Running a royalty period

A royalty period is one run. It holds the sales reports you upload, the money each author earned from them, and the payment you make afterward. This guide assumes you have already run Calculate royalties. It covers the sales lines that did not match, exchange rates, statements, payees and the payment run.

You need a plan that includes Royalties. Today that is the Publisher plan. You also need administrator access. Two separate permissions sit behind these pages: one to see royalties and one to change them. Both are set to owner and administrator by default.

Read what the calculation found

Calculate royalties adds a What the calculation found section to the period page. Its first line counts four things:

  • the sales lines read
  • the lines used
  • the statements written
  • the total royalty

Under it is every line that did not turn into money, grouped by cause, with up to five examples each. Five of the causes stop you issuing statements. Pubblish reports the rest and lets you carry on.

What the panel says What it means Stops you issuing
Not matched to an edition The identifier in the report matches no edition in your catalog. Yes
Edition has no format set The edition the line matched has no format, so Pubblish cannot tell a print sale from an ebook sale. Yes
No rate for that format A rate covers the title, but not the format that sold. Yes
No list price in your print currency A print royalty is a share of your own list price, and the edition has none in that currency. Yes
No exchange rate for that currency The sale is in a currency this period has no rate for. Yes
Title has no royalty rate No contract sets a rate covering the title, so nobody is owed for the sale. No
No royalty rate in force on that date A rate exists, but it was not running on the day of the sale. No
The report stated no amount The line carried no money. No
The report stated no currency The line carried no currency. No
Dated outside this period The sale falls outside the period’s start and end dates. No

When any of the five blocking causes has a count, a red panel says so. Issue statements then refuses and names them.

Resolve sales lines that did not match

  1. On the period page, find the Sales reports table.
  2. Click the number in its To resolve column. This opens Lines to resolve.
  3. Find the row. It shows the Identifier the report used, the Title as reported, the Channel and the Quantity.
  4. In the Match to an edition column, choose the right edition.
  5. Click Match.

Leave Remember this for next time ticked. Pubblish then matches that identifier to that edition automatically in future periods.

Matching an identifier applies to every line in this period that shares it. It does not apply to only the row you clicked.

For a line that should not earn anyone money, type a short reason in the Why? box. Then click Ignore.

Suppose you fixed the problem elsewhere, for example by adding the edition or correcting its ISBN. Click Recheck matches in that report’s row on the period page. The button appears beside a report that still has unmatched lines.

Then click Calculate royalties again. Recalculating a draft period is free and repeatable. It rebuilds every figure from scratch.

The Match and Ignore columns and Recheck matches appear only if you can change royalties.

Set an exchange rate for every currency

Pubblish converts sales in other currencies into your base currency. A currency with no rate stops those sales from being calculated at all.

A warning at the top of the page lists every currency that appears in your uploaded reports but has no rate yet.

  1. Open the period.
  2. Click Exchange rates. The button sits beside Calculate royalties. It appears only while the period is a draft, and only if you can change royalties.
  3. Add one row per currency. Choose the Currency.
  4. Type the Rate to base currency.
  5. Click Add rate.

The rate multiplies. Say GBP is your base currency and USD is 0.786500. Then USD 1.00 becomes GBP 0.79.

Use Rate source to record where the figure came from, such as “Bank of England, 30 Jun 2026”.

You set your base currency once, in Royalty settings, under Currency. To reach it, click the Settings button on the Royalties page. The button shows only if you can change royalties.

Issue the statements

When nothing is blocking, click Issue statements on the period page. It appears only after the period has been calculated at least once, and only while the period is a draft.

A payee is the person or company you pay. Every statement belongs to one payee.

Issuing does three things:

  • Each statement gets its Total due: what the payee was already owed, plus this period’s earnings.
  • Each statement is marked payable. If it is under the payee’s minimum, it is marked carried forward.
  • The period becomes Finalized.

Set the usual minimum in Royalty settings, under Defaults, in Minimum payment. One payee can have their own figure in Minimum payment override on their payee record.

