New Royalty Management Features Released

March 8th, 2010

We released some cool new RoyaltyZone features last night, with more on the way soon!  Here’s what’s new:

Additional Agreement Fields
Capture and track additional license agreement data in RoyaltyZone:

  1. Royalty Start Date - this replaces the “Ignore Historical” check box and lets you select any date to define the first expected royalty report
  2. Account Manager - designate any RoyaltyZone user (you can add more if you need to) as the Account Manager for the agreement.  You can sort agreements by Account Manager on the Licensees page.
  3. Liability Insurance Requirements - enter any insurance requirements (visible to the licensee)
  4. Exclusive - enter any exclusivity terms (visible to the licensee)
  5. Marketing Dates - enter any marketing date info (visible to the licensee)

Large Royalty Report Processing
RoyaltyZone has processed royalty reports as large as 52,000 sales transactions, but those big reports take some time to crunch.  Licensees uploading reports with more than 1,000 sales transactions will now be notified by email when the royalty report is calculated and ready for submission.  No more staring at a spinning wheel!  Go have some fun (or work, if you must) and RZ will ping you when the report is ready.

Improved Error Messaging for Uploads
We love to hear your feedback!  Per your requests -  we made some changes to the error messaging for sales uploads.  We improved the text content, made the display area larger, and moved the action links to a more prominent location.  The goal is to give you easy to understand instructions on how to fix data issues in your upload files.  Let us know if you have additional suggestions for improvement!

Login Management
Can’t remember your user name or need access to RoyaltyZone?  Click “Request an Account” from the login, and enter your email.  If you already have an account, you’ll receive an email with your login credentials.  If your company has a RoyaltyZone account, the account admin will asked by email to add you as a user.

Coming (very) soon: custom date Trends & Analysis reports, advertising/marketing fee management, royalty distribution improvements, and more!

Analyze results and measure success for licensed properties and product categories.

February 9th, 2010

The RoyaltyZone Trends and Analysis (TNA) module now provides instant access to key performance metrics for licensed properties and product categories.

Licensors can determine their best (and worst) selling properties and categories and identify opportunities to generate additional licensing revenue.

For each licensed property access:

  • Royalties, Net Sales, and Quantity Sold
  • # of active agreements and Ranking
  • Top Categories
  • Top SKU’s
  • Top Licensees
  • Top Territories
  • Top Distribution Methods

For each product category access:

  • Royalties, Net Sales, and Quantity Sold
  • # of active agreements and Ranking
  • Top Properties
  • Top SKU’s
  • Top Licensees
  • Top Territories
  • Top Distribution Methods

What is a licensed property? The intellectual property, normally a trademark or copyright, which could be a name, symbol, slogan, design, logo, icon, package design, image, photograph, phrase, work of authorship, or character – or any combination of these elements.

What is a product category? A group of related products that, bundled together, can be classified as a separate entity or class, such as: apparel, personal accessories, toys or electronics.

Avoid the ten most costly royalty reporting issues

February 1st, 2010

As you review your December and Q4 2009 royalty reports, be on the lookout for the 10 most costly royalty reporting issues.

Intellectual property licensees of all sizes often have insufficient staff and systems in place to effectively manage royalty reporting. In fact, studies show that 81% of all licensees under report royalties, and that 40% of licensees underpay by at least 50%. That is potentially $20,000 in lost royalty revenue for every $100,000 reported!

Factor in the amount of wasted time your own limited staff spends searching, copying, pasting, calculating, converting, mailing, emailing, faxing, and phoning, and it is clear that inadequate royalty reporting is a costly burden.

Learn how Licensors can eliminate the 10 most costly royalty reporting issues with RoyaltyZone.

January release brings cool new RoyaltyZone features

January 19th, 2010

The RoyaltyZoners have been hard at work turning your suggestions into new features:

Improved Licensee User Experience. Hundreds of licensees rely on RoyaltyZone to submit royalty reports, pay invoices, and view license agreement terms.  We’ve listened to your questions and feedback over the last year, and have responded with a completely redesigned user interface for licensees.

  • The Dashboard is better organized, making it easier to find what you are looking for quickly.
  • We moved profile and product management into the Royalty Report submission process, so you can login and get everything done in one place.
  • Creating and submitting royalty reports takes less time.  We streamlined the report submission process and removed extra steps and links.

User feedback has been positive so far - we’d love to hear your thoughts - just click “Feedback” from any page within RoyaltyZone to send us your questions, comments, or suggestions.

Multi Currency. You can now select any base currency for your license agreements.  Licensee royalty reports, invoices, and balances are all formatted with proper currency symbol.  Next step: currency conversion, targeted for Q2 2010 release.

Address Book. Want to generate a mailing list of all of your licensee contacts?  Just click on the fancy new address book link, and all of your licensee contact data is instantly exported to XL.   Your marketing folks will thank you!

Partial Invoice Payments. Invoices can now be partially paid or received, with full payment history, notes, and the ability to track remaining balance.

Manage Agreements Internally. Licensors can now choose to manage one or more agreements internally,  without involving the licensee.  Licensors can submit royalty reports and manage invoices on behalf of the licensee, then easily grant access to the licensee at any time, whenever ready to do so.

More cool stuff on the way soon, including property and category reporting, streamlined royalty distribution reporting and payments, and more…

Free LIMA Webinar “Royalty Reporting: Risks and Red Flags” - Oct 28

October 20th, 2009
LIMA’s 2009-2010 Webinar Series continues next week with “Royalty Reporting: Risks and Red Flags” on Wednesday, October 28 from 12:00 Noon-2:00pm EDT.

