To use QuickBooks with royalty software; such as Easy Royalties, you need to configure your vendor file to 1) faciliate exporting author information to your royalty software and 2) properly report royalty payments to the IRS.

This is a two step process;

1. Assign a vendor type of “Author” (or “Royalty Recipient”) to each of your royalty recipient vendor accounts. This will allow you to filter your export file to include only royalty related vendors to your accounting software.

2. Activate Tax: 1099 in QuickBooks Preferences. Then on the addtional info tab of each royalty recipient vendor record enter their tax identificaiton number and select the ” Vendor eligible for 1099″ check box.

Importing QuickBooks sales into most royalty software solutions is simple. Export the sales from QuickBooks in Excel format. Then import the file into your royalty software.

The example below shows how this is done in Easy Royalties. The Easy Royalties sales import will automatically filter out any rows that are blank – such as subtotal rows and rows with no data. It can handle sales files with line item discounts and invoices that have a single discount line item for all line items on the invoice.

Procedure

Step 1. Customize QuickBooks Sales by Item (Detail) report

You need to customize the standard report via Modify Report to turn off the headings and footers.

Then add the additional fields that you you may want to import.

Step 2. Memorize the customize report for future use

Step 3. Export the Sales Report into Microsoft Excel

When you select the export button, click the advanced tab and select send header to screen. This will place the field names in the first row of your Excel file.

Step 4. Import Sales file into Easy Royalties

Open Easy Royalties and go to File > Import > Sales, and select the file you wish to import.

At this point you can tell the software whether the discount is included in the line item amount or if the invoice has a single discount line item for each invoice. Easy Royalties can handle both situtation.

Step 5. Review the Import Report

After you import the sales file Easy Royalties; and most other royalty programs, generate an error log that lists any rows that could not be imported. This usually occurs if you did not create a product in the royalty software prior to importing sales.