Advances and recoupment

An advance is money paid ahead of royalties. Recoupment is getting it back from the royalties that follow: until the advance is covered, the royalties go towards it instead of being paid out.

On HILLS Music this works on two levels, which are kept apart.

An advance from HILLS Music

If your agreement with HILLS Music includes an advance, how and when it’s recouped is set in your agreement. Contracts are agreed per partner, so ask your partner manager about your own.

Your statements show what your releases earned, store by store and country by country. When our team changes your balance outside the statements, as your agreement sets out, you see it here:

• Partners: on the Payouts page, the Earned figure shows Net revenue + adjustments when the team has adjusted your balance.
• Artists and labels signed directly: under Royalties → Transactions, each change appears as its own line of the type Adjustment, with a description, next to your royalties and payouts.

Your Available balance is what you can withdraw once those are counted. See Withdraw your earnings.

Advances you pay your own artists

If you’re a partner or a label and pay your artists advances, the workspace doesn’t recoup them for you. It keeps the books by your revenue splits: each artist’s or label’s share of what their releases earned. The advance is between you and them.

What helps:

1. Set the shares as your contracts say: partners under Royalties → Revenue splits, direct labels when they give an artist a sign-in. See Splits and payouts.
2. Pay what’s due. Under Payouts → Pay artists, you choose how much to pay each one, up to what they’re owed by their share. While an advance is being recouped, you can pay less or nothing.
3. Choose what your artists see (partners). Under Settings → Payouts, the setting Show artists and labels their balance with you shows them Owed to you: their share minus what you’ve paid them in the workspace. It doesn’t know about advances, so leave it off if you recoup advances or pay artists outside HILLS Music. Off, they still see their revenue and share month by month and each payout they received, but no all-time totals.

Keep your own record of each advance and how much is recouped, and share it with the artist with their statements.

Timing

Royalties reach a statement only when the stores report them, usually two to three months after the stream, so recoupment moves at the same pace. See When stores pay.