The global music industry's approach to $100 billion in annual revenues requires sophisticated payment and accounting infrastructure. Here's what modern music companies need to handle complex payments effectively.

Photo Credit: Abigail Keenan

Key Payment Infrastructure Requirements:

• Process and pay rights owners within 30 days for every play globally
• Support multiple payment methods (PayPal, ACH, eCheck, foreign currencies)
• Handle tax compliance across all U.S. states and global territories
• Manage complex payouts with multiple rights owners, splits, and disputes
• Integrate with major ERP systems (NetSuite, Intacct, Microsoft, SAP, QuickBooks)
• Scale to handle thousands of payees without manual intervention

Essential Capabilities Checklist:

1. Global play tracking and 30-day payment processing
2. Multi-method payment support
3. Automated tax handling and compliance
4. Complex rights management
5. ERP integration
6. Scalable automation

Modern payment solutions like Tipalti offer comprehensive automation that handles these requirements while maintaining tax compliance and managing complex pay structures. Companies should evaluate their current infrastructure against these benchmarks to ensure competitive payment processing capabilities.

The tools and infrastructure for music industry payments have reached maturity, allowing for quick deployment without extensive trial-and-error. This enables music companies to focus on growth while ensuring accurate, timely payments to all rights holders.

To remain competitive, companies must be able to definitively answer "yes" to handling all these functionalities. If not, it's time to consider upgrading payment and accounting workflows to meet current industry standards.

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