How to Shorten Design Approval Cycles

Design Approvals

Working with brands large and small, licensing agents are a key revenue partner for many companies, keeping their fingers on the pulse of trends, pop culture, and current events. They have market-specific expertise to help brands break into new territories with effective retail placement and pricing. Their expert knowledge in these areas can help you stay ahead of the curve with new trends and navigate unforeseen challenges such as the COVID-19 pandemic. A licensing agent is a typical solution for brands that are just getting started with licensing, experienced brands juggling multiple licensing programs, and companies looking to expand into new territories without an existing network. Agents take commission for their work, but the added opportunities are often worth the price. The key to a profitable relationship between your brand and a licensing agent is choosing the right person for the job.

A licensing agent helps your brand find appropriate licensees for your IP and negotiates contracts that lay out the guidelines for a brand partnership. Within that definition, there are many ways an agent can support your brand. When evaluating potential candidates, ask questions about the agent’s strengths, the brands they are currently working with and the different ways they can help you reach your brand licensing goals.

Here are some common ways a licensing agent can help:

The pandemic forced trade shows to cancel, created supply chain issues, and catalyzed major shifts in consumer behavior, from the way they make purchases to the values they want to see brands reflect. Licensing agencies are well aware of these issues and have found ways to turn challenges into profitable deals for their clients.

For example, digital consumption has increased dramatically since the pandemic began. Savvy agencies have used this trend to work with streaming services to establish new licensing opportunities that didn’t exist before. Also location-based licensing deals often require on-site support and it can be challenging to manage these without having a local team on the ground.

How to work with the best licensing agent for your brand

Now that you know all the ways a licensing agent or agency can help your brand, the next step is to find one that’s a great fit for your product and team. Look for an agent or agency with experience with similar brands.

Licensing opportunities are available across a huge range of industries, so it’s important to look for an agency with experience in your particular area. Industry-specific expertise ensures that the agency understands your target audience and that their network of manufacturers is appropriate for the type of IP you want to license.

When your agent’s experience aligns with your business, there’s less of an onboarding process needed. They can hit the ground running, reaching out to their contacts to 

 without any wasted time learning the ins and outs of your industry or making new connections first.

Ensure they have a history of lucrative licensing deals

Experience alone doesn’t make a top-quality licensing agent. That experience has to be supported by a history of successful licensing programs. Check references from current and former clients to learn about what it was like to work with the agent and what results they achieved.

Any reputable agent or agency will be happy to provide a list of references for you. If you encounter one who doesn’t want to share this information, take it as a red flag and move to the next candidate on your list.

Work with a licensing agent that “gets” your brand

A licensing agent presents your brand to potential licensees with the hope of landing profitable new contracts. They also collaborate with your team to keep your 

 operating seamlessly and on schedule. To do these two things successfully, the agent needs to understand your brand’s core licensing needs as well as your company’s values.

To determine whether a licensing agent really connects with your brand, imagine you are hiring them to work in your office as a traditional employee. You wouldn’t hire an employee who doesn’t have an understanding of your company’s product and culture, because they won’t be able to integrate with your team successfully. To ensure a smooth collaboration process and lucrative new brand partnerships, use the same standards that you apply to new hires to evaluate your licensing agent candidates.

” report by License Global to find potential licensing agencies, and use the tips above to help you decide on the perfect agency to represent your brand licensing. Once you have a quality agency on your side, your brand will be poised for profitable new licensing opportunities and exceptional growth.

Successful agencies including Lisle, Ferly, and Striker Entertainment manage their relationships with clients and licensees with industry-leading brand licensing software. Flowhaven software helps teams and agencies compose & share agreements, manage design approvals, and validate royalties within a single platform, for every licensing deal.

How to Choose a Licensing Agent

If we were to make a day-in-the-life vlog for our work in licensing, it’d be jam packed. The world of licensing is busy and doesn’t like to wait for answers—especially considering that licensing professionals work all across different time zones. 

Gathering accurate, up-to-date data has always been a challenge. Not only does it usually take a village, it takes a considerable amount of time and expenses to procure.

That’s where Licensing Analytics by Flowhaven comes in. We explain the challenges and consequences of gathering data too slowly, as well as how our newest innovation, Licensing Analytics by Flowhaven, tackles that. 

What happens when traditional analytics lag behind market speed? 

