Jaguar News - March 2004


	#1 in Contract Rights Management www.jaguartc.com - Pasadena, California - Lincoln Center, New York - London, UK Recognized World Leader in Rights & Royalty Management Systems

March 2004 - Volume 2

Contents:

	Financial Integration
	Data Creation
	Reference Tables
	Data Movement
	Posting
	Journals
	Transaction Tables
	History
	About Jaguar News


	Financial Integration

	System 7 is unique in the world in offering complete integration of intellectual property contract administration, rights management and financial processing. Jaguar News is presenting a series of articles designed to highlight the details of that integration. First and foremost in every discussion will be System 7’s ability to produce trustworthy audit trails, a priority in today’s post-Enron and Worldcom world. Accepting this discipline as a core design criteria has produced a system in which contract revisions, unapplied cash, mixed revenue recognition strategies, currency conversions, taxes and reporting deductions are fully documented at every stage of their creation, processing and completion. This issue of Jaguar News focuses on an overview of the data entry experience and an introduction to core accounting processes. System 7 is designed to provide maximum processing power with minimum data entry. Numerous posting, replication, reference and assembly features are incorporated to support user efficiency and prevent inadvertent keystroke errors. Contract replication allows standard contracts to be created almost instantly. Non-standard contracts benefit from legal terms assembly, custom rights frameworks, payment schedule generation, predefined revenue recognition plans and long form formatting options. Sales Offers and Acquisition Offers convert to Deal Memos. Finalized contracts generate invoices, royalty reporting templates, revenue recognition, materials work orders, payment requests and many other information flows. System 7 is a financial and rights management system focused on the comprehensive support of intellectual property contracts, both acquisition of rights and sales of rights. As such, System 7 incorporates both standard accounting functionality and many unique contract integration features. The following is an effort to characterize System 7’s day to day financial processing operations at a detailed level not normally presented in product literature. Users of financial systems will notice that every consideration has been given to reducing opportunities for data entry error and inconsistency. This writing focuses on System 7’s aids to data entry. Upcoming articles will discuss data validation, system navigation and a number of configuration scenarios.

Data Creation

Defaults from reference tables, system parameters and accounting entity parameters auto-populate fields in various records. Replication of data assists in enforcement of corporate standards as well as streamlining basic entry processes. System 7 offers basic copy functions to streamline contract entry and workflow project creation. Generation capabilities are offered in a number of areas to allow users to set a basic plan and cause the system to instantly create multiple entries. A conscious effort has been made to go beyond single entry processing, to single concept processing. The following capabilities are listed by functional area.

Contracts

	Copy Acquisition Contract
	Copy Sales Contract

Contract Form Designer

	Copy Styles
	Copy Report Blocks

Contract Elements

	Copy Granted Rights
	Generate Invoice Schedules Advances, Fees, Guarantee Milestones
	Calculate Revenue Allocation

Assets

Generate Asset Member List

Cash Adjustments

	Copy Cash Receipt Line Item
	Reverse Cash Receipt Line Item

Workflow Projects

	Copy Workflow Template
	Copy Workflow Project
	Generate Repeated Steps

Functions/Contract Types

Copy Terms and Conditions

Royalties

	Copy Royalty Definition Royalty Tiers
	Copy Royalty Import Setup

Reference Tables

Reference tables play an essential role in facilitating and simplifying data entry. System 7 makes reference tables available for every data entry element useful in sorting, process control and cross reference.

