Photo Credit: Tipalti
Splice, a leading platform for music creation, faced growing challenges managing manual payments to its global network of creators. As the company expanded, so did the complexity of its financial operations. Splice spent more than 15% of its year on processing royalty payments. Digital Music News takes a peek at how Tipalti Mass Payments helped streamline Splice’s global payout operations through automation and improved efficiency.
This article was created in collaboration with DMN partner Tipalti.
Splice connects millions of artists with royalty-free samples. As the platform’s user base expanded, its finance team encountered significant challenges managing manual payments to thousands of creators. Lengthy processing and payment timelines created additional operational strain and impacted the overall experience for creators.
Nas Yaqoobi, Accountant at Splice, and his team previously managed three different types of operational payments—label payments, traditional vendor and contractor invoices, and artist payments. Label payments occurred on a monthly basis, taking at least three days to process. Meanwhile, artist payments happened quarterly, with Yaqoobi and his team processing hundreds of payments manually.
“For the 900+ royalty payments alone, it would take me two weeks,” Yaqoobi recalls. “That’s all I would be doing at the end of a quarter. I knew that we needed a new automated platform.”
Yaqoobi and his team at Splice evaluated three automation platforms to identify the best solution for their needs. Splice ultimately selected Tipalti for its comprehensive global creator payout capabilities, automated invoice processing, and seamless integration with the enterprise resource planning (ERP) system NetSuite. With payments now managed through a unified platform, manual processes have been largely eliminated from Yaqoobi’s workflow.
“What once took us eight weeks a year to process is now down to less than an hour,” Yaqoobi shared.
Timely and accurate royalty payments are essential for artists and labels alike. Tipalti supports platforms like Splice and independent labels in managing global payouts by automating royalty payments across more than 200 countries and territories in 120 currencies. The Tipalti Mass Payments platform enables self-service onboarding and provides real-time payment visibility for payees, helping streamline operations at scale.
No more manual processes that slow down global payments or delay financial close and reporting. With Tipalti’s automated solution, Splice’s finance teams finally have the bandwidth to focus on other priorities, and their musicians, artists, and creators can expect on-time, accurate payments every time.