Licensing is a fast-paced industry. So many things happen in just a single week or day, such as:  

That last point is fairly common–most managers prefer to give executives and team members updates once they’ve collected and processed enough reports. However, this is typically very. time consuming. 

With traditional analytics, an individual or a team is responsible for producing spreadsheets that answer a specific question, like “what is revenue performance quarter over quarter broken down by territories or categories.” 

One of the major drawbacks of the data that gets collected this way is that it only represents snapshots of the business during a particular time frame. Getting updated data to answer the same questions will require the same person or team to go back and pull numbers all over again. 

Manual data gathering is slow, inefficient, and not future-proof. When a certain teammate leaves, for example, their data gathering process sometimes leaves with them! 

How Licensing Analytics by Flowhaven can help 

With Licensing Analytics by Flowhaven, you no longer need to compromise between getting accurate, timely data and delaying a project. Our Licensing Analytics tool lets your team: 

Licensing Analytics by Flowhaven can answer your most important and most trivial questions within seconds. That means you won’t need to refrain from asking your team or partners to dig deeper. Having more transparency and visibility into your performance will help you catch problems before they get too big to solve, double down on what’s working and profitable, and scrap what’s not serving you. 

How To Stay Competitive In A Hot Licensing Market

 media engine kicked children's publishing into high gear. Making a splash as the most quickly funded children’s titles in Kickstarter history (raising over $675,614 with an original goal of $40,000), to date the

 has sold more than 1 million copies, launched a number of successful spin-offs and has been translated into more than 47 languages, introducing diverse and powerful female heroes to a new generation of readers.

Recently, the company extended its brand with licensed merchandise including clothing, stationery, tote bags, notebooks and more. To take the stories of rebellious historical women off of the page and into the hands of fans, Rebel Girls sought out a comprehensive business management system that offered holistic data analysis, modern communication tools, and a new approach to leading a data-driven business.

In the time since, the company has become a premier client, with successful extensions around the globe. This week, we sat down with Michon Vanderpoel, Director, Licensing & Partnerships, Rebel Girls to discuss the key factors that led the company to partner with Flowhaven and how our service is helping her team support their operations during the COVID-19 crisis.

1.Eliminating spreadsheets and useless documents

The Rebel Girls team was used to working with excel sheets and antiquated document filing systems to manage their day to day operations. As a publishing company with a roster of inspirational messaging, captivating visuals and historical figures to reference, they needed an efficient system that would allow them to organize their assets and assess in real-time the health of their programs to make informed decisions about the future.

“In the past, we used a licensing management tool that was clunky and unable to report at the granularity that we needed,” adds Vanderpoel. “We were forced to manually enter data into spreadsheets to compute and draw conclusions, which ate up a lot of time and was never wholly accurate.”

Tapping into Flowhaven’s project management tools and comprehensive dashboards, the team was able to aggregate data across all business touchpoints— licensee relationships, time from contract to product-on-shelf, assets usage, book sales, and more.

Today, the company is able to see how each deal is progressing — and how it all enriches the Rebel Girls’ brand. For example, if the company is planning to launch a new book series, Rebel Girls can share projections and archival data with their partners to plan for future product extensions and distribution.

This data can inform future books, too. Access to a dashboard overview, helps the team track current campaigns and adds insights using artificial intelligence (AI) with details on high-performing titles. These particular features have been especially useful for the team as they steer their business through these uncertain market conditions. They now have the ability to generate projections and look for new opportunities to connect with customers at home.

2. Streamlining Internal Communications‍

As a publishing powerhouse, Rebel Girls knows that effective communication is key to the success of their brand. The company employs small teams in several cities across the globe. To maintain effective and efficient communication across all teams with ease, the company needed a system that allowed them to share their ideas, align on and track partner comms, flag issues, and more - all in one place. The team points to the ability to exchange notes, schedule email notifications, access new product designs and more in just a few clicks as key factors in their decision to implement the Flowhaven system.

“One of the largest reasons we decided to move forward with Flowhaven and will continue to use Flowhaven is the solution’s capability and flexibility. When approaching workflow needs we always go to the platform first, which has streamlined many of our processes—from sending out pitch emails to closing money to approving sample submissions. We have been able to tailor the solution to fit our needs, rather than changing the way we work to fit with the solution,” remarks Vanderpoel.

Under the COVID-19 restrictions, the team has used Flowhaven’s communication tools to maintain effective communications with impacted licensors, book retailers and internal team members.

