Collaborators helps you with your royalty payments to third parties in three important ways:

1. Setting up Splits & Calculating Shares: Add splits to any tracks and calculate how much you owe to those collaborators who should receive a share of the revenue from your releases
2. Manage Royalties: Keep track of these amounts, as well as any other revenues, expenses, or payments related your collaborators
3. Batch Payments: Save time & Money. Use Collaborators to bundle your payments to collaborators, across multiple currencies. 

We've put together supporting information below this Getting Started Video Q&A on the tool.

Contents

• Setting Up Splits

• Calculating Shares

• Managing Royalties
• Managing a Collaborator & their Balance
• Manually Adding New Transactions
• Payments with Wise

Feedback on the Collaborators tool from Checked Label Services: We have worked closely with the AWAL team to ensure we had Collaborators up and running as soon as the new AWAL Workstation was launched. Not only has it taken pressure off our everyday workload, but it's also saving us time and money with accounting and reporting each month. If that's not enough, Collaborators is now one of our key sell-points when signing new artists and labels. Feedback has been 100% positive.

Setting Up Splits

To calculate what you owe to others, you first need to set up splits. This tells the Collaborators system what % of revenue is owed to who for which tracks. 

Begin on the Collaborators homepage:

1. Search for and select a Product on the Collaborators homepage.
2. Now click + Add Collaborator 
3. If you already created Collaborators in the past, you can simply select from the dropdown.
   Otherwise, you will need select + Create New Collaborator 
   • A new window will pop up. You can search for anyone who you have added to track or product metadata in the past while originally setting up your products.
   • To add someone that is not in the product metadata, type their name and click + Create New Artist
4. Next, enter the Share % of Net Revenue they should get 
5. Select whether their split should be calculated on NET Revenue or GROSS Revenue
6. Click the tick to save your work
7. When all splits are set up for this Product, select Done to go back to the Collaborators homepage. 

Calculating Shares

Once you set up splits, you can run the calculation to see how much you owe to each collaborator. 

Navigate to the “Reports” tab

On the Reports tab “Generate New Report” button:

1. Select which statement periods you’d like to calculate
2. Enter a name for the Report Group 
3. Click Generate to begin the calculation 

Report Groups: Each time you generate reports, they will appear in a group on the left side of the screen. 

Collaborator Reports: Select any group to view the list of Collaborator reports in it.

 

Managing Royalties

Each Collaborator you set up starts with a balance of zero. You can keep track of any royalties owed to them, payments you make, or expenses, all in Collaborators. 

Adding Reports to Royalties

After calculating royalties, you can add the amounts to a Collaborator’s balance. 

1. Select the  report group
2. Select which reports you want to add, or select all
3. Click “Add to Royalties”

This will add the calculated amounts to each Collaborator’s royalty balance which you can view when managing the Collaborator. 

Managing a Collaborator & their Balance

On the Collaborators home page, click on the name of any Collaborator.

On a Collaborator’s page, information is organized into three tabs: Royalties, Reports, and Products. 

• Select the Royalties to view their account balance and the transactions that make it up. You can create new transactions by clicking New Transaction.
• Select the Reports tab to view all reports for this Collaborator. 
• Select the Products tab to view all products where the Collaborator has splits. 

You can share the statements for Collaborators directly using the reports feature. Check out the below video walkthrough.

Manually Adding New Transactions

Aside from adding reports to a collaborator’s royalties, you can also manually enter Revenue, Expense, or Payment transactions

Adding Revenues to a collaborator will increase their balance - you owe them more. 

Adding Payments or Expenses will decrease their balance - you owe them less. 

Payments with Wise

We have partnered with Wise to provide a bulk-payment solution in Workstation. 

You can find out more about Wise here. 

*IMPORTANT NOTE:* We do not send any money on your behalf. All payments submitted from Workstation need to be funded by you! 

 

Overview:

Payments with Wise has two key benefits:

1. Pay collaborators in almost any currency. Wise takes care of conversions for you and deposits the correct currency directly to your collaborator’s bank account. 
2. Pay many collaborators at the same time. Instead of making separate payments to each collaborator individually, you can now group those payments together so you just make one payment, and Wise takes care of splitting that up to each of your collaborators. 

There are three steps to making payments:

1. Activating payments by Setting up your Wise account & Connecting it to Collaborators. (only do this once)
2. Adding bank details for your collaborator. (only do this once per collaborator)
3. Setting up payments

 

Activating Payments

Head to the Payments tab and click Activate Payments to get started.

Follow the instructions on screen. This will take you automatically to Wise where you can either create a new account, or sign in to an existing account if you have one. 

Then follow instructions at Wise to verify your business account and Give Access to Collaborators.

Once complete, you’ll be automatically redirected back to Collaborators. 

 

Adding Bank Details (Recipients)

Account verification varies by country, but usually takes about 48 hours or less. If Wise has any questions, they will reach out to you directly. 

Once your account is verified, you can start adding bank details for your collaborators. Wise calls these “Recipients”. 

From the Collaborators homepage, simply click “+ Add Recipient” beside any Collaborator to begin adding their bank details.

1. Select which currency they should receive. The other fields will update automatically to match the currency you selected. 
2. Fill in the fields and click “Add Recipient” to confirm. 

 

Note: We do not store any sensitive Recipient information, the information is sent to Wise and stored in your account at Wise. 

After setting up the recipient, the currency will appear beside this Collaborator on the home page. 

 

Setting up Payments

After adding bank details you can start setting up payments to these collaborators. 

To do this, head to the Payments tab. 

1. To pay all collaborators their full balance, select all and click Fill from Balance. 
2. Give this batch of payments a name and click “Generate Quote”.
3.  Review the amounts each collaborator will get in the Collaborator gets column. 
4. To confirm, click “Set up payment”. 

 

Important: You’re not done yet!

Your batch of payments is now set up, but you still need to send  the funds to Wise so they can actually make those payments. We do not pay any of your collaborators directly. 

 

Take note of the amount You Send, the Reference number, and the bank details for Wise. 

Head to your bank and set up a bank transfer or wire transfer to Wise. 

Once Wise receives your money, they will split up the payment, convert it if necessary, and send the money to each collaborator. 

 

Important: Wise must receive your funds from a bank account with the same name as the business name you registered with Wise. If not, Wise will reject the funds and your payments will not be sent to the Collaborators.