How to Create a Template
Our Template Library covers hundreds of statement formats. Before you create your own Template, please try uploading your sales file to Curve using our Bulk Import tool. If Curve uploaded your income files successfully using a Template from our Library & you are happy with the outcome, then you do not need to create your own Template.
How to Create a Template
To get started, go to the Income > Templates page. On this page, hit +Create on the top right of your screen to create a new Template. You will be presented with two options ‘From New’ or ‘From Library’. Meaning you can create your own Template from scratch, or download and adjust an existing one from our Library. The below steps instruct you on how to create a Template ‘From New’.
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- Name your Template – Provide a clear name for your own reference
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- Name the Source – Who sent you the statement that you are creating this Template for? This is important, as any unknown work identifiers in your income file will be stored down per Source. More info
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- Specify the Tab Number – On which Tab Number of the Excel spreadsheet is the sales data specified?
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- Specify the Header Row – The Headers describe the columns of your sales file. Which Row are these Headers on?
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- Specify the Starting Row – Starting from which row does your sales file provide actual sales data that you want Curve to read?
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- If necessary, provide a Delimiter or File Type – If your data is separated by a character such as a comma or a semi-colon, rather than data being stored in different columns, you may need to specify this delimiter here. If your sheet has a special type of encoding where each column has a fixed width rather than a delimiter, you may need to set the File Type field to PRO.
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- Upload your Example File – Now that you have told Curve where to read the data in your income file, you can upload your income file as an example. Once you have attached your file, hit Save. This will upload the file, and then display some example lines for you to work with.
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- Match Columns to Fields – Once the upload of the test file is complete, you need to tell the system which columns contain data for the Required Fields. If you scroll to the bottom of the page, you’ll see the Example Lines panel, where a sample set of data is displayed. The objective here is to match the columns of data to the necessary Fields using the drop-down options at the top of the columns.
- Territory– the country where something was streamed, downloaded or sold.
- Source– who has reported this file? This would be your collection societies, sub-publishers or any other direct partner.
- Sub Source– the original source of income, eg the radio station, television station or DSP.
- Distribution Channel– the overarching consumption type (typically Performance or Mechanical)
- Configuration– the format or more specific consumption type; perhaps revenue from radio, television or online revenue.
- Work Title
- Party 1, 2, 3 - the composers or publishers that own copyright in the work.
- Identifier– the unique identifier of your songs, usually unique to that particular Sub Source.
- ISWC– an internationally used unique identifier of your songs.
- Share Percentage - the percentage paid, should be equal to your share on the work.
- Units– the number of units sold or streamed
- Gross Amount– this may be the amount received from the collection society or sub-publisher before any commissions are taken
- Net Amount– the amount being paid to you.
- Original Currency– the currency in which you are reported your Gross and Net Amount.
- Sale Date – the day the performance or mechanical was created
- Transaction Date – the day you were paid.
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- Provide missing values using the Defaults – With any reporting, there will be elements that are not explicitly defined in the data, but are instead inferred or provided in additional communications. For instance, a PRS statement may not define the channel, which is of course Performance. Or, your statement may not specify the currency in which you are paid. In these instances, you can provide these values using the Standard Fields. Put simply, you can set the values that will be stored as a default for every income line, unless a more specific value is read from the original income lines.
Once all of your necessary columns have been matched, hit Save and your income template is now complete and ready to import income data.
Creating Templates for Income Files with Multiple Tabs
Some income sources may deliver files with multiple tabs that contain income data you need to ingest. If there is a template created for each tab in the file, Curve will parse the tabs into separate income files on import.
To do this, create a template for each tab by changing the Tab value in the template's Overview section and importing the file to populate the example lines. Create the template as you normally would by assigning the correct fields to each column, assigning default values and Target Cells, setting Copy Fields, and creating Calculations as necessary.
Keep in mind that these files may contain hidden tabs that will throw off the Tab count. Make sure to unhide all tabs to set the Tab value correctly.
Some sources may not always deliver their files with the tabs in the same order. In this case, we recommend reorganizing the tabs in the established order before importing the file.