In light of the COVID-19 crisis, Rebel Girls has launched a number of initiatives to improve the lives of individuals staying at home under the banner #RebelGirlsAtHome. In addition to reducing the prices on their core products, Rebel Girls has offered free downloads of the 

 contained in their chapter book series; sent a special Teacher’s Guide out to book stores to include in their newsletters and offerings and; provided the Teacher’s Guide to local partners to translate and make available to instructors around the world. The brand also continues to produce a 

 series that readers can engage with at home.

Discover how Flowhaven can help you transform your operations by 

How business leaders can think beyond revenue to achieve holistic licensing success

How Rebel Girls is Rewriting the Future of Children’s Publishing Even During Crisis

Our CEO & CCO sit down with Jennifer Pirch of Approved! Podcast. They touch on the company's rapid expansion and provide tips for growth for licensing professionals of all levels!

Brand licensing is a $280.3 billion industry that is rapidly changing. Lately, professionals in the space have started to lean into modern technology to stay informed, agile, and able to adapt to changing consumer habits and market conditions. How did two pop-culture super fans become leaders in licensing relationship management technology?

 Podcast (recorded before social distancing orders) our CEO Kalle Törmä and CCO Timo Olkkola sit down with host Jennifer Pirch to discuss their love of fan culture; how a friendship formed in university turned into an exciting business partnership; and their desire to serve the community they love with comprehensive tools to make the process of turning a great idea into a successful global licensing program. They also touch on the company's rapid expansion and provide tips for growth for licensing professionals of all levels!

Want to hear more? Listen to Episode 8 of Approved here as well as on 

 04/23 at 10AM PST /1PM PST for a fun chat to compliment the episode.

Want to learn more about Flowhaven Stories? 

Flowhaven Talks Life, Licensing and Leading a Digital Revolution with Approved! Podcast

Thinking Beyond Revenue: A Holistic Licensing Approach in the Post-Normal.

This week, the licensing world's attention turns to

, the virtual global conference bringing C-level executives from the world's largest players across manufacturing, retail, and brands to discuss, debate, and collaborate on the future of brand licensing. Flowhaven is 

the event with an interactive booth, product demo opportunities, and a ground-breaking panel discussion that brings our 

licensing relationship management platform 

to life and underscores our dedication to helping the community overcome its challenges.

Available to attendees beginning Oct. 28, our panel discussion "

Thinking Beyond Revenue: A Holistic Licensing Approach in the Post-Normal

" will see licensing comrades Kalle Törmä, Founder and CEO of Flowhaven, and Anita Castellar, Founder, and CEO of 

, recall the licensing woes that brought them together and share how they are reshaping both the conversation and real-world application of proactive licensing management to drive holistic success.

With special attention to the complexities of 

sustaining a licensing business in a radically altered marketplace and transitioning to remote work,

 the discussion is more timely than ever.

Below, we give an exclusive peek at the discussion, including actionable tips for success.

What are the most common roadblocks to licensing success?

Castellar and Törmä became quick comrades when a LinkedIn exchange revealed that they shared similar grievances about the licensing industry's preoccupation with revenue. Both business-minded CEOs who treasured integrated processes, each party 

expressed a desire to see the community they know and love, view revenue as the result of operational success

"If your only goal is revenue, you may be jeopardising the health of your program," says Törmä. "The key is finding the balance between being profitable and ensuring you have a team that is managed well and able to produce the best possible product."

Castellar served in several high-profile positions

, including Manager, Global Merchandising Strategy at The Walt Disney Company and Licensing Manager, Hardlines, Lucasfilm, where she worked on such iconic properties as Star Wars. Törmä worked as a Licensing Coordinator and later, Licensing Operations Specialist at Rovio, creators of Angry Birds. Their unique insights into the challenges of running the world's largest entertainment franchises directly informed their outlook on building holistic licensing programs.

Together, Törmä and Castellar have identified the six key challenges preventing licensing professionals from developing comprehensive strategies and moving forward: timelines, staff retention, and support, challenges at retail, corporate culture, underdeveloped models for success and revenue.

"In licensing, we're used to time-sensitive goals we can work toward," says Castellar. "Timelines are out the window in 2020. We have to work for what is known. For example, an anniversary date, retail purchase order, or brand debut. Focusing on what you can control will help you build new realistic schedules."

