On October 17th, 2024, your account will be migrated to our newly designed royalty system. To simplify your experience, we’ve renamed this section “Statements,” which can be easily accessed from the top bar of your Spare Music account.
As part of this upgrade, you might notice some changes in your account, including adjustments to certain numbers. We want to provide you with a detailed explanation of why these changes have occurred.
How do stores report revenue to us?
Digital stores like Spotify, Deezer, and Apple Music send us royalty statements at the end of each month. These reports usually arrive around the same time each month, and payments are made to us within a few weeks of the report being available. Typically, there is a three-month delay in reporting, allowing the entire process to run smoothly. For instance, royalties earned in January are generally not paid until April 10th.
However, some stores pay us less frequently due to specific agreements or limited reporting capabilities. While this is manageable, it has created some confusion in the past regarding the origin of certain payments. Was a payment from last month’s revenue or from six months ago? We aimed to make this process more transparent. If you’ve ever logged into your Spare Music account on the 10th of the month and noticed a previous month’s figure change, this was likely due to backpay.
How will statements fix this issue?
Statements have been introduced to streamline our reporting process and ensures that the amounts we pay you are more transparently adjusted. Moving forward, we’ll provide you with a detailed breakdown of how much we’re paying you each month, categorised by store, regardless of when the store made the payment to us. Instead of reflecting figures based on the sale date, they will now be represented by the payment date.
Don’t worry—the sale date is still available. When you download statements for use outside of our platform, you’ll see which sales month each royalty corresponds to. We’re also working on a feature that will provide an exact list of what’s included in each month’s reporting, so you can easily track your earnings without needing to analyze your statement download.
How does this work in practice?
Let’s walk through an example. Suppose you earned $500 in June 2024. Initially, you would have seen this presented as follows:
Now, in July 2024, you earned $700. However, during the same payment run, we also received an additional report from Facebook, which indicated that you earned $50 in June 2024. This might have happened because Facebook was delayed in their reporting. Previously, this would have led to two things:
1. Your report for July 2024 would have shown $700 in revenue.
2. Your report for June 2024 would have been updated to include the additional $50.
The final output would have looked like this:
This approach was often confusing, and we heard your feedback. You might have asked questions like, “Why did my revenue from April go up?” or “Where did this extra revenue come from?”
In the new system, both of these questions are easily addressed. Here’s how the new system will present your reporting:
The June 2024 report will be re-labeled as August 2024, reflecting the month this revenue was actually paid to us. We refer to this as the “Reporting Period,” which indicates when the report was published. This now includes the $500 you earned in June.
Your July 2024 statement will be labeled as September 2024, which corresponds to the month that revenue was paid. In addition to the $700 you earned in July, we’ve also included the additional $50 from Facebook in your September 2024 period, since they reported to us after we processed the August 2024 period.
This would then output your data as follows:
You can click into your September 2024 period to view a detailed breakdown of revenue by store, and if needed, download a CSV containing all sales and transaction dates.
Did You Pay Me the Correct Amount?
Yes, the only change is how we present these numbers to you. We’ve reviewed the last four years of reporting and generated a statement for each month. Assuming you received payments every month without any balance rollovers, these statements should align with the payments you received.
Will the Reporting Date Change?
No, we’ll continue to provide you with monthly reports on or around the 10th. In fact, we’re working to make reports available even earlier than the 10th in the future.