Streams versus downloads

With DashBook, it is easy to setup one set of products that receive different types of royalties depending on the product's usage by using our Sales Channels feature.

For example, let's say that you pay 75% of U.S. mechanical for a particular song.  For a 5 minute song, a 9.1 cent mechanical would be $0.06825.  But if the transaction report you receive also has streams of this song paying you 2 cents, you'd lose over twice as much as you receive by paying mechanicals on streams!

So, in DashBook, you use Sales Channels such as "Sales" vs "Streams" to distinguish what happened with a song.  Your royalty arrangement can then be set to 75% mechanical for all transactions on a "Sales" order, but 50% on all transactions on a "Streams" order.

So whether you are paying songwriters, publishers, or the artists themselves, DashBook can handle it.

Busy accounting season for royalties

Whew!  This is a busy time of year.  It is not uncommon for businesses to procrastinate on their royalty work to the very end - or even long after their deadlines.  As it turns out, they discover that they don't die after all!

However, all of this putting off of work just adds to the stress of operating a business.  When you know that you have to start organizing all of your sales, update your Excel spreadsheets or QuickBooks system with the latest releases, go through each royalty calculation in detail, print and mail reports,....  Just the thought of it all is exhausting.

Of course, you know there has to be a better way.  And there is.  You google for "royalty software" and discover DashBook and other choices.  Should you download and try?  So much work to do.

There is a lot of work to do -- no denying it.  But with some upfront time invested in setting up a royalty system, subsequent royalty and pay periods become so much easier.  We have customers saying that they've gone from a week of pain to an hour or so of work and review.  So yes, it is worth it!

The setup itself does not have to be painful.  Consult with us, and we can do most of the work for you.  We recently helped a music label setup a database within hours of receiving their CD Baby sales report and a little information about the percentages that they pay to the artists.  DashBook created all of the tracks and albums sold during that period, along with connecting the artist and royalty calculations together, in a matter of minutes by using our import system.  All the record label had to do was to add the additional tracks to the albums, and send out reports and payments.

Since they only paid their license holders via PayPal, a quick setup and a few mouse clicks, and they were done!  They even took advantage of DashBook's ability to upload royalty reports to Box.net, so they didn't have a single thing to print or mail.

Whew!  After years of agonizing, they finally have a system that just does it all for them, and it only cost them $499 for the license.  We did all of that setup for free, and provided them the database in less than a day.  Perhaps your setup might require more work for a small fee, but perhaps not.

As a friend of mine would say, "What a bargain!"

New Royalty System for Music and Books

DashBook version 4.4 has just been released!

Although there are many refinements in this version due to our great customer suggestions, one of the largest changes is the segregation of the book and music businesses, which will be especially helpful for those new to DashBook.

Now, when one chooses that they are in the Music Business from the DashBook setup wizard, our royalty software program will configure itself so that the terms "author" and "ISBN" are no longer used.  Music businesses will be able to see "artists" and "ISRC", etc.  Even though DashBook has handled music calculations well for over a year, this terminology improvement will make DashBook fit more like a glove so that record labels, publishers, and distributors can easily handle their royalties and licenses.

Likewise, for those in the Book Business, DashBook will no longer present questions about track length and mechanical royalties which could have been a bit confusing.

Additionally, we have added a field for License Number on the royalty arrangement screen so that you can tag your calculation with the information needed to communicate with other companies.

These changes make DashBook conform to your business better, so that you do not have to change the way you think in order to use DashBook.  If you have any further suggestions, please let us know.