Sales and royalty reconciliation automation
We automated a book publisher's sales and royalty reconciliation: 529 files and about 700,000 rows checked every 20 minutes, with 0 mismatches.
What we worked on
Revenue Ops Automation Sales & Royalty Reconciliation Partner Portal & Website Builder
Year completed
2025–2026
Background
A book publisher pays authors royalties on sales reported by outside distributors. Reconciling those sales between distributor files and dashboards was slow, error-prone revenue-ops work, and authors had no single place to run their side of the business.
Challenges
Sales and royalty data came from third-party files and dashboards, and mismatches were typically a few sales at a time, easy to miss and tedious to find. The publisher also wanted new revenue paths for authors: upsells, bundles, special editions and author websites.
Outcome
An automated reconciliation engine that checks 529 sales files, about 700,000 rows, against the dashboard every 20 minutes, including cancellations and negative sales. It currently shows zero mismatches. Around it: an author portal with tax and banking onboarding, royalties and payouts, checkout upsells, bundles and special editions, and a website builder that gives every author a live site on their own domain.
A book publishing services company (name withheld)
Name withheld
Revenue ops for a book publisher: automated sales reconciliation with 0 mismatches across ~700,000 sales rows
0
Sales mismatches across 529 files and ~700,000 rows
20 min
Automated reconciliation check cycle
1,000
Authors the current build is sized for (our estimate)
Pull quote
[…] you guys have exceeded my expectations on this, to be honest with you.
Executive, book publishing services company (September 2026)
Snapshot
Industry
Publishing and author services (B2B2C platform)
Services
Platform build, payments and payouts, distributor data integration, data reconciliation, author website builder, ongoing sprints
Duration
October 2025 to present (10+ sprints, ongoing)
Before
Author sales and royalties reconciled by hand from distributor files and dashboards, with no upsell, bundle or special-edition revenue paths for authors.
After
Automated reconciliation with 0 mismatches across 529 files and ~700,000 rows, re-checked every 20 minutes. Royalties, onboarding and payouts in one author portal, plus new revenue paths: upsells, bundles, special editions and author websites.
Timeline
Oct 2025
Engagement starts
Author portal build begins.
2026
Core revenue flows
Tax and banking onboarding, royalty portal, distributor integration and payments.
Aug 2026
New revenue paths
Upsells, special editions, bundles, author portfolio view and notifications.
Sep 2026
Author website builder
Templates, editor and custom domains.
Oct 2026
Reconciliation live
0 mismatches across 529 files and ~700,000 rows; distributor order integration working.
Nov 2026
Author testing
Live payments and the first authors onboarding for testing.
What we designed
An author portal (onboarding, tax and banking, royalties, sales, notifications) and an admin portal.
Distributor integrations, payments, upsells and special editions, and a sales reconciliation report.
An author website builder: a genre template library, a drag-and-drop editor, publishing to a subdomain or custom domain, and auto-population with the author’s catalog.
Why this work existed
Give the publisher trustworthy sales and royalty data without manual reconciliation, and give authors a self-serve home for their business.
What we built
The sales reconciliation engine: file ingestion every few seconds, a full check every 20 minutes, and handling for cancellations and negative sales.
Author and admin portals, tax and banking onboarding, royalty views, distributor data sync and payments.
Revenue paths: post-purchase and checkout upsells, special and limited editions, bundles and a portfolio view.
The author website builder with templates and custom domains.
What powers it: scheduled automation and data sync. No AI is used in the shipped reconciliation.
The problem this solved
We replaced manual, error-prone sales and royalty reconciliation with an automated check that currently shows zero mismatches, and put royalties, payouts and each author’s website in one place.
FAQ
What does the reconciliation automate?
It ingests distributor sales files and checks 529 files, about 700,000 rows, against the dashboard every 20 minutes, including cancellations and negative sales. It currently shows zero mismatches.
Is AI used?
Not in the shipped reconciliation. It is scheduled automation and data sync, which is the right tool for exact financial matching.
Are time-saved or revenue figures available?
Not yet. Author testing started in November 2026, so we only claim the system result: zero mismatches.
Who is this kind of engagement for?
Revenue and finance teams that pay royalties, commissions or rev-share from third-party sales feeds: publishers, marketplaces, affiliate and channel programs.
