Example: If you receive a sales file from Amazon without a sales date, customer name or territory column you can populate this field for all import records (rows) with a static value. You do not have to open the file to add columns with these values.

If you receive sales files from Amazon UK, Amazon Italy and Amazon Germany you can create a saved map for each file that will automatically populate the customer name (Amazon Italy), territory (Europe) and currency (Euro) fields without having to modify the file.

You can see how static values work by downloading the 30 day trial version of Easy Royalties.

This update is available to licensed users at no charge.

You can view it by going to the Support: Video Tutorials or by clicking this link: http://www.easyroyaltiesusa.com/demos/Lesson_1_CreateDatabase.htm

Our goal at Easy Royalties USA.com is to release a new video tutorial each week. Our schedule for forthcoming tutorials include;

• October 17th: Creating a Royalty Statement
• October 24th: Recording payments of royalty statements

If you would like to see a tutorial on a specific topic send an email to edwin@kensai.net

Visit our stand at Hall 8.0, Booth L974.

To make an appointment.

At Frankfurt we will be unveiling our new That’s Authors product for Literary Agents.

New Features

• Author royalty statements, sales section: if the ‘do not aggregate’ option is set in the royalty rule, the customer name is appended to the Sale Type.
• Improvements to the layout of the “Standard” author royalty statement format (sales section). Some of the improvements also apply to the “monthly sales” format. Improvements include: Basis type description now in a column by itself, with user-defined column header; quantity now optional, with user-defined column header.

Bug Fixes

• Author payments view, lookup: this was causing an error. This has been fixed.
• Author detail window, Documents -> Cancel: this was causing an error. This has been fixed.
• Tools -> Backup (and possibly other operations) – this was erroneously failing with the message ‘a window is still open, close all windows’. (Problem since version 3.11.00.). This has been fixed.

Current users updating from a version prior to 3.11 should run the Royalty Statements Record List > Rebuild option on all prior statements. This will update printed royalty statements to account for new features. Users updating from version 3.11 or higher do not have to run the Rebuild operation.

A major advantage of Easy Royalties is that you can export products, royalty recipients, and sales from QuickBooks and import this information into Easy Royalties. You can export payments from Easy Royalties and import these payments; using a 3rd party application, into QuickBooks.

The document covers the seven steps for configuring QuickBooks for use with Easy Royalties.

1. Activate account numbering
2. Configure product records
3. Activate and create pricing levels
4. Define vendor types for royalty recipients
5. Configure customer records
6. Create general ledger accounts for royalties
7. Create export report

Download: 7 Steps to Configuring QuickBooks for Easy Royalties

1. Royalty is usually a percentage of wholesale sales.

2. Royalty agreements usually include an un-refundable royalty advance against future royalty earnings and a royalty guarantee. If the agreed upon level of royalties is not reached within a period, the difference is owed to the licensor.

Sample Toy Licensing Agreements

Toy License Agreement – Lucas Licensing Ltd. and Hasbro Inc.(Oct 13, 1997)

License Agreement for use of characters from Adventures of Gumby TV Series for use in Freezer Pops, Coolers, and Fruit Forms

Example: Contract promises a minimum royalty of $10,000 per year. If the royalty earned is $8,000, an additional amount of $2,000 is owed to bring earnings up to the minimum promised.

This update is available for free to all registered users of our royalty software.

• License copy: any associated purchases were not copying entirely correctly, and would show in the “Purchases” view as if for the original (copy-from) title. This has been fixed.
• Problem with purchases when copying a submission quote. This has been fixed.
• Author royalty statement – printing multiple statements will crash (result of changes made in 3.9.89) – this has been fixed.
• (internal) fixed diagnostic messages on error from lvMgr.SetRecordSource

Registered users can download this update from www.erupdate.net

IBS Bookmaster announced the release of their new rights and royalties module. More importantly, IBS Bookmaster told us that they will be releasing a standalone version of their rights and royalty software. If you purchase just the R&R module you can upgrade to their full ERP publishing solution at a later date.

Klopotek discussed their rapid implementation of their rights and royalties module at Continuum UK and US. They also told us that they will be offering clients a MS SQL database option; currently they only offer an Oracle database option.

Virtusales is on target for the official release of their new royalty module later this year, following its implementation at one of the big 5 publishers.

Asset Accounts

1. Royalty Advances (other assets)

Royalty advances are payments advanced against future royalty earnings of the royalty recipient.

2. Unearned Royalties (other assets)

Unearned royalties occur when returns for a period exceed the period’s sales. When this occurs royalty earnings are negative, not positive. These negative earnings are carried forward to the next royalty period and are used to reduce future payables.

Liability Accounts

3. Royalties Payable (current liability)

Most companies track royalties payable in a seperate payables account. With a dedicated account you know exactly how much you owe in royalties and how much you owe for your normal operating expenses.

4. Reserve for Returns (current liability)

5. Accrued Royalties Payable (current liability)

If you record an estimate for your monthly royalty expense; instead of the actual expense, you will record this as an accrued liability by debiting royalty expense and crediting accrued royalties payable. When you generate the actual numbers you will debit accrued royalties payable and credit royalties payable to zero out the accural account.