Before we start, first let's go over what the difference is between a fee and an advance.

Fee - A fee is a payment to a client that allows you to report a single item without needing to enter a corresponding sale or expense item. A positive amount should be entered to increase the client's balance, a negative amount should be entered to reduce the client's balance. If the fee payment is completed, the client's balance will not be affected. If the fee payment is not completed i.e. marked as 'payment not required', the fee will be added to the client's balance ready to be reported to them in their next statement as 'previous balance'.

Advance - An advance is a pre-payment to a client for royalties or other earnings that you have not yet received. An advance is usually sent to an artist for a production or remix as a gesture of faith towards their future sales. Once payment of the advance has been completed, the total amount owed by the label to the artist is reduced by the advance amount.

To pay a fee or advance, click 'Pay Fee or Advance' from the top of the Payments page which is under the Accounts dropdown menu.

You will notice some straightforward options to choose from below - select the label the payment is coming from (a label must be selected as each label maintains a balance with each client), and the client payment is being made to. You will also notice the account dropdown. If you wish to make an advance towards sales of a single track or release, either select the correct account if you have already created one or create a new account by entering a reference - it's a good idea to enter the catalogue number as a reference.

Creating an account for a client creates a separate balance for them, as if you were separating out the money owed to them into a different pile. As payments on accounts are usually only made when they are above zero, paying an advance to an account for a client means that they will have to recoup that amount before they receive any payment of sales or royalties that have also been paid into that account - do this by selecting the account when allocating royalties or sales for that client for the particular track or company.

If you use the catalogue number as the name for the account, it will be selected automatically when allocating royalties that match that catalogue number.