Time management can be a difficult skill for any working group to master. In 2020, as partners recover from the global pandemic's effects, including retail closures, shipping delays, and rapidly altered consumer buying patterns, the need to exercise conscious control over when specific tasks should be carried out to ensure success at market has never been more dire.

Törmä and Castellar emphasize the importance of effective communication in navigating rapid scheduling changes. The more quickly updates are shared, the more quickly team members can react and adjust their strategies.

Törmä's advice? If you have a general understanding of how long production and shipping used to take, you can use that as a blueprint for building schedules that allow for flexibility. Ask your partners as many questions as you can, as frequently as you can to 

 and consider digital platforms that give you the option to set notifications and reminders to stay on track.

"We're all remote now," says Castellar. "I don't think that's going to go away. It was a work trend that was growing, and now everyone has had to accelerate their acceptance of it."

The pandemic forced some companies to furlough employees and others to make a rapid shift to remote work. Both came with a set of challenges. Reduced staffing left some employees feeling overloaded or tasked with responsibilities beyond their skillset. For those who had never participated in remote work, the quick change made it difficult to communicate effectively or soak up the insights usually gained from socializing in an office setting.

"What we see is a lot of fragmented communication as a result of the shift to remote work," says Törmä. "Before you may have been able to talk to your colleague and say 'Hey, I'm working on this amazing deal!'. Today, you're forced to put messages in Slack or some other platform where it runs the risk of getting lost. It's a difficult way to keep track of data and see the big picture of the business."

To overcome the challenge, Castellar and Törmä recommend doing a deep analysis of who is carrying out each task and where their talents would be best applied. For businesses that cannot afford to hire on new talent but may have the funds to invest in software that can alleviate some tasks, exploring comprehensive digital solutions is highly recommended.

"A lot of today's challenges are retail-driven. No one knows when retail will fully reopen, and If you're a global business, you're managing the business in locations that are in various states of lockdown," continues Castellar. "I think there's always opportunity in chaos; if you can bring in a subject matter expert whose advice you can rely on, and you have the resources to support the implementation, you should."

The global retail landscape has changed more in the last five years than it has in the last few decades. Sudden closures, unfulfilled purchase orders, and uncertainty about the future of some of the world's biggest retailers have left licensing professionals scrambling to adapt. While licensing professionals cannot determine how a retailer will perform, they can make key adjustments to their internal workflows to ensure that they deliver on promises to retailers and provide the highest quality products on time. Törmä and Castellar advise being as clear as possible when assigning tasks and looking for tools that help you keep your team accountable.

"The challenges we're seeing at retail today should take us back to the golden triangle of project management," says Törmä." If you have a project timeline and scope, you must look at who your partners are and ask who will be responsible for ensuring part of the project is executed perfectly."

"The definition of licensing success largely depends on who you ask. If you talk to someone on the C-level at a larger enterprise, it's revenue. After all, licensing is a revenue stream based on the successful promotion of the core IP. From an executive standpoint, it's the ability to execute the strategy."

Success is not one size fits. Neither is the process of developing comprehensive strategies to help your team achieve its unique strategy for success.

To build effective models, it is imperative that you look at your core IP, understand when and if demand for your product has changed, and where your insights are limited. Your model should be flexible enough to change when market conditions do.

Castellar, whose work with the Star Wars franchise taught her a valuable lesson in building strategies that not only ensured profit but also made accommodations for the diversity in the brand's audience (think Clone Wars fans vs. original film fans), suggests that putting your fans at the center of your strategy is the best way forward.

"Fans are your brand's consumer base," says Castellar. "You have to super-serve them anytime you can. In the world we are living in now, where strategies have gone out the window, you have to reassess what is normal."

"Changing habits is always difficult, especially for companies and teams who have a lot to do," remarks Törmä. "In the moment, it's hard to say 'if we slow down this week to implement changes we can benefit in the future.' But I guarantee you'll be faster afterward. You have to slow things down a bit if you want impactful change and must be able to commit to changing the way you've traditionally worked to engage everyone affected by the change."

Enterprise businesses did not achieve success from luck alone. Many successful institutions have long-standing practices that have helped them cultivate fan bases, attract top talent, and exceed revenue projections. For that reason, the idea of adopting new systems that require periods of reduced activity sounds unappealing.

