported, appropriate records set to calculate and pay out, statements fully proofed) before you perform this step. If you change anything for the current period, you will have to create the Payment records again, although a single changed statement can receive a new Payment record by opening the statement and clicking the "$" button.
• This step is performed on all Calc Royalty records, regardless of the Found Set. Save it for the very end of your royalty process to ensure the values are final.
• You must complete this step for each royalty period before running the next one, because important values (e.g., Advance Remaining) are carried over via Payment records. Your next period's results will be inaccurate if the previous period's Payment records have not been generated.
• If you have previously created Payment records and try to do so again, PubGizmo will warn you that records already exist and will be deleted and replaced. This is fine: the new Payment records will be created using the latest royalty data.

5. CSV Export

Click this button to generate a CSV file (a spreadsheet you can open in Excel) on your Desktop that summarizes the statements. You can give this file to your accountant.

Note: this export is generic and may or may not be suitable for import into your accounting software. If there is a format that works better for you, let us know and we can discuss building it. Be sure to tell us which software you use, and provide a sample CSV or Excel file showing what a useful import would look like.