Talent Sponsorship Workflow Automation

Accountability's Talent Sponsorship Workflow is for agencies who represent a client roster of talents or athletes, and manage sponsorship deals with external marketers on behalf of their clients.

This workflow enables the agency to centralize details of sponsorship agreements for its clients, automates the financial process to streamline billing and payments, and ensures transparency throughout the process.

Before getting started

1. To use this function, enable the option Use Talent Client Sponsorships through Set Up Files>Set Up Options>Other Options.  
2. Your User Access Group needs access to the following transaction types
   1. Talent Client Sponsorships
   2. Talent Client Sponsorship Settings
      
      
3. You can optionally post invoices for this activity to a separate Accounts Receivable account.  Navigate to Accounting>General Ledger>General Ledger Accounts and click the Posting GL Accounts link at the top of the page.  
   1. Select Talent Client Sponsorship as the Posting Type
   2.  Within the Control Accounts section, enter the Accounts Receivable Acct for your client's sponsorship deals, e.g. Accounts Receivable - Sponsorships.
   3.  Click Save. 
4. Create a Supplier record for the talent and link it to the corresponding Client record. This supplier will be used to automatically create a payment record from the Client Trust Account to the talent's bank account. 
   
5. Create a Supplier record for the agency. This will be used to create a payment transaction in the system once cash receipt from the sponsor has been recorded and posted. 
6. The automated steps  within the workflow require specific sponsorship deal settings to be pre-defined.
   1.  Navigate to Jobs>Jobs and click the Talent Client Sponsorships link at the top of the page. This will bring up the Talent Client Sponsorships landing page.  Click the Settings link. 
      
      
   2. Populate the Talent Client Sponsorship Settings as follows:
      • • Default Job Type  -  A job is automatically created based on the details of the talent-sponsorship agreement. All talent client sponsorship jobs will default to this job type, e.g. Sponsorships
        • Sponsor Cost Task Type - An Estimate is automatically created based on the details of the talent-sponsorship agreement. There are 2 line items created, the talent's portion of the contract amount and the agency's commission.  The talent's cost line item will default to this task type. Make sure that this Task Type is mapped to the Default Job Type. 
        • Agency Commission Task Type - An Estimate is automatically created based on the details of the talent-sponsorship agreement. There are 2 line items created, the talent's portion of the contract amount and the agency's commission.  The agency commission line item will default to this task type. Make sure that this Task Type is mapped to the Default Job Type. 
        • Default Agency Commission % - Enter the default agency commission percent. This can be overridden for each sponsorship deal. 
        • Agency Trust Bank Account -  This is the Client Trust Bank account managed by your agency. 
        • Talent Client Receipt Bank Account  - This is used to record cash received into the talent's bank account.      

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Sponsorship deals

Capture Talent Sponsorship deal details

Once an agreement is reached between the sponsor and the talent, an authorized agency user can create a Talent Sponsorship Contract to record the agreement's details, including the agency commission if applicable. 

1. Navigate to the Jobs landing page (Jobs>Jobs) and click on the Talent Client Sponsorships link at the top.
   
   
2. The Talent Client Sponsorships landing page is displayed.  Click the New Sponsorship button to create a new sponsorship contract.
   
   

Populate the Talent Client Sponsorship form as follows:  
 

1. Description - Enter the name of the contract or agreement
2. Talent Client  - Enter or select from the list of clients in your database. This is your agency client, i.e. the Talent 
3. Office - The office is automatically populated based on the Client selected.
4. Sponsor -  Enter the name of the billable Sponsor as you would like it to appear on the invoice.  This is currently a freeform field. 
5. Sponsorship Manager - Select the contract lead from the list of employees. If this is the first Talent Sponsorship record you're adding, this will default to the Client Manager. For subsequent records, this will default to the same value as the previous Talent Client Sponsorship record.
6. Currency - The currency is automatically populated based on the currency of the Client selected. Override as needed. 
7. Amount - Enter the total contract amount.  
8. Agency Commission % - This value defaults to the percentage defined in the Talent Client Sponsorship Settings. Override as needed. 
9. Start Date 
10. End Date
11. Sponsorship Invoice Payable To - Select who will be receiving the payment from the sponsor.  
    • Agency  - Select this if payments will be deposited to the Client Trust Bank Account. 
    • Talent Client  - Select this if the payments will be deposited into the talent's bank account. 
12. Click Save. 
     

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Define Sponsorship Invoice Settings 

Navigate to Settings on the top of the page. There are multiple options available based on the Sponsorship Invoice Payable option: Agency or Talent Client. 

 

 

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Financial management set up

Automated creation of Jobs 

This automation uses defaults defined on the Talent Client Sponsorship Settings.  

1. Once the Talent Client Sponsorship details have been defined, click Create Job. Accountability automatically creates a Job and Estimate with the relevant details.
   
2. Navigate to Activity and select Jobs to view the job details.
   
   

Define sales commission structure  

1. If you have commission-eligible sales representatives for this job, navigate to Settings and select Sales Commission.
2. You can assign employees or suppliers to this commissionable job with their corresponding Commission %. To learn more, see  Manage and report sales commissions.  If you are using an external tool to manage Sales Commissions, enter 0 as the Commission %
   
   

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Automated creation of Job Estimate

This automation uses defaults defined on the Talent Client Sponsorship Settings.  

At the point of Job creation, an Estimate is also automatically created with the following line items. 