However, research has shown that over time, the implementation of new, researched practices can contribute to long-term success. Törmä, who has spent the last few years helping the world's best licensing teams adapt the Flowhaven system first hand, has witnessed these transformations up close.

Flowhaven users have reported up to 80% increases in design approval process completions and improved speeds for royalty report generation and more. Or, as Kristy Satchel of Art Ask Agency provides 

"You have to adjust your [revenue] strategy for today's world," gives Törmä. "What you projected for the end of this year may not reflect what the reality will be. You have to go back to your core strategy. Ask yourself, who are your partners? Are your targeted demography and territories still relevant?"

Make no mistake; revenue is still an important part of building a holistic licensing program. After all, if you want to increase profits, expand your reach, hire additional staff, and scale, you need revenue to do so.

Revenue can also function as a useful tool for helping you analyze where it would be in your best interest to pivot your strategy. For example, if your toy sold out in Russia but failed to generate profit in Japan, you have a clearer indication of where you should focus your 

 like Flowhaven offer a wide variety of modules that can make the process of tracking and analyzing revenue easy and clear, including royalty report generators that allow for custom deal parameters, flag errors to mitigate risk and compare figures to contract data; data-led dashboards that can be customized to show SKU popularity and territory performance and; so much more.

To steer your company toward holistic success, you must identify which of the aforementioned challenges is impacting your program most. "Inefficiencies can lead to lost revenue," says Törmä. "It is best to be proactive early on to remove bottlenecks."

After identifying the most pressing issue, you must craft a strategy that prioritizes the issue while remaining flexible to meet today's unique needs.

Törmä and Castellar, a long-time customer, agree that adapting a licensing relationship management system like Flowhaven is the most effective. The Flowhaven solution is the only licensing relationship management solution on the market. Developed for licensing professionals by licensing professionals, the intuitive platform solves for all of the operational mishaps that deter companies from meeting their goals.

"You're already working to solve all of these challenges. People don't like the word processes, but they're designed to help you. It's how you spot the inefficiencies. Systems are important because they help you spot and centralize the inefficiencies."

To watch "Thinking Beyond Revenue: A Holistic Licensing Approach in the Post-Normal," head to 

Flowhaven is the world's first licensing relationship management solution and the only tool developed by licensing professionals to solve every operational challenge affecting the community. 

To learn more about our solution, book a free demo today.

Not everyone likes being asked to learn something brand new.That's understandable. In a world where people are juggling kids, long to-do lists, and their own wellbeing, adding one more thing to the to-do list doesn't sound too fun. (Warning!) Some people might even be slightly offended. Just think— if your team members have developed their own work styles and had successes, asking them to take a chance on a new method might raise questions.

, you need to get your entire team excited about implementing it (yes, even the skeptics). How you introduce the LRM to your team will affect how they feel about the system forever and how they describe it to others in the group.

If even one person is hostile to the new system, your team won't work cohesively. You need to keep everyone motivated to reach the same goal. So how do you rally your team without micromanaging them day in and day out (a method scientifically proven to suck the happiness out of people)?

It's actually pretty easy. Based on our experience working with hundreds of licensing executives and their teams, here are five easy steps to get employees eager to work with LRM.

Licensees, licensors and agents know the key to getting fans excited about a new product is explaining its value. It would help if you channeled that energy to 

 LRM software to your team — otherwise, they'll tune out like unhappy customers.

 has many benefits for your company as a whole. The solution makes it easy to analyze data, track royalties, and more. But, like customers, your team members need to know why an LRM is beneficial to them as individuals.

Here are a few of the most-loved benefits of LRM:

At Flowhaven, we love cheerleaders. Especially the getting-my-team-so-excited- they-can't-help-but-win kind. One of the best parts of adding an LRM is gaining the ability to communicate and collaborate with internal teams and external partners. Collaboration is the key to maintaining healthy licensing partnerships. It's also a critical factor in overall business success.

An LRM makes this easy and offers a single location for all teams to communicate and share information. As a leader, you need to grab your pom-poms and cheer your team on every step of the way.

For example, your team needs to be able to communicate with external partners about factors like contract terms, digital assets management, and deadlines. 

By encouraging your team to take advantage of this part of the LRM, they'll understand how the software can simplify the more boring tasks that usually take up valuable time. This will also show your team how straightforward internal and external communication can be with an LRM. That time they'd rather spend at home with family, they'll have way more of it. It's never too late to grab your pom-poms and start.

