Licensing careers · Finance and royalties
Royalty Audit Manager
A royalty audit manager checks that licensees reported and paid everything they owed. They choose which licensees to audit and manage the audit firms that do the fieldwork. When findings come back, they review them and help legal settle the claims.
The role turns audit findings into better contracts and processes, so the same errors do not come back next year.
- Track
- Finance and royalties
- Level
- Manager
- Typical experience
- 3 to 8 years in accounting or audit, often Big 4; royalty audit experience strongly preferred
- Also called
- Royalty Auditor (senior), Licensing Compliance Manager, Manager Royalty Audit and Compliance, Contract Compliance Senior Consultant, Senior Manager, Forensic Accounting and Royalties
- Reports to
- Head of Licensing Finance, Royalty Audit Director or SVP Audit Services
- Next step
- Royalty Audit Director, Head of Licensing Finance
Key responsibilities
What does a royalty audit manager do?
- Build the annual audit plan and choose licensees by risk
- Review licensee statements and payment history to set audit scope
- Manage external audit firms: assign work, share documents, review findings
- Lead internal reviews to agree findings and settlement positions
- Support settlement negotiations with legal
- Track recoveries, open findings and settlement progress
- Advise commercial, legal and finance on contract language
- Educate licensees on reporting compliance
- Review a draft audit report from an audit firm
- Agree a settlement position with legal
- Run desktop checks on a licensee with unusual sales trends
- Update the recoveries pipeline for leadership
- Suggest a contract wording fix to commercial
In smaller teams
When the team is small, the role stretches.
Licensors without an audit team split this work between the royalties manager and an outside audit firm.
- Licensee selection
- Outside firm management
- Findings follow up
- Settlement tracking
Where the role sits
The royalty audit manager closes the loop.
The audit manager works in operations management, checking that the program pays what it should, and feeds findings back into financial management and contract terms.
Statements, payment history and the contracts behind them.
Audit selection, findings, settlements and recoveries.
THIS ROLESettlements, recoveries and contract fixes for the next deal.
Audit findings that never reach the contract. If the lesson stays in an audit report, the same reporting gap appears again at the next licensee.
How success is measured
Five KPIs for a royalty audit manager.
Few job ads define success for this role. Those that do mention audit recoveries and risk based licensee selection. These are the measures Flowhaven recommends.
| KPI | How to calculate it |
|---|---|
| Audit recoveries | Royalties recovered through audits against the annual target |
| Audit coverage | Share of high risk licensees audited in the cycle |
| Finding to settlement time | Average days from final audit report to agreed settlement |
| Repeat findings | Share of findings that repeat a previous audit's issue |
| Audit cost to recovery | Cost of audits as a share of royalties recovered |
Best practices
What great royalty audit managers do.
Choose audits by risk
Start with licensees whose reported sales dropped while their retail presence grew.
Do desktop checks first
Many issues are visible in the data before fieldwork.
Keep a full audit trail
Every action, comment and correction logged.
Write findings into the next contract
So the same error cannot repeat.
Educate licensees
Most underpayment comes from honest mistakes, so a clear reporting guide recovers more than a tough letter.
AI and this role
Where AI changes the work.
Fewer than 1 in 25 licensing job ads mention AI yet. These are the tasks where it already helps this role most.
Licensee risk scoring
Reporting gaps, late reports and unusual patterns ranked for audit.
Anomaly flags
Reports whose data looks too perfect to trust, flagged for a closer look.
Workpaper drafts
First drafts of audit schedules from agreement and report data.
Works through an integration with AI tools such as Claude, connected to your licensing records. A person confirms every change. See how Flowhaven works with AI.
Skills and tools
What the role asks for.
- Audit and accounting
- Reading licensing contracts
- Data analysis and anomaly spotting
- Negotiation and settlement support
- Managing external audit firms
- Advanced Excel
Flowhaven and Salesforce experience is a strong plus.
Flowhaven is built on Salesforce, which IDC has ranked the number one CRM for 13 years in a row, with a 20% share of the CRM market in 2025. Licensing platform skills carry across the whole team.
Career path
Where people come from, and where they go.
- Big 4 audit
- Royalty Auditor
- Senior Royalty Analyst
- Royalty Audit Director
- Head of Licensing Finance
Hiring?
Royalty Audit Manager job description template.
Copy it, fill in the brackets and post it.
Royalty Audit Manager
We are looking for a Royalty Audit Manager to run our licensee audit program and recover royalties we are owed.
What you will do
- Build the annual audit plan and choose licensees by risk
- Manage external audit firms and review their findings
- Agree findings and settlement positions with legal and finance
- Track recoveries and settlement progress
- Advise on contract language to prevent repeat issues
What you will bring
- [3+] years in audit or accounting; royalty audit experience strongly preferred
- Strong analytical and negotiation skills
- CPA, ACA or equivalent preferred
- Experience with Flowhaven or Salesforce is a plus
How success is measured
Audit recoveries, audit coverage, finding to settlement time and repeat findings.
FAQ
Questions people ask about the royalty audit manager role
Still have a question? Talk to our team, or see Flowhaven on your own program in a 30 minute demo.
A check of a licensee's records to confirm they reported and paid all royalties due under the license agreement.
Often preferred, not always required. Audit experience, ideally on royalties, matters most.
Free checklist: a quarterly royalty close and audit routine
A repeatable close with a sample calendar, nine validation checks and seven audit triggers worth tracking.
Spot underreporting before you need an audit.
See how licensing finance teams check every statement against the contract in Flowhaven.
