Unconfirmed royalties are earnings that have yet to be made payable to us by the stores, and are still pending confirmation from our Finance department.
Since these sales are yet to be confirmed, they are considered "Estimated Sales" and as a result the amounts may vary slightly due to withholding taxes or exchange rates.
Sales that are still pending confirmation are not included in the user balances, so you cannot request out-payment for these earnings UNTIL these earnings are confirmed.
Why are royalties pending confirmation?
The main reason why royalties are pending confirmation is that music services issue their sales reports weeks or months in advance of issuing the payment for that corresponding period.
In order to provide this information as soon as possible, our Royalties Department uploads the sales report as early as we receive them, so the users can check the evolution of earnings.
However, it is only after we have receive payment for that report that we can confirm these sales and pay them. That is when these royalties become payable.
After sales are confirmed, the end user balances will be updated with their corresponding store/site earnings.
In some occasions, royalties can be pending confirmation due to extraordinary circumstances, such as:
- The music service is being unusually late on payments. As soon as we are confirmed of an excessive delay on payment by the service or are aware of this special circumstance, we will communicate it to all members so they can plan for this inconvenience in advance.
- A technical issue has hampered the normal confirmation schedule and there is a backlog on confirmation. In that event, we will prepare and communicate to each member a payment plan so they can have an estimation as to when sales will be confirmed and payable.
- Music services apply small adjustments in recent reports that apply to previous periods. These adjustments can appear as unconfirmed sales since the service usually applies them without any notification. Periodically we review these adjustments to include them in our confirmation period so everyone is up to date. Please bear in mind that music services are constantly reviewing their reporting processes and are constantly improving them.