(Learn how Flowhaven helped the Full Colour black team improve communication

When breaking your team goals into tasks, and assigning them to team members, make sure action points are not overwhelming. The list should be something an employee can definitely do and ones you're available to help them with. Company goals can be long-term, with due-dates that are a year or more away, but tasks should be short-term and focused.Try breaking things down into weeks. It's easy to track if you were successful in a week. It is also a lot less intimidating. Once you've evaluated what went well, have them plan how to use the LRM to improve in the next week.This is a game-changer when adopting a new system. It makes you feel that you are realistic in your expectations from them. It also gives your team a chance to show that they've learned. Delivering on their promises will make them feel accomplished. It tastes much better than of over-promising and under-delivering.

Learning a new skill can be challenging even in the best work environment. As more people are forced to remote work, you need to be conscious of if someone on your team is having a hard time. Because most communication is taking place over email, video calls, or Flowhaven, it can be hard for your team to know when to ask your for help.

Make your availability clear when you introduce the system and offer-guidelines for how to grab time with you. You might want to hold regular 1:1 meetings until the system has been fully implemented. By leaving the door open for your team to contact you, you let them know that you understand that learning takes time. You also encourage them to share how they're feeling and come to you for help, advice, or celebration.

Saving time for meetings might mean that you have a little less time for your own work. But by setting this time aside, you're helping the entire team get more done.

(Learn how Flowhaven helped the team at Boss Fight Studio communicate when they went remote

At Flowhaven, for example, whenever someone helps the company reach its goals (or even gets a cool new haircut), we get recognition publicly. From our CEO to new employees who had a great connection with a fellow team member, they will drop a message in Slack or take time out of a team call to make a special announcement.

Take the time to recognize your team's efforts throughout the implementation process. Show special appreciation to the people who are having the greatest challenges.

Getting recognition like that feels very good. Your team member will know that their efforts didn't go unnoticed. They'll feel like they are tied to the company's success. They will also continue to show that they are valuable to the company.

When a task is done in some licensing management systems, it goes away, and another one appears. This makes completing tasks feel mechanic. When your team reaches a specific goal or finishes a task, make sure everyone knows. You can use a whiteboard at the office and cross the tasks off with a colorful marker. Or send an email to your group. The Flowhaven system makes sharing successes easy. When you finish a task, a notification goes out to your entire team. Never ask the question 'is this finished?' again.

When your whole team has mastered LRM, celebrate it. It can be anything from sharing a virtual glass of wine or sending small gifts to your team.

(Learn how Flowhaven helped the Art Ask Agency team celebrate their wins

Flowhaven is a Licensing Relationship Management platform that can help you transform your team dynamics. Using this digital workspace, you can implement changes then measure their effectiveness.

For starters, you can use our task assignments features to help your team track and view what everyone’s they’re working on, and if the training you gave them was effective. People can easily share status updates and request support from our incredible Customer Success team in an instant.

With the time your team members will save working with their LRM, you’ll have more than enough time to pull reports to prove your team is succeeding.

Respecting everyone on your team and trusting them (and even yourself) to help each other improve will create a powerful work environment and ensure implementation success.

We know it’s easy to get wrapped up in the day-to-day grind. But spending time helping your team get to know LRM inside and out is priceless.

Now sit back, relax, and watch how much more productive and happier your whole team will be with LRM.

How to Get Everyone on Your Team Excited About LRM

Accurate and timely royalty management is an indispensable part of the licensing process for both licensors and licensees. Despite the essential nature of the position, we’ve found that royalty managers often lack the tools to help them do their work faster and more accurately. 

Brand licensing software can automate tedious tasks, audit contracts quickly, collaborate more effectively with your vendors, and much more. By aggregating time-consuming tasks such as calculating royalty payments and creating financial reports into a single system, you free up time to focus on the creative side of licensing! 

For accountants: less time juggling between spreadsheets, accounting software, and a CRM means your royalty statements take minutes to validate, rather than days of crosschecking data. 

A quality licensing solution consolidates all the royalty details of your agreements, from contact information to recoupment balances, into one location that’s simple to navigate. Most importantly, all those small royalty statements aren’t just a few cells of a spreadsheet, they’re aggregated neatly into the larger royalty set. 

5 ways a licensing suite improves royalty management

Below are five ways brand licensing software can help you streamline your royalty management process to improve accuracy and productivity.

