How to Run a Period & Create Statements
When you have set up your payees & contracts, entered your catalogue, and uploaded sales files & costs, you are ready to run a period & produce some statements! Please watch our introduction on how to create a Period below. We provide notes and further reading below the video.
How to Run a Period & Create Statements
To get started, go to the Period page under your Statements directory and hit the +Create button on the top right of your page to create a new Period. You will be taken to a setup page with three tabs. The first, Setup, to enter top line info about the period; the second, Included Sales, where you select which sales reports to include; the third, Included Costs, for you to select which costs to include.
Setup
- 1
- Name your Period – This Period name will display on your statements and on the Transactions tab of your Contracts. Please make sure your Period name is descriptive, clean & consistent with your previous Periods.
- 2
- Select the Accounting Period Type – Curve will only create a statement for the Contracts that have a matching Accounting Period Type. A Monthly Contract will not be included in your Half-Yearly run, for example. More info
- 3
- Specify the Year & Accounting Period – Which year and semester/quarter/month are these royalties for? These abbreviations will be displayed across the statements and artist portal.
- 4
- Choose a Start & End Date for your Period – The Start Date picks up the Opening Balance from the transaction tab on the contracts & the End Date posts the closing balance. Only transactions (such as payments & advances) that fall within this timezone will be part of the Statement Of Account. More info
- 5
- Choose an Accounting Date – This date will be displayed on the Self-Bill invoices and ideally matches the day you intend to publish your statements.
- 6
- If you have Contracts in multiple currencies, provide Exchange Rates (✪ Multicurrency) – If you have Contracts in a currency different to your Home Currency, you will need to provide a currency exchange rate from your Home Currency to this alternative currency. If all Contracts are set in your Home Currency, then you are not required to provide any Exchange Rates. More info
- 7
- Include all the Sales Files for which you want to account a royalty – Via the Included Sales tab of your Period setup, you will be presented with the sales files that you can include in this run. When you first land on the page, the Included Sales section will be empty & all your uploaded sales file will automatically be listed in the Excluded Sales section. The goal is to move over all sales files you wish to include in this period to the Included Sales section.
A simple way to select your desired Sales Files is by filtering on the
Target Period. For this reason, it is best practice to always complete your Target Period field & do so in a consistent manner when uploading sales or costs. Once you are happy all your required sales files are displaying in the Included Sales for this period, hit the Next button at the foot of the page.
Included Costs
- 8
- Include all the Costs you want to recoup this Period – Similarly to the sales process we’ve just worked through, you can also do this with costs. Include your Costs, and once you are happy, click Calculate.
Your period will now go off calculate. Clicking back into it will show you its progress, but it is not necessary to keep your browser open for this calculation to complete.
After Your Period Has Finished Processing
- 9
- Review the Unreported Sales & Unreported Costs CSVs – Any sales and costs that are not successfully reported will be flagged with you in the Unreported CSV. These files can be downloaded via the Download button on the top right of your Period. More info
Additionally, Curve will flag these unreported sales via the
Fixed Report for the Unreported Sales
✪. To download your Fixed Report for the Unreported Sales, please go to Data >
Reports and hit the +Create button at the top right of the screen. Then you'd need to select the Fixed Report format.
More Info
We'd advice to always consult both reports for greater detail.
A sale or cost can be unreported for four possible reasons. (1) There is no Contract attached to the Track/Release, (2) the contract is inactive, (3) the contract does not have a matching sales/cost term, (4) there was no calculation input, such as a missing PPD, Per Unit Rate or Gross Amount. More info
Once you resolved the underlying cause of the unreported sale or cost, you will need to reprocess the Period or individual Statement for these sales or costs to flush through to the statement. The Unreported CSV files are updated in this process. Your goal is to get the total lines in these two CSVs down to zero.
- 10
- Review your Statement Output – It is best practice to review your output, to make sure any oversights in your setup are ruled out. You can run Reports to analyse your Included Sales data; for example to check all royalty lines have a Source & Sub Source with consistent spelling. More info
- 11
- Archive your Sales Files & Costs – Archiving your included sales & costs will hide these from your Sales & Costs page. This will keep your sales & costs page tidy, and will make it clear to you that these sales & costs no longer need to be included in an upcoming royalty Period. You can Archive all included sales or costs in bulk via your Period. More info
- 12
- Lock your Period – Once you have reviewed your statements & are happy with your output, you can Lock the Period. This marks the Period as done and will make it impossible for you or anyone else to reprocess the Period or individual statements, or to reingest any included sales files. Though, if necessary, you can at any time unlock the Period again & make further changes if that would be required. More info
- 13
- Ask for a Curve Healthcheck (for new clients) – If this is the first time you are creating a Period & Statements, please ask support@curveroyaltysystems.com to perform a health-check on your output. We always perform a health-check on our clients their setup prior to them sending out their first statements. Here we provide feedback on your data and setup, which allows you to make some final changes prior to sending out your statements, ensuring the statements you send to your clients are as accurate and complete as possible.
Your Period is now done! In our next and final chapter, we will show you
how to give your artists access to their Curve portal & how to deliver your statements.