A personal experience ... How Music Royalty Accounting Works For Me (Independent Record Label Manager)

Running an Indie Record Label is as much a passion as it is a profession. Planning new releases and supporting artists the best way possible to live off of their art is truly a joy. 

However, there are also so many admin jobs that need attention, too. From accounting for manufacturing costs to running royalty statements on time, all need time and effort. 

The more releases and artists you have to take care of, the bigger the admin load gets. 

How Music Royalty Accounting Works for Me as an Independent Label Manager

Music Royalty Accounting works for me because I use details for all admin tasks. 

No matter if I quickly need to grab the label copy for a release or do a stock audit, details lets me run all my tasks smoothly in one application. 

details helps me to be as productive as possible within my royalty accounting workflow while giving enough scope to scale any process up if needed.

Why Royalty Accounting Can Get Complicated for Independent Labels

If you take care of a new release or even a new artist, the first thing you need to tackle is the royalty split. In any track, there may be many different parties involved: the artist, producer, songwriter, or other contributors. Each party may have an agreed percentage or royalty arrangement. Within your royalty accounting software, you need to administer all these different percentages in order to set up the release in the correct way. If you make a mistake here, it will trickle down to the royalty statements, with bad consequences. One perk of details I really like is the ‘autofill from release’ feature within the contract setup. That means I only need to set up the release once and then can build from there without having to do the same task again and again.

Turning DSP Reports into Usable Royalty Data

Whenever your digital distributor sends you the streaming statement, you’re hit with a vast amount of information, most often in one big Excel sheet. Everything from information about streams, downloads, territories, revenue, releases, tracks, and other identifiers is included.

To split up all the individually accounted streams to each royalty account you need, a solid royalty management software like details. 

Here you can upload the statement, and the program automatically attributes each stream to the matching royalty contract. 

Furthermore, with the right API settings, your digital distributor can automatically upload your statement into details for you. This is such a time saver and is one task less on a long to do list.

From Royalty Calculations to Artist Statements

One of the biggest responsibilities as a record label manager is the correct calculation and generating of royalty statements for all the artists on your roster. Having a good statement set up is vital in order to ensure the artists and their management teams can understand the statements. What is more, depending on the location of your artists, a withholding tax and VAT might be applicable. 

Add on top of that a clear structure that shows the releases involved, the sales of each of them, the costs that have been recouped, the percentage that is paid out, and the final amount payable. 

The clearer the structure of the statements, the easier the whole process becomes and all parties involved are happy. One of the most important aspects of being a record label manager is to make sure your artists feel supported and having transparent accounting and royalty statements that make sense builds trust and encourages your artist to support your work. 

How details Keeps My Royalty Accounting Organised

Having a basic royalty accounting software isn’t enough to cut the mustard in the modern day music industry. What I particularly like about details is the fact that I can adapt it to all my needs. If you need a specific export or addition, the support team is there to program you your very own plugin to generate the outcome you need. 

Moreover, there are so many cool reporting tools already built into details that help you communicate the success of a release. Here I really like the sales release report you can generate for a release or product. The export opens in a PDF file. 

It clearly states the income is splitted in the individual products within the release like CD, Vinyl and Merch. What is more, it displays the percentages in a handy pie chart. Next, it also shows all the accounted costs with another handy pie chart. 

It then highlights the profit you made from the release. 

After that it shows the physical sales according to each catalog number and then country. That shows you immediately the strongest territories for your sales, vital information for future marketing campaigns, for example. 

The PDF also shows the different streams and bundles accumulated by the release, and finally, the remaining stock. 

This feature helps me a lot to communicate the success of a release to team members or stakeholders. What is more, it is a great tool to predict any future release income and sales. 

If you are wondering how many vinyl you should press for a new release you can quickly have a view in here and can have an informed guess how much you might sell again. 

Having a strong support team is vital for good royalty management software 

What makes details truly special is the expert support team. The team is here for you no matter if you have a problem with a distributor statement or need a custom plugin to expand details to your needs. For example, I like how fast I can contact my support expert and have a solution ready in no time. The music industry is a fast paced environment where a lot of tasks have to be managed at the same time. Knowing that I have an expert on my side who can help fix any issue in a short amount of time is vital for my workflow. 

Additionally, as a record label manager you don’t work in isolation. No matter if the programmer needs something for the webshop implementation or the boss needs a report or the accountant needs an adjustment to the royalty statements. details can help all members of the team to get out of the software what they need. 

What I Would Recommend to Other Independent Labels

Some points why I would recommend details to other independent record labels: 

• easy set up and upload of your back catalogue
• customisable to your needs with custom build plugins and exports
• implementation of all tax and accounting needs of your record label 
• great expert team support 
• Webshop implementation into your royalty account management
• easy generation of royalty statements for your artists

Final Thoughts: Making Royalty Accounting Easier

Working in the music industry as an independent record label manager means to tackle many problems at the same time. Having a high workload and the need to multitask is a given in any day or work. 

Being able to use a streamlined software like details means one less thing for me to worry about. I can run the royalty accounting and all the tasks that come with that like cost attribution, release planning, royalty split and contract management and webshop implementation in a timely manner, for example. 

In the end, you need a tool that you can trust. Moving your entire back catalogue is no easy feat and you have to choose wisely which tool you use.

I know that details is here to adapt with the growth of the record label and is able to scale up with any necessity and challenge. 

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