This article will show you how licensees can submit sales and royalty reports within Brainbase. To help guide you, we have included video tutorials in addition to written step-by-step instructions outlining all of the steps from start to finish. 

Feel free to follow these steps at your preferred pace. Continue on to see the full scope of this process all at once, but if you prefer to break the steps down, start here with Part 1 instead.

Please make sure to use your licensor's custom template, which can be downloaded from the first step up the reporting process:

You can find a full video tutorial below which covers the full process from start to finish, followed by shorter videos covering each part of the process. 

The first part of uploading a sales report to Brainbase involves prepping your file and entering the first and last rows of data from your sales report. Follow the steps in this article below or watch a quick video tutorial here:  

1. You can upload all of your Sales and Royalty Reports from the 'Sales Reports' Tab found in the menu on the left. 

2. Filter the sales reports by those that are 'Due' as shown in the top left corner.

You can also search for a sales report using the search bar at the top.

To learn more about Advanced Search Filters, click here.

3. Once you click 'Due' from the status dropdown menu, those that are 'Due' will appear. Make sure to sort them in order from earliest to newest (ex. 2019-2021). 

You can sort each column by clicking on the title as shown below.

4. Hover over the Sales Report with the reporting period you want to submit a report for.

If you wish to submit a report, then click on the left “Submit” button. But if you wish to report the sales report zero sales, then click on the right button where the arrow goes through the circle.

 5. After clicking the “Submit” button, drag and drop the file or simply browse your device to upload the file.

6. Upload the file and add the first and last rows that contain sales report data within your Excel/CSV file – ignoring any empty or summary rows. To do this, check your file for the row numbers. See the example below.

*Recommendation: Use the header row number as the first row of data (this makes things easier in the next step when column matching data points)*

7. Our system works through the file, to search the first and last row of data. That way our system shows you what the first and the last row may be. Enter the number of the first row of data (the header row number), which in this case is row number 2. Then, enter the number of the last row of data, which in this example is row number 34. 

8. Our system automatically populates the data from that row in your sales report file.

If you do not want the column settings to be the same as the previous report, make sure to always uncheck the box next to where it starts saying ‘Use settings from your last import on …’. 

To learn more about Import Using Previous Settings, click here.

*Note: If you are not using a header row as the first row of data, make sure to always uncheck the box next to where it says 'This is a header row'*

9. Click the 'Next' button in the top right corner to continue on to part 2 of uploading a Sales Report. Find a link to the Part 2 article below.

The second part of uploading a sales report to Brainbase is quick and easy thanks to our automated column matching feature. Follow the steps in this article below or watch a quick video tutorial here:

1. The column matching tool will automatically detect as many of your uploaded file's column data points as possible and match them to our Brainbase data points. 

This is a great tool for speeding up the upload process and takes on some of the workload for licensees. 

2. All you have to do is scroll through all of columns and map any unmatched data points. 

You can quickly identify any unmatched columns and either skip those data points if you don't want to import them or match them up to one of our Brainbase data points from the drop down titled 'Match me'. You also have the option to edit any column data points that were automatically detected by our system if need be. 

If you are having trouble scrolling through the columns, use the keyboard shortcuts found here:

3. You can quickly identify any unmatched columns that our system was unable to detect. You will then have the option to either 'Skip', 'Add', or 'Edit' and then 'Save' those columns. 

You can edit any column data points that were automatically detected by our system if need be. You also have the option to skip any data points if you don't want to import them or match them up to one of our Brainbase data points from the drop down where it says 'Match me'. 

Tip: This is where importing the header row comes in handy to serve as a quick point of reference for that column data point. 

4. You must meet all of our required data points in order to successfully complete this step and continue on to part 3. You can find these in the top left corner (click on the tooltip icon next to the required data point for more info on that item)

5. Once you have matched up all columns and added all required data points, click ‘Next’ to continue to the final steps of uploading a sales report.

In these final steps, you will see how we take your raw sales data and convert that into a beautiful, analytical report where you can get unique insights on important trends and compare metrics on a granular level. 

In part 3 of submitting a sales report, you will simply review and submit your sales report. In this step, you may also need to resolve errors that our system detected by using our resolve feature, find more info on this here. 

Follow the steps in this article below or watch a quick video tutorial here:

1. Here you will quickly review that your report is ready for import and press 'Next'. You can click the drop down arrow to quickly review all of your columns that will be imported. 

2. (Optional) Once you click Next, our system works in the background to check if there are any errors in the report that don’t match contract terms and if so, they would show up here (see image of some examples below). This is possible through our fully-automated advanced sales & royalty calculations which essentially eliminates any risk of human error. 

If you do not run into errors, please skip this and proceed to the next step. Otherwise, you will need to fix your errors in your file and re-upload it or use our resolve feature to quickly fix them within the app. 

For more information on resolving errors, click the link here to view the full article.

3. Preview your generated sales report and once you have finished reviewing, scroll back up to the top of the page and click either the blue 'Submit' button to publish the report or 'Discard' to re-upload your file.

In this step you can see how we take your raw sales data and convert it into a beautiful, analytical report that presents your robust data in an easy to understand report. 

While these reports are intended to be eye-catching and easy on the eye, the true value of our sales reporting feature goes beyond what meets the eye. It’s the data behind it all powering them. Data is at the foundation of Brainbase which allows us to provide you with the high-res data that is critical to your business. 

You can use these analytical reports to get actionable insights unique to your business and analyze your robust data on a granular level, in a way that's easy to visualize. 

Our comparative graphs allow you to quickly identify important trends and gather unique sales insights like top-selling territories, best performing products, sellers, distribution channels, or perhaps if you want to drill down even further by SKU level – your reports can be as granular as you want them to be. You can compare progress across metrics and filter by Net Sales, Royalties Earned, Gross Sales, Unit Sales, Returns, Discounts, Advance Applied, etc. Whichever data points mean the most to you.

The more data we accrue overtime, the more value our reports provide your business. Capturing high-res data like this provides you the opportunity to maximize your sales and revenue streams, but most importantly you can track trends that resonate with your end consumers and allow you to better connect with your customers.

It also presents the opportunity to become more proactive vs. reactive in identifying trends, and this is especially important in a time where maintaining agility is more critical now than ever before.

When uploading a Royalty/Sales Report, you may run into errors that need to be fixed. For instance, there may be financial errors in calculations, multiple property name aliases, or misspellings of certain required data points. 

Our system works in the background to check if there are any errors in the report that don’t match contract terms and if so, they would show up here (see image of some examples below). This is possible through our fully-automated advanced sales & royalty calculations which essentially eliminates any risk of human error.

You will need to either fix your errors in your file and re-upload it or use our resolve feature to quickly fix them within the app. Our resolve feature allows you to quickly fix them right within the app. These fixes are then applied to future uploads with the same recurring errors.

Watch the video tutorial here or follow the steps below:

In the background, our sales importing tool has automatically calculated all financial data and checked for errors that don't match contract terms. If any issues are detected, they will be shown here.

Here you can see I have run into 2 types of errors – the 1st error is a misspelling of the property name and the 2nd error is an alias of the territory name.

There are 12 instances of the misspelling error and 6 instances of the alias error as you can see in the image below: 

Since this is a misspelling of the property name, we want to replace it with the correct spelling of the property name. 

This is not a wrong or incorrect spelling of the territory name, just another way of writing it. Therefore, we will choose option 1 to add this as an alias to the existing territory name.

This will also be applied to future uploads as well that have the same alias.