1. Supplier charge for the Talent's portion.  The task type is based on the default settings defined for Sponsor Cost Task Type.
2. Internal charge for the agency's commission. The task type is based on the default settings defined for Agency Commission Task Type. 

In the example below, a $100,000,000.00 sponsorship deal is made up of the amount payable to the talent

 

Forecast revenue for agency's commission 

To include the agency commission from this sponsorship deal in your revenue forecast, create a revenue tracker for the Job Estimate.

From the Estimate form, click the Revenue Tracker link, then following the steps here. 

Only the agency commission line from the Estimate will be included in the revenue total for allocation across months. 

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Sponsorship billing and cash receipt

Define invoice details

Navigate to Settings on the top of the Talent Client Sponsorship form. There are multiple options available based on the Sponsorship Invoice Payable option selected.

 

 

Define invoice schedule

If the invoice and talent payment dates are defined on the contract, use the Scheduled Invoices function to create a billing calendar. 

From the Estimate form, click the Client Job Invoices link. Then follow the steps here. 

Use Invoice Notes to include relevant details from the sponsorship deal, i.e. payment schedule as illustrated below

Generate invoice to sponsor 

The Job and Estimate records created for the sponsorship deal are used by the system to generate a Client Job Invoice to the sponsor. 

1. To use the invoice schedule you created, navigate to Accounting>Receivables and select Invoice Multiple Estimates.
2. Populate the relevant parameters, click Select Scheduled Invoices, then enter the date range of the scheduled invoices you would like to include for this billing run.
3. Select one or multiple invoices and generate a draft or final invoice.
4. You will need to convert a draft invoice to a final invoice in order to post it.   
5. Account Postings: Once posted, the system will generate the following journal entries to the relevant accounts.  In the example below, let's say that we invoiced the sponsor for a total of $250,000.00 and the Estimate has 15% of the total allocated for the agency's commission, $37,500.00, with $212,500.00 payable to the talent.   
   
   

   Account	Debit	Credit
   Advanced Billing		212,500.00
   Revenue  - Sponsorship Commission		37,500.00
   Accounts Receivable - Sponsorships	250,000.00
   Total	250,000.00	250,000.00

 

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Record cash receipt against sponsorship invoice

When payment is received from the sponsor, record the cash receipt by navigating to Accounting>Receivables>Receipts and following the steps here. 

Payment sent to agency bank account

If the receipt is entered for the Client Trust Account (aka payment received by agency), posting the transaction will result in the following account postings: 

Account	Debit	Credit
Accounts Receivable - Sponsorships		250,000.00
Client Trust Bank Account	250,000.00
Total	250,000.00	250,000.00

 

Payment sent directly to talent

If the receipt is entered for the Talent Receipt Clearing Account, posting the transaction will result in the following account postings:

Account	Debit	Credit
Accounts Receivable - Sponsorships		250,000.00
Revenue Sponsorship Commission*	37,500.00
Advanced Billing*	212,500.0
Talent Receipt Clearing Account	0.00
Total	250,000.00	250,000.00

The system automatically creates offsetting entries against the job and task types to set the receipt clearing bank account to zero.

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Cashflow management and postings

Client trust automation

If cash was received in the agency's Client Trust Bank Account, the system will automatically perform the following tasks once the receipt is posted:

1. Create a payment record for the Talent Supplier equal to the amount of the sponsorship cost less agency commission.  This payment can be included in the ACH file for import into the Client Trust bank account.  Account postings are as follows: 
   

   Account	Description	Debit	Credit
   WIP	Payment of Sponsorship funds received in trust	212,500.00
   Client Trust Bank Account	Payment of Sponsorship funds received in trust -		212,500.00
   Total		212,500.00	212,500.00

2. Create a payment record for the Agency Supplier equal to the commission amount. This payment can be included in the ACH file for import into the Client Trust bank account.  Account postings are as follows:
   
   

   Account	Description	Debit	Credit
   Revenue  - Sponsorship Commission	Payment of Agency Commission on Sponsorship Invoice NNNNN	37,500.00
   Client Trust Bank Account	Payment of Agency Commission on Sponsorship Invoice NNNNN		37,500.00
   Total		37,500.00	37,500.00

Once the above payments are posted,  cash will net to zero for this invoice in the Client Trust Bank Account on your Balance Sheet.  

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Talent payment remittance advice

Once the payment for the talent has been sent, a Payment Remittance Advice can be generated and emailed to your client directly from the platform.  For detailed steps, see How to send a payment remittance advice.

Agency commission 

Posting the cash receipt for the sponsorship invoice will auto-generate a Client Sundry Invoice. Once posted, this automatically records the agency commission as an agency receivable. 

Account	Debit	Credit
Revenue		37,500.000
Accounts Receivable - Agency	37,500.00
Total	37,500.00	37,500.000

 

Once the funds have been transferred from the Client Trust to the agency's bank account, create a receipt for the Sundry Invoice that was automatically generated by the system.  Once posted, the system will create the following journal entries:

Account	Debit	Credit
Accounts Receivable - Agency		37,500.000
Agency Bank Account	37,500.00
Total	37,500.00	37,500.000

Net postings by account

Once all of the relevant transactions have been posted, the net effect on the relevant accounts is illustrated below. 

Account	Payment sent to agency (Client Trust Account)	Payment sent to talent
AR - Sponsorships	0	0
AR - Agency	0	0
Agency Sponsorship Commissions	-37,500	-37,500
Advanced Billing	0	0
WIP	0	0
Client Trust Bank Account	0	0
Agency Bank Account	37,500	37,500