How to Create Contracts
Contracts are the hub of all royalty processes - they are used to store down contract terms, match the catalogue to, & track your songwriter's balance. Please watch our introduction to Contracts in the video below. We provide notes and further reading further down this page.
How to Create Contracts
In the Contract you will specify which rate you will pay as a royalty to your composers. You will also specify how often you want to create a statement for this Contract, if there currently is an outstanding balance for the Contract, which Payee you want to account the royalties to, and if you want to create self-billing invoices on behalf of the composer. You can create Contracts either via the interface on Curve, or in bulk via the Publishing Contract Excel template.
Add Contracts via the Interface
To get started, go to the Contracts directory in the sidebar and select the Contracts page. You can create a new Contract by selecting the +Create button on the top right of your screen. A Contract has many features to allow for a wide variety of agreements, from simple to complex. First, we will go through all of the steps one would go through when creating a Contract. Further down, we’ll briefly discuss the other available options you may wish to use.
Overview Tab
- 1
- Select the Payee – Specify in which portal you would like the statements of this Contract to be published.
- 2
- Name your Contract – For your and your artist’s reference, pick a name that is clear and consistent.
- 3
- Select the Accounting Period – How often do you wish to account to this songwriter? More info
- 4
- Set the Opening Balance – Is there any ongoing business going on with this composer? Perhaps the payee is due an unpaid royalty, or there is a loss or advance still to be recouped? The Opening Balance field allows you to set the starting point for your first royalty statement to build on. This amount is stored in the Contract's Currency. More info
- 5
- Set the Minimum Payout – Only balances that hit this minimum payment threshold will be paid to your composer. This is generally implemented to avoid having to make frequent, small payments.
- 6
- Enable/Disable Auto-Payment – When enabled, and once the balance of the contract has reached the Minimum Payout, Curve will automatically notify you a payment is due to the payee and mark the balance as paid. When disabled, you will wait for the payee to personally invoice you the balance, and manually deduct payments made on the Transactions tab. More info
- 7
- Set the Contract Duration Details – You can specify the duration of your Contract by storing its Start and End Dates, as well as the Retention and Collection Periods' End Dates. These dates are just for reference, and do not affect whether your Contract's Statement will calculate or not. When populating these fields, we'd also recommend completing the Event Notifications tab in your Settings, that will trigger an email notification when a Contract's End Date, Retention Period Ende Date or Collection Period End Date is due in 30 days and 60 days. The email will be sent once per month, on the 1st day of each month. More info
Terms Tab
- 8
- Set your Income Terms – The royalty rates are set within the Terms tab, & here you have the ability to pinpoint specific terms for specific use cases. The first line of a term can be read as an "if". The second line can be read as a "then". ie If revenue matches the given criteria, then apply the given royalty rate. More info
How many terms you need depends on the complexity of the agreement. The simplest of all royalty deals will have just one general term and all Income will be applied the same royalty rate. In the example below, 50% of all revenue will be shared with your composer.
You may need to add more Income terms to your contract if you pay different royalty rates for different Income types. In the example below, 60% of all Performance revenue will be shared with the composer, all other revenue types will be shared at 50%. To any given Income line, the contract will always apply the term that is most specific. The term that is deemed most specific is the term with a set condition highest up in the hierarchy. The hierarchy goes from left to right, so from Cat Type > Cat Group > Territory > Channel > Configuration > Source.
Add Contracts via the Excel Templates
Additional Features
The below features are not mandatory to use, but may be helpful to clients with specific requirements. Features with a ✪ icon are available to clients on a Curve Pro plan only and may need to be enabled as an add-on.
Add Advances or Payments as a Transaction - Whenever a balance is paid to your Payee, you will need to mark this balance as paid on the Contract. More info
Catalogue specific royalty rates using Catalogue Groups – This allows you to differentiate the royalty rate from one Work to another, all within the same Contract. More info
Create additional deductions (✪ Deductions) - This option allows you to set additional Deduction terms which decide under which conditions a deduction should be applied. More info