Cases · Reconciliation · music royalties
A band's royalties and its label advance: paid right, recouped when, owed to whom
Self-initiated case study on synthetic data: the band, tracks, rates and contract are invented, and the disagreements were planted on purpose. The distributors' column sets are modelled on DistroKid's and TuneCore's downloads and are illustrative. A demonstration of the method, not a blind test.
Goal
A band of three and its producer. The EP's money comes straight from one distributor. The album came out under a label deal: the label paid a EUR 15,000 advance, collects the album's income from a second distributor, keeps half and puts the band's half against the advance until it is paid back. Eighteen months in, the band asks: were we paid right, is the advance paid back yet, and who of us is owed what?
Challenge
Seven files in two currencies. The EP's statement has 2,570 rows, each a store, a track, a country and two months, sold and reported; the album's has 4,080 rows in another layout. The label's statement is one line a quarter and the band's only view of the advance, so checking it means rebuilding it: one wrong line in 2025 moves every balance after it.
Solution
Rules written down before counting: a store reports each month once, so a repeat is a duplicate and a missing month a gap; conversions within the bank's agreed margin; the label's receipts at the contract's rate, 50% kept by the label, the band's half against the advance until it is recouped, then paid 45 days after the quarter; members share each release by the split sheet. The label's statements were rebuilt quarter by quarter from the distributor's rows and set beside the originals.
Outcome
The advance was paid back in Q1 2026, not Q2, and the label owes the band EUR 2,410.15. In Q2 2025 the label kept 55% where the contract says 50%, so the band's share came out EUR 410.15 short; in Q3 2025 it put an extra EUR 2,000 back on the advance. Deezer's July 2025 was reported twice (+USD 150.35), and EUR 68.48 of the EUR 2,410.15 rests on that double. Shared by the album split: Mara 723.05, Jonas 723.05, Teo 723.04, Lena (producer) 241.01.
From the case
The royalty document, 3 pages (PDF)
Service
Reconciliation for your own files
The same method on your exports: definitions in writing first, then an independent recount.