Contracts

	Contract Status
	Functions, Contract Types
	Edit Rights, Promo Rights
	Terms and Conditions

People/Entities

Entity Credit Ratings

Assets

	Asset Levels
	Awards, Genres, Ratings
	Phases
	Release Types

Territories

Territory Levels

Rights

Right Levels

Distribution Channels

Channel Levels

Languages

Accounts

	Account Segments
	Auto-posting Accounts
	Currencies
	Tax Rates
	Invoice Types
	Miscellaneous Charge Types
	Receipt Types
	Receivable Terms

Actions

	Action Types
	Holidays
	Tickler Types
	Workflow Templates

Royalty Reporting

	Royalty Reporting Columns
	SKU Assignment

Participation Reporting

	Participation Reporting Columns
	SKU Assignment

Data Movement

Data imports and exports play key roles in integrating System 7 functionality within divisional or corporate operations. Royalty Reports imports licensee or inter-divisional sales and performance reporting via pre-defined Excel spreadsheet formats. Authorized Deductions and Internal Exploitation download information designed to support Participations Payable calculations. Cash Receipts takes corporate treasury information and allocates invoice payments to asset, territory, right and distribution channel components as appropriate.

System 7 offers a general purpose General Ledger export function designed to integrate System 7 revenue recognition and accounts receivable transactions into corporate ERP systems. In addition, Crystal Reports, which is used for 100% of System 7 reporting, offers Excel, Word, Powerpoint and other general purpose export formats. System 7’s ability to integrate custom developed Crystal Reports formats provides unlimited opportunities for special purpose data export functions to be created as part of the system implementation process.

Data Imports

	Royalty Reports
	Authorized Deductions
	Internal Exploitation
	Cash Receipts

General Ledger Export

	Revenue Recognition Accrual Basis Cash Basis
	Accounts Receivable Invoicing Cash Receipts

Crystal Reports Export

	All Reports
	All Listings
	Drill Down Queries

Posting

Posting in System 7 is a wizard-driven process designed to facilitate anytime posting, by selected data element (cash receipt ready for posting, for example) across the entire division or as generated by a specific author. This flexibility allows multiple batches to be simultaneously entered and posted within a single functional area. Posting processes are protected by an integral rollback capability in the event a hardware error or other anomaly causes the system to attempt to post an incomplete transaction. System 7’s business logic guarantees that a transaction never posts out of balance. Posts are handled as security controlled processes to ensure that their General Ledger History impacts are accurately conceived. In addition, every posted data element records “posted on” and “posted by” information to aid in data quality assurance.

Many posts offer further options that allow selective posting concepts beyond identifying desired batch elements. For example, Schedule Contract Invoices offers options to post Advances, Fees or Guarantees individually. The following list represents menu selections grouped by functional area.

Contract Posting

	Scheduled Contract Invoices
	Finalized Acquisition Contracts
	Finalized Sales Contracts
	Contract Materials
	Acquisition Contract Revisions
	Sales Contract Revisions
	Revenue Recognition

Receivables Posting

	Cash Adjustments
	Cash Reapplications
	Cash Receipts
	Foreign Currency Revaluations
	Manual Invoices
	Void Checks

General Ledger Posting

Journal Vouchers

Royalties Posting

	Royalty Actuals
	Royalty Estimates

Participations Posting

Participation Reports

Journals

Journals are used as verification of content prior to finalization, posting or version creation. Journals may be either traditional journal reports (screen, paper, .pdf files) or in some cases (contract versions, for example) are electronically stored information describing the nature and timing of new version creation. This discussion will focus on journal reports, their forms and applications.

Each journal report is presented in three distinct forms:

Selection Journals	Qualified unposted transactions.
Preview Journals	Qualified transactions selected to be posted.
Audit Journals	Posted transactions.

Selection and Preview journals are optionally printed as part of preparation to initiate a post. Audit journals are automatically printed upon completion of a post.

Audit Journals are candidates for saving to file to create a permanent posting record. However, no journal information is lost during the posting process. Analytical reports and queries may be sorted to represent the equivalent of journal information at any time. The following is a listing of journal reports by functional type.