Suppose anything changed since the last calculation. Pubblish refuses to issue and asks you to calculate again. Otherwise the statements would understate what each payee is owed.

Generate, send or download the statements

  1. Click Statements on the period page. The table lists every payee. For each, it shows Earned, Total due, whether they are Payable, whether a PDF exists, and the status of their Email.
  2. Click Generate PDFs. Pubblish builds them in the background. They appear in the PDF column as they finish.

What you do next depends on one setting. Open Royalty settings and look at How statements are sent, under Statements:

  • Pubblish emails them for me puts a Send all by email button at the top of the Statements page. It also puts a Send button on each row. Both appear once the period is finalized.
  • I download them and send them myself hides both buttons. The page says so and links to the setting.

Download all as zip is always available. It gives you each statement as a PDF, plus a CSV of its sales lines. Generate the PDFs first. With none built, the download refuses.

Click a payee’s name to open one statement on its own. It shows every sales line behind the figure. Then it shows the totals: Brought forward, Earned this period and Total due. A total under the minimum has a Carried forward badge.

Set up the payees

  1. Open Royalties in the sidebar.
  2. Click Payees.

To add every credited author who is not yet a payee, click the one button for it, for example Add 4 authors as payees. It opens a list to tick. Use Add a payee for anyone not credited on a title, such as an agent, an estate or a company.

Each payee holds these fields:

Field What it does
Payment method PayPal, Bank transfer, Check, or No payment method set. Shown on the payment run so you know how to pay them.
Payment email The PayPal address to pay, if it differs from their contact email.
Payment reference A note to help you identify the payment. Do not put bank account numbers here.
Payment currency What this payee is told they are paid in. Payments are always recorded in your base currency.
Minimum payment override A different minimum for this payee than your usual one.
Statement email Only for a payee whose statements go somewhere other than their normal contact addresses, such as an agent. Leave it blank and they go to the addresses on the person record.
Active An inactive payee is left out of the payment run and the total owed. Statements are still generated for any sales they had.

The payees table shows each payee’s Balance owed. A No email badge marks a payee whose statement has no address to send to. Open a payee to see every statement and every payment recorded against them.

Record the payment run

Pubblish works out what is owed and records what you pay. It does not make the payments.

Open the Dashboard and click the Royalties due tile. If you have not chosen a base currency, the tile reads Set a base currency. It takes you to Royalty settings instead. A finalized period’s page also has a Payment run button.

To pay now lists every active payee whose balance is at or above their minimum. For each, it shows:

  • their Payment method
  • the address to Pay to
  • the Amount

Pay to shows the Payment email for a PayPal payee. For any other method, it shows the Payment reference. If it is blank, add one of those on the payee’s record.

Pay them through PayPal or your bank. Then come back and record it. There are three ways:

  1. Type your bank or PayPal reference beside a row and click Mark paid. This records the payee’s whole outstanding balance.
  2. Click Mark everyone paid to do the same for every row at once. Pubblish asks you to confirm first. It leaves anyone under their minimum alone.
  3. Click Record a payment for a part payment, or one made on another date. Fill in Payee, Amount, Paid on, Method, Reference and Note. Then click Record payment. If you leave Method blank, Pubblish uses the payee’s own.

Carried forward lists everyone under their minimum. Those balances stay owed and roll into the next period.

Every button on this page needs permission to change royalties. Without it, you can read the list but cannot mark anything paid.

What a finalized period locks

On a finalized period you cannot:

  • upload another sales report
  • delete a sales report
  • add an exchange rate
  • delete an exchange rate

Each refusal says the same thing: reopen the period first. Calculate royalties and Exchange rates are not on the page at all.

To change something, click Reopen on the period page. Reopening does three things:

  • It puts every statement back to draft.
  • It deletes the PDFs.
  • It clears the record that they were sent.

A corrected statement can then go out again. Upload, recalculate and issue as before.

Pubblish refuses to reopen a period once you have recorded a payment to anyone who received a statement from it.