Hosted by Vincent Leoni, partner-in-charge of the Royalty Compliance Group for Moss Adams LLP, this will session will look at how royalty reporting can help licensors identify risk areas and red flags, and steps licensees can take to make audits less intrusive and a more accepted facet of the licensing relationship.

The webinar is free for current members, $99 for non-members. Please note that registration will only be accepted until 5:00pm EDT on Tuesday, October 27.

The easy, no risk way to evaluate RoyaltyZone

October 19th, 2009

I speak to many licensing executives who want to reap the benefits of licensing automation and royalty management software, but are reluctant to get started.  Common concerns include:

  • Little time to learn a new system.
  • No resources to enter license agreement data and setup items.
  • Want to be sure the software will work before committing scarce budget dollars.

RoyaltyZone created the QuickStart program to alleviate these concerns.  QuickStart is a risk free, no obligation trial period that puts the burden on us to prove that RoyaltyZone will deliver results for your licensing program.

What’s different about QuickStart?

  1. We do all the work.  Send us your license agreements and royalty data (under NDA) and we’ll setup and populate your RoyaltyZone account for you.
  2. We shrink the learning curve.  We’ll show you how to manage your agreements and licensees, collect royalties, and analyze trends and metrics.  You’ll be a power user in no time.
  3. You get to actually use the software (with your data).  You’ll have access to a fully functional RoyaltyZone account for 30 days.  You’ll see how your agreements and royalty reports look and function, and measure the value RoyaltyZone delivers for your licensing program.
  4. There is no cost, obligation, or risk.  QuickStart is a free service, you pay nothing unless you choose to purchase RoyaltyZone, and there is absolutely no obligation to do so.

So, what are you waiting for?  Experience how you can increase revenue, save time, and make better licensing decisions today with RoyaltyZone QuickStart.

Boy Scouts of America Selects RoyaltyZone to Automate Trademark Licensing Compliance

May 18th, 2009

Austin, Texas (May 18, 2009) RoyaltyZone today announced that it has entered into an agreement with the Boy Scouts of America to provide a web-based software solution for the BSA’s trademark licensing program. RoyaltyZone automates license agreement compliance processes, enabling intellectual property licensors to share license agreement terms, payment schedules, and compliance tasks with their licensees.

Licensees access a web based system to upload licensed product and sales transaction data, calculate royalties owed, submit royalty reports, view invoices and track payment status.  Automating these processes can prevent costly errors and eliminate unintentional misreporting and underpayment of royalties.

“Licensee compliance is critical to the strength of the BSA’s brands,” said David Harkins, Associate Director, Business Development, for the Boy Scouts of America. “RoyaltyZone’s ability to monitor and manage licensee compliance will support our efforts to connect the BSA’s brands with the millions of boys and their families who have been influenced by the organization for nearly a century.”

RoyaltyZone’s Software-as-a-Service business model allows users to access the application from any Internet browser, anywhere in the world, without any hardware or software to install.  Licensors and Licensees are able to securely share data and communicate with each other on license agreement compliance issues.  A flexible pricing model offers a variety of affordable subscription plans for licensing programs of all sizes.

“We are excited to be working with the licensing team at the Boy Scouts of America” said Lou Ellman, chief executive officer of RoyaltyZone.  “RoyaltyZone was created to make license agreement compliance easy to manage for everyone involved in the process.  We are pleased to assist in the operation of a licensing program that is home to one of the most consistently-recognized brands in America.”

About the Boy Scouts of America

Serving more than 4.1 million young people between 7 and 20 years of age with more than 300 councils throughout the United States and its territories, the Boy Scouts of America is the nation’s foremost youth program of character development and values-based leadership training. For more information on the Boy Scouts of America, please visit www.scouting.org.  The use of the corporation name in this document is for the information and convenience of the reader. Such use does not constitute an official endorsement or approval by the Boy Scouts of America of any product or service to the exclusion of others that may be suitable.

About RoyaltyZone
RoyaltyZone automates license agreement compliance processes so that trademark, copyright, and patent licensors and licensees can realize the full potential of their intellectual property licensing programs.  The company’s web-based Software as a Service (SaaS) application enables the sharing of license agreement terms and schedules, and automates product management, royalty reporting, invoicing, and payment tracking tasks.  An innovative pricing model offers a variety of affordable subscription plans for licensing programs of all sizes.  For additional information on RoyaltyZone visit www.royaltyzone.com or call 866.605.2219.

2008 Royalty Audit Study released

May 12th, 2009

Our friends at Invotex Group have released the 2008 edition of their annual Royalty Audit Study, and as usual it is chock full of good information.

The bottom line: 81% of Licensees misreport royalties.

Download the full article here (you’ll need to fill out a form first)

TechConnect Summit 2009

April 7th, 2009

RoyaltyZone will be attending the TechConnect Summit 2009 on May 5th and 6th in Houston, TX.  Register here and use priority code VIP for a FREE EXPO ONLY PASS.

RoyaltyZone hosting panel at LES Winter Meeting

February 26th, 2009

RoyaltyZone is hosting a workshop panel on license agreement compliance issues, and how to avoid them.   The session is part of the LES Winter Meeting taking place today and tomorrow in San Antonio, TX.

Lou Ellman, RoyaltyZone CEO, will be joined by Debbie Stewart of Invotex Group and Brian Cummings from The University of Utah.

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