Contract Journals

	Acquisition/Development Contract, Revised Contract, Revised Finalization, Finalization
	Sales Contract, Revised Contract, Revised Finalization, Finalization
	Currency Exchange Rate History Journal
	Close Currency

Invoice Journals

Advances, Fees, Guarantees, Manual Invoices

Receipts Journals

Cash Adjustments, Cash Receipts, Reapply Cash, Void Check

Sales Revenue Journal

Revenue Recognition

Journal Vouchers Journals

Foreign Currency Revaluation, Journal Vouchers

Royalty Report Journals

Royalty Actuals, Royalty Estimates

Participation Report Journal

Participation Reports

Transaction Tables

Transaction tables are maintained by posting processes. Every transaction in System 7, once created, cannot be modified, except through the indirect impact subsequent transactions. All financial reporting and analysis is pulled directly from these Transaction tables. System 7’s exclusive use of transactions to drive its accounting operations preserves audit trails in perpetuity.

Transaction Tables

	Invoices
	Receipts
	Sales Revenue
	Journal Vouchers
	General Ledger History
	Royalty Reports
	Participation Report

Each of the above controls one to three sub-tables to accommodate allocations by Asset, Territory, Distribution Channel and Right as needed. In addition, every transaction is tagged by contract, people/entity record and division. System 7 never produces a transaction which cannot be analyzed to this level.

History

Retained History Records are used to provide enhanced audit trails for posted transactions or to record historical administrative activity. Contract History maintains an unlimited number of progressive copies recording every Revision (posted alteration to a posted contract) and Version (non-posted identified change to any contract). Contract Links are used to identify relationships between parallel or successor contracts.

Event History provides a method of retaining historical contractual update activity without creating and tracking new versions. Upon acknowledgement, manually or through system processes, Action Items are retained in perpetuity. These events are categorized and empowered by Action Type. They are tagged, as appropriate, with related people/entity, contract, asset and other identifiers. The events appear in a variety of queries and reports as dictated by these tags.

Contract History

	Contract Revisions/Versions
	Contract Links

Exchange Rate History

Currency Exchange Rate History

Event History

	Fee Action Items
	Advance Action Items
	Guarantee Action Items
	Term Begin Date Action Items
	Term End Date Action Items
	Revenue Recognition Action Items


	About Jaguar News

	Jaguar News is published periodically for the purpose of maintaining communications with Jaguar’s clients, prospective clients and other parties interested in the field of Intellectual Property Contract Rights Management. Jaguar Consulting was founded in 1985 for the express purpose of designing, developing, installing and supporting Intellectual Property Software Solutions. Clients include Alliance-Atlantis Communications, Chorion, Cinar, DIC Entertainment, Elsevier Science, Explore International, Flextech Television, Goodtimes Video, Hallmark Entertainment, Harmony Gold, HIT Entertainment, Jim Henson Productions, Lions Gate Entertainment, Major League Baseball, MGM, NBA, NBC, National Geographic Society, Nelvana, Sesame Workshop, Southern Star, Warner Home Video and WNBA. System 7 Universal Rights Management is Jaguar’s seventh generation software product. It is an all-new design created specifically to bring contract rights management technology to all forms of intellectual property, including patents, copyrights, trademarks, trade secrets and permissions. This groundbreaking system features a Universal Contract Database, Multi-Level Rights Inheritance, a fully-configurable Custom Rights Framework, and Integrated Rights and Royalties Management. System 7 is available in the following software modules: Intranet Portal, Contract Administration, Rights and Restrictions, Workflow Management, Revenue Accounting, Royalties Receivable and Participations Payable. Further information, System 7 Buyer's Guide, and a test drive of System 7 Intranet is available at http://www.jaguartc.com/system7. Jaguar Consulting Inc. Pasadena, California Lincoln Center, New York London, United Kingdom For additional information: Visit http://www.jaguartc.com Or contact Jaguar at 626/796-1955 or info@jaguartc.com If you wish to discontinue your receipt of Jaguar News, simply reply to this email with “Unsubscribe” in the subject line. If this email was forwarded to you from another email address, please indicate the original address in the subject line as well.