Do you like duplicating your work across multiple software systems? We’ve heard a resounding “no” to that question from many royalty managers & accountants. Entering dozens of rows of data into hundreds of spreadsheets and then duplicating that in Quickbooks or another reporting platform is time consuming. It also creates too many opportunities for human error. 

A licensing suite allows you to record your royalty data once and then pull all the reports you need from one location. When you aren’t bouncing between different programs, you free up time for more important tasks, improve the accuracy of your data, and reduce unnecessary stress. 

Your royalty report has to consolidate an enormous amount of data from multiple vendors. Receiving sales reports by email and then entering them into a spreadsheet makes it difficult to spot errors such as incorrect exchange rates, misreported sales, and erroneous royalty amounts. It also means you can’t easily track when documents were submitted or find those files later.

We spoke to bCreative co-founder Scott Gardiner about the 

 for the many different artists they represent. "We can't just assume we're getting the correct royalties from our licensees,” he said. “We have to accurately report those back out to the appropriate artist and creative people. Our reputation depends on it." 

The firm consistently struggled with reporting until they adopted a licensing suite. To highlight the difference it’s made to bCreative, Scott shared a recent example where he needed to generate a list of licensees for a specific brand. 

"Within minutes, I had the report in hand and made some critical decisions based on the information in the report. On one screen, I could see when the license terms were over for that brand and how much we had earned in royalties...In the past, it would have been a lengthy and burdensome process to come up with those dates and numbers."

Licensing is a complex and fast-paced business. There’s too much at stake to rely on time-consuming and potentially inaccurate royalty reports. A professional licensing suite can pull sales data into a report instantly and identify any errors that need to be resolved. It’s a must for any licensing business that values speed, accuracy, and professionalism.

The adage, “A picture is worth a thousand words,” is especially true when it comes to financial data. Royalty managers need to identify trends quickly and understand the overall status of partnerships. Trying to accomplish this when all of your data exists in a spreadsheet or across multiple software systems is a frustrating and time-consuming task. 

A licensing suite that provides visual analytics takes the hassle out of reviewing royalty information. You can generate charts and progress bars based on royalty reports, so you can see everything you need to know at a glance.

Visual data is also how you spot trends. Are you seeing unit prices drop compared to previous reports? That could be a sign of retail moving your licensed products to the discount bin (i.e., the danger zone). Or is a new region or demographic trending up? This gives you an opportunity to double down on success by creating more suitable assets.

But, most crucially, visual information makes it easier to see whether you are tracking towards your target number and where there are bottlenecks limiting growth. For example, is your response rate of product approvals too long for a key partner? The faster you can identify issues, the quicker you can resolve them.

Royalty agreements are notoriously complex. Typically, issues arise from either party interpreting the terms differently. Licensees and licensors must have a mutual understanding about how to calculate royalty percentages, which deductions are allowable, and when payments are due. When royalty payments are late or inaccurate, it creates tension that can potentially end partnerships. 

We understand how valuable your licensing relationships are. You don’t want to lose partnerships over misunderstandings and noncompliance issues. Maintain positive working relationships with your licensees or licensors with brand licensing software. It makes it easier for them to navigate agreements and keeps lines of communication open if questions or problems arise.

Work used to take place exclusively in the office, but today’s technology has untethered us from our desks. With the ability to work from anywhere at any time, it’s essential to have remote access to all your data in real-time. 

Licensing tools make this simple with automatic updates and syncing. You can log into the system from anywhere and know you’re looking at the most up-to-date information about your partner accounts. Whether at your home office or waiting in line for coffee, you can review reports, share information with your team, and make data-backed decisions with confidence.

Find licensing software that works for you

Royalty management involves so many moving parts and so much data that, without the right system in place, it’s easy to get lost in a sea of information. Licensing software ensures this doesn’t happen by providing diverse tools to manage every aspect of royalties. 

To find the perfect solution for you, take note of the benefits listed above and identify which are most important for your royalty management team. Understanding the needs and priorities of your team will help you evaluate licensing suite providers to find the one that offers everything you need. 

Welcome to the Flowhaven blog

Check out the latest industry insights, product updates, and more.

How To Stay Competitive In A Hot Licensing Market

The Royalty Revenue Calculation Roadmap

Why Mobile Gaming is the next chapter for Video Game Licensing

Royalty Management in Brand Licensing

Let us show you everything Flowhaven can do for your brands