Wednesday, October 8, 2008

LABEL FAQ: Accounting

1. How often do I get paid?
Once quarterly. A quarter is every three months starting in January. DO NOT ask to be paid early. DO NOT ask for a report outside of the quarterly report. DO NOT ask how you are doing. Your label manager does not hat information.

2. How do I get paid?
You will be issued a statement 60 days after the end of the quarter. Your statement should never be late, but in the event that the 60th day has arrived. We would appreciate a voluntary grace period of up 48 hours within the time that the statement is due to accommodate the inconsistencies that are a regular facet of dealing with a tremendous number of vendors. The grace period is not required but is appreciated as a rarely exercised courtesy.

3. When do I get my statement?

Within sixty (60) days of the quarterly accounting periods ending March 31, June 30, September 30 and December 20 of each calendar year provided that all sales occurring between December 21 and December 31. You will receive your statement via email. Please check and make sure that the correct email address is on file with your label manager at labels@groovemediagroup.com if you have any reason to suspect that the statement might go to another address.

4. Why is there a difference between the total and payable royalties?
When dealing with a large number of vendors, there are several regular reasons that they may delay in getting payment to us within the time allotted by the quarter. The most common of these is a delay in transfer of funds from our foreign exchange service. If the funds are delayed past the quarter they will be forwarded to your next check.

5. What does my invoice need to look like and how do I send it to you?
See the sample invoice at the bottom of this post. Make something that looks like that and email it to labels@groovemediagroup.com.

6. How long will it take to receive my money after I have invoiced you?
Up to 30 days. Do not email your label manager to ask to get it early. In many case you will receive it earlier than 21 days. But processing hundreds of invoices takes time, care and attention to detail. Be patient. We want these paid too.

7. Why is the period of collections after the quarter so long?
Because we deal with a large number of vendors, each with a different standard term associated with their statements, invoicing and payout. We can’t pay you if they don’t pay us.

8. Why don’t you offer real time reporting?

Because only a handful of vendors offer it to us. Any distributor that claims to offer accurate real time reporting suffers from one of 2 problems: either they only distribute to a handful of vendors (which you could do yourself for free) or they aren’t giving you a truly accurate or complete report.

9. What tax forms do you require and when do you need them?

Your contract states this pretty well: Payment of royalties under this Agreement shall be subject to all applicable withholding tax regulations. Payments cannot be made until the relevant tax form has been completed and returned to GrooveSource (Form W9 for U.S. artists/labels and Form W8BEN for all non-U.S. artists/labels).

10. What is the minimum amount I must earn to invoice GrooveSource?
150.00 USD

11. Why is there a minimum amount to invoice GrooveSource?

Because we pay hundreds of people every quarter we cannot issue hundreds of checks for tiny amounts. Additionally, this term ultimately reflects the contractual terms of minimum payments that are often in place between GrooveSource and its vendors.

12. What happens to my money if I don’t meet the minimum to invoice?

The money is rolled over to the check from the next quarter and accrues like that until you have reached the minimum,

13. I see a column for royalties in collection on my statement. What is it?
Remember those pesky foreign exchanges that we mentioned in number 4 of this section: ”When dealing with a large number of vendors, there are several regular reasons that they may delay in getting payment to us within the time allotted by the quarter. The most common of these is a delay in transfer of funds from our foreign exchange service. If the funds are delayed past the quarter they will be forwarded to your next check.” The royalties in collection column shows what we are still collecting or waiting for. This could also describe money from a store that had been reported to us in a statement, but for whatever reason had not been paid to GrooveSource yet directly from the store. In any case, in the interest of transparent accounting, we want you to know what is out there.

14. How will I receive the royalties that are in collections?
As we mentioned before, If the funds are delayed past the quarter they will be forwarded to your next check.

15. Why weren’t my sales higher?
There are a number of factors that can cause low sales. These include but are not limited to oversaturation of the market and other factors that you can’t change, BUT the first place we would look for an answer to this question is THE MIRROR. About half of the top selling digital releases come from unknown acts. What made them sell? Nine times out of ten the answer is hard work. They promoted. They sent out digi-whitelabels to hot producers, they emailed their tracks to radio stations. In short, they worked their asses off. And if your sales are lagging, we suggest that you ask your label manager about some of the special promotions that they can assist you with, but more importantly, get off your butt and work your material.

16. Why hasn’t my payment arrived?
There is no reason a payment should be late after the invoice has been received with 2 exceptions. Number one, you should double check the payment information (bank account number and routing number) that you submitted to your label manager. If you gave us the wrong info then there is nothing we can do to get you paid until you correct it.

Number two, did you fill out all tax forms with your label manager? It’s your responsibility to get your tax paperwork to us and if you fail to do so, we will not pay you until you have filed them.

We may or may not remind you that you have to take care of this material, so consider yourself warned if you have failed to handle these details.

Sample Invoice

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