A number of people (including us, of course) talk regularly about the various benefits of using royalty management software. But we figured it might be helpful, to have in one place, a list of the absolute top reasons that royalty software is such a good choice for all publishers. Without further ado, here are the top five reasons to put royalty software to use:

Royalty Software Isn’t Just for Big Organizations Anymore

It used to be that purpose-built royalty management solutions were available only to the biggest players in the publishing industry. Big firms used robust technology to manage and automate royalty processing, while everyone else was stuck with a hodgepodge of spreadsheets, struggling to juggle reams of data manually.

The playing field has been leveled though, something that smaller publishers are increasingly taking advantage of. As technology has changed the publishing industry, it has also put royalty management software within the budget of nearly every publisher. The structuring and software used in royalty management has been perfected in recent years, to create systems that can be integrated easily and cheaply, by any publisher.

Big publishers haven’t been using royalty management software for years just to pad out pre-downturn budgets – they’ve done so because of the distinct business value royalty software represents. Now there’s no reason that the same business advantage can’t be leveraged by any publisher – regardless of size.

Royalty Software Saves Labor Time and Expense

One undeniable advantage to royalty software is the time savings it allows. Processing royalties is a highly labor intensive process for publishers, often requiring data entry across several systems, and large amounts of work that could be automated. While Excel and Quickbooks are good at what they do, they can’t automate royalty management – and inputting royalty accounting data into accounting systems manually is a job that should be automated. Royalty software needs a few inputs – titles, authors, contract terms – but from there on out, it essentially manages royalties without needing any help.

Royalty Software Means Better Accounting Practices and Compliance

Royalty software is great for three types of publishers: small, medium, and large. For small or mid-size publishers, accounting tends to not be quite as systematic or organized as they should be. This isn’t sloppiness – it’s just that keeping afloat day-to-day means that maintaining an accounting database that would make a CPA proud is just not at the top of the priority list.

And let’s face it – royalty accounting isn’t sexy. But standardized, well-kept records are important for small or mid-size publishers in the longer term, for later growth, or for future shifts in business models. The solution isn’t night school accounting class, or even hiring an accountant – it is as simple as implementing royalty software that processes and organizes royalty data automatically.

And for the medium or large publisher, the accounting benefits of royalty software are typically self-evident – accounting standards are very high, and royalty accounting needs to meet industry best practices. Royalty management software helps build impeccable accounting structures that can stand the test of time, and stand up to any audit or regulation – with Sarbanes-Oxley compliance tools built in.

Royalty Software Improves Author Relations

Authors have more and more options for getting their books to readers, and some are bypassing publishers altogether. Since publishers can no longer rely on being the only option, they have to be the best option. Royalty software can help immensely in relations with authors, by adding transparency to royalty processing, and making it clear that a publisher is committed to processing royalties quickly and accurately – and with a paper trail.

Royalty Software Puts Publishers in Position for Digital – And Other Coming Changes

The only certainty in publishing is that the industry is changing. There are business models in publishing in place today that were hardly even imagined ten years ago. There are new technologies opening new revenue streams at an astonishing rate. There is only one way to be ready for anything in the future of publishing: have a solid base, and be ready to incorporate new business models and revenue opportunities as they arise. Royalty software leverages both scalability and efficiency; this won’t make adaptation to industry changes easy, but it will keep them manageable from a business perspective.