Don’t let managing royalties become an uphill battle
For Res Publica, the transformation from spreadsheets to a professional automated solution has reduced time spent on managing royalties, freeing up time for more value-creating work.
Let’s face it: at some point, even the best homemade spreadsheet tools are no longer enough. This was the reality that the Norwegian publisher Res Publica was faced with as the calculation and settlement of their royalties became an increasingly time-consuming task.
At Res Publica, ensuring accurate and timely royalty settlements is essential for maintaining good relationships with their authors. But as a growing publisher, this important task simply became too difficult and cumbersome to carry out in a homemade spreadsheet.
What worked initially on a smaller scale became, as we grew in authors and publications, like endlessly pushing a stone uphill.
Gerd Johnsen, Editor in Chief at Res Publica, explains:
“What worked initially on a smaller scale became, as we grew in authors and publications, like endlessly pushing a stone uphill. Our spreadsheet solution just wasn’t built to handle large volumes of settlements across multiple periods – and meeting the demands for flexibility from our authors in terms of their settlements had become a challenge for us.”
Easy management of unique royalty calculations
According to Gerd Johnsen, recognising the need for a professional solution and responding to this quickly were crucial for the publisher’s continued growth journey. Automated software would allow resources to be reallocated to value-creating work. The answer was Schilling’s Royalty Professional solution.
It has been a game changer for our business and has reduced the time we spend on managing royalties.
“We moved from inefficient and slow work processes to automating our royalty management set-up with Schilling. It has been a game changer for our business and has reduced the time we spend on managing royalties. Today we are far more efficient and able to refocus on our core tasks”, Gerd Johnsen says, and adds:
“With Schilling we can offer our authors an unprecedented level of flexibility, as the software easily handles all the unique royalty calculations, including the special Norwegian methods. The solution has given us much greater transparency with our authors and partners.”
Jan W. Juhl, manager at Schilling, says:
“Res Publica is on an exciting journey as a publisher, and we are ready to support their growth by adding even more value through increased efficiency, enhanced quality, and streamlined workflows in all the areas of their business.”
At Schilling, we are very happy to work with Res Publica and look forward to a close and long-lasting partnership.
Solution: Schilling Royalty Professional
Implementation
Schilling’s consultants implemented Royalty Professional with data mapping of Res Publica’s author agreements and integrations to their distributors in just three months. It was essential for Res Publica’s decision to switch from spreadsheets to automated software that the entire transformation project could be completed between two settlement periods and in a way that did not affect their authors during the process.
About Res Publica
Res Publica is a Norwegian publisher with 12-15 new titles published each year. They publish non-fiction for a general audience, focusing on politics and current affairs. Res Publica is owned by a think tank and the big unions in Norway.
