Donations

Donations allow a rights holder to automatically give a percentage of their royalties on a specific product to another rights holder.

This is useful when an author wishes to donate a portion of their earnings to a charity, co-author, publisher, or any other party.

• Donor — The rights holder whose royalties are being donated. The donor must have a contract for the product.
• Recipient — The rights holder who receives the donated amount. They do not need a contract for the product.
• Donation Rule — A rule that defines the donor, recipient, product, percentage, and date range for a donation.
• Donation Transaction — A record created each time a donation is processed during a royalty run. These provide a full audit trail.

Where to find donations #

From the main navigation sidebar, open the Adjustments group and click Donations. This takes you to the Donation Rules index page.

From the index page you can:

• View all existing donation rules in a searchable, sortable table
• Create a new donation rule
• View, edit, or delete any rule via the Actions menu on each row
• Switch to the Donation Transactions page to see a history of all processed donations

Creating a donation rule #

1. Navigate to Adjustments > Donations in the sidebar.

2. Click the Create Donation Rule button.

3. Fill in the form:

   • Donor Rights Holder — Search for and select the rights holder who will donate. Only rights holders who have at least one contract can be donors.
   • Product — Once a donor is selected, this dropdown shows products where the donor has a contract. Search by title name or ISBN and select the product.
   • Recipient Rights Holder — Search for and select the rights holder who will receive the donation. The recipient cannot be the same person as the donor.
   • Percentage — Enter the percentage of royalties to donate, between 0.1% and 100%. If other donation rules already exist for the same donor and product, the form will show how much percentage is still available.
   • Maximum Amount (optional) — Set a cap on the total amount that can be donated under this rule. Once cumulative donations reach this amount, no further donations are made. Leave blank for no limit.
   • Start Month — The first month this rule takes effect.
   • End Month (optional) — The last month this rule applies. Leave blank if the rule should continue indefinitely.

4. Click Create to save the rule.

You will be redirected to the rule’s detail page, which shows all the settings and a transaction history table.

Editing a donation rule #

1. From the Donation Rules index, click Actions > Edit on the row, or navigate to the rule’s detail page and click Edit.
2. You can change the recipient, percentage, maximum amount, start month, and end month.
3. The donor and product cannot be changed after creation. If you need to change these, delete the rule and create a new one.
4. Click Save Changes.

Deleting a donation rule #

Donation rules are soft-deleted, meaning they are removed from the active list but their transaction history is preserved for audit purposes.

• From the index page: click Actions > Delete on the row and confirm.
• From the detail page: click the Delete button at the bottom left and confirm.

Rule status #

Each donation rule shows a status badge on its detail page:

• Active — The current date is within the rule’s start and end months.
• Scheduled — The rule’s start month is in the future.
• Expired — The rule’s end month has passed.

Only active rules are processed during royalty runs.

Maximum amount cap #

The maximum amount cap lets you limit the total donations under a rule. This is useful when a donor wants to contribute up to a fixed amount and no more.

How it works:

• Each time a donation is processed, the amount is added to the rule’s running total.
• If the next donation would exceed the cap, it is automatically reduced to the remaining amount.
• Once the cap is reached, the rule is effectively paused — no further donations are made even if the rule is still active.

Example: A rule is set to donate 50% with a maximum of £500. After three royalty runs the total donated reaches £480. On the next run, the calculated donation would be £100, but it is reduced to £20 (the remaining capacity) to stay within the £500 cap.

The rule’s detail page shows a Donated / Max display and a Max Reached badge when the cap has been hit.

How donations are processed #

Donations are applied automatically during the bill creation step of a royalty run. You do not need to do anything manually — the system handles everything based on your active rules.

The processing order within bill creation is:

1. Advance repayments are deducted first
2. Expense repayments are deducted next
3. Donations are calculated from the remaining balance
4. Bills are created from whatever is left

Calculation details #

• The donation percentage is applied to the balance after advances and expenses have been deducted.
• If a donor has multiple donation rules for the same product (to different recipients), each rule’s percentage is calculated against the same original balance before any donations are taken. This means a 30% rule and a 20% rule together donate exactly 50%, not 30% then 20% of the remainder.
• The total of all donation percentages for one donor on one product cannot exceed 100%.
• If a donation rule has a maximum amount cap, the donation is reduced to stay within the cap.
• Donations below the minimum payout threshold are carried forward to the next royalty run, just like any other small balance.

Reversing donations #

If you delete bills on a royalty run, all donations from that run are fully reversed:

• The donor’s and recipient’s journal balances are restored
• The donation rule’s running total is reduced by the reversed amount
• The donation transaction records are removed

This means you can safely delete bills and re-create them if needed.

Donation transactions #

The Donation Transactions page (accessible from the Donation Rules index page) shows a history of all donations that have been processed across all royalty runs. Each transaction records:

• The royalty run it was part of
• The donor and recipient
• The product
• The percentage applied
• The amount donated

You can also see transactions for a specific rule on that rule’s detail page under Transaction History.

Statements #

Donations appear in the payment summary table on PDF royalty statements for both donors and recipients.

Donor’s statement #

The donor’s payment summary shows a line item for each donation with the label “Donation to [Recipient Name]” and the donated amount as a negative value (a deduction from their balance). For example:

Recipient’s statement #

The recipient’s payment summary shows a line item for each donation received with the label “Donation received from [Donor Name]” and the amount as a positive value. For example:

Note: Recipients only see sales and royalty detail tables for products where they have their own contract. For products where they only receive donations, only the payment summary line appears — they do not see the underlying sales data.