The Publishing Onboarding Cheat Sheet

The Publishing Onboarding Cheat Sheet

1. Configure Your Settings

The Settings allow you to configure the building blocks of your metadata setup & statement design. The above video will give you a quick introduction on how to configure your Settings. When configuring your Settings, please make sure you consider our list of Best Practices. If you have further questions on any of the options in your General Settings, please visit our Settings chapter in the documentation.

Useful documentation

Checklist prior to moving on to step 2

  • I have adjusted my Channels & Configurations to match my desired setup.
  • I have selected the currency(ies) in which I want to account to my clients.
  • I have provided a help email & custom texts for my statements & email deliveries.
  • I have selected my preferred Statement Design

2. Import Your Payees

For each person or organisation that you wish to send statements to, you will need to create a Payee. The use of a Payee is that (1) you can link multiple Contracts so that all the statements from these different Contracts are collected in the same portal, and (2) you can link multiple Users to this Payee so that multiple people such as managers, employees or additional band members can all have access to the same portal with their own Curve account.

The only mandatory field when creating a Payee is the name. All the other fields are for your own references. If you are intending to create self-bill invoices on behalf of your clients, you may need to specify tax information. For more information about every single field & functionality on Payees, please visit our Payees chapter in the documentation.

You can create Payees either via the interface on Curve, or in bulk via the Payee template. For more information on how to use Excel templates to import metadata onto Curve, please visit the Excel Templates chapter in our documentation.

Useful documentation

Checklist prior to moving on to step 3

  • Every beneficiary I wish to send statements to has a Payee with a clear name.
  • If I will be creating self-bill invoices on behalf of my clients, I have specified tax info where necessary

3. Import Your Contracts

In the Contract you will specify which rate you will pay as a royalty to your songwriters. 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, & if you want to create self-invoices on behalf of the songwriter.

For more information on how to set up your Contracts, please visit the dedicated Contracts chapter in our documentation. Please also visit our Best Practices chapter to make sure nothing is overlooked when creating your Contracts.

You can create Contracts either via the interface on Curve, or in bulk via the Contract template. For more information on how to use Excel templates to import metadata onto Curve, please visit the Excel Templates chapter in our Documentation.

Useful documentation

Checklist prior to moving on to step 4

  • All Contracts have a Payee
  • All Contracts have sales terms picking up all possible royalty streams
  • All sales terms consider the hierarchy of sales conditions
  • All Contracts are linked to an Accounting Period
  • The Opening Balance of each Contract considers any outstanding royalties or advances

4. Create Your Catalogue

Your Works page will hold all the headline metadata of your catalogue. For more information on how to complete your catalogue metadata, please visit the Works chapter in our documentation. Prior to creating your Works, you will need to create Composers & Publishers, as you’ll need these as the building blocks of your IP Chains.

You can create Works either (1) via the interface on Curve, (2) via the Work template, or (3) via CWR delivery (this will automatically create the Composers and Publishers also). For more information on how to create catalogue via the Composer, Publisher & Work Excel templates, please visit the Excel Templates chapter in our Documentation. For the royalty accounting process, it suffices to create a Work title and attach the Contracts. Though if you wish to use Curve for catalogue management and CWR deliveries; you will also need to create Composers, Publishers, complete the Work headline metadata, set the IP Chains & Territories in which you represent the publishing copyrights.

In your catalogue you will specify which Contracts the income of a particular Work needs to be shared with. You can attach Contracts to Works via the interface or via the Work template. A useful tool to help you attach Contracts to Works is the Linked Contracts tool. When each Composer has a Linked Contract, Curve will automatically determine which Contracts the income should funnel to based on the writers & publishers shares in the IP Chain.

Useful documentation

Checklist prior to moving on to step 5 (for Royalty Accounting)

  • All Works have the composers’ Contracts attached & the Composers’ total Participation Rate per Work adds up to 100

Checklist prior to moving on to step 5 (for CWR & Catalogue Management)

  • All Composers & Publishers representing a share in a Work in your catalogue are created on Curve
  • When a member of a Collection Society, all Composers have their CAE/IPI Number specified
  • All Composers have a Linked Contract
  • The Collected/Owned Mechanical/Performance share of all IP Chains adds up to 100
  • Only the shares of the Composers & Publishers you represent are marked as Controlled in the IP Chain
  • All Works are mapped to a Track that holds the ISRC codes.

5. Create Your Templates

To import a sales statement onto Curve, you will need a Template that tells Curve how to read this statement. There is no need to copy paste any sales data from your statement into a structured format. The objective of a Template is to set it up in such a way that you can import your sales files straight onto Curve without the need to make any manual changes to your statements prior to importing.

For more information on how to create a Template, please visit our Templates chapter in the documentation. Please consider this list of Best Practices when creating your Templates and importing your sales files.

Useful documentation

Checklist prior to moving on to step 6

  • The Channels, Configurations and Territories are picked up when possible; and only overwritten by Standard Fields in the Template when absolutely necessary
  • Sources (The Collection Societies, Sub-Publishers & Commissioners) & Sub Sources (the DSPs, TV Channels, Radio Channels, …) are picked up consistently & with consistent spelling
  • Templates are always picking up the Composers data in the Party 1 (2, 3, …) fields, allowing you to map unknown identifiers preciesly via the Unmapped page.
  • Templates pick up both the Gross Amount & Net Amount; using a Copy Field if necessary

6. Upload Your Sales

Once you have set up your Templates, you have the tools to import your sales files. For more information on how to upload sales files, please visit the Uploading Sales chapter in our documentation. And again, this list of Best Practices may be handy to hold close by when uploading your sales files.

Useful documentation

Checklist prior to moving on to step 7

  • I have tagged all sales files with a consistent Target Period
  • All sales lines have a Sale & Transaction Date
  • All sales files are brought down to zero invalid lines where possible
  • I have dealt with Incomplete lines via the Unmapped page and adjustments & Calculations in the Template. Manually editing sales lines should be a solution of last resort

7. Create Your Period

Now that Curve holds all of your metadata & all of your sales data, you can start creating statements. A Period allows you to select which Contracts to create a statement for, and which sales to include in the royalty calculation. For more information on how to create a Period, please visit the Create A Period chapter in our documentation. Please keep this task list close by when creating & validating your Period.

When creating your first Period, you may consider doing a parallel run with your previous royalty accounting setup. In this parallel run, you can create statements for the latest accounting period on both Curve and your current setup. Comparing the results of these parallel runs often proves to be an effective way to flag any discrepancies that crept in during the onboarding process.

Once you are satisfied with your final Period, a Curve Client Manager will perform a Healthcheck. Here we will go through your setup, dig for any common mistakes & give feedback on how to make your royalty data as accurate & complete as possible for you & your clients. This will allow you to make final changes prior to sending out your first statements via the Curve platform.

Useful documentation

8. Deliver Your Statements

Curve allows you to deliver the statements to your beneficiaries via the platform. When creating a User, you can grand people access to their own artist portal, where they can view their statements & access their data. When preparing your statement delivery, please consider our best practices list for artist communication.

Useful documentation

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