Running Tally is a feature which is turned on or off from the Royalty Set-up Information Screen.  It allows you to keep track of accumulated sales.  When it's turned on, each time you do a royalty report, the number of products sold will be updated, and you'll always know how many total units have been sold.

The Running Tally feature assumes that you go in order.  You create a royalty report for 2013.  Then you create one for 2014 and so.  Each time you run a new report, the "Number Sold" and "As Of" date in the Set-up Screen are updated.  But if you go out order -- run a two-year old report -- the normal time sequence of updating the running tally figures is now thrown off kilter.

When you are generating reports in the Report Generator and the expected time sequence is changed, the Running Tally Wizard will be triggered.

There two Running Tally Wizards.

Running Tally Not Required. The following appears if you have not specifically set-up the royalty holder with a Variable Structure based on Quantities sold.  In other words, you keeping a running tally for your own information, and it's not required to calculate royalties.

Running Tally Required. The following appears if you have set-up the royalty holder with a Variable Structure based on the Quantity sold.  In other words, the royalty that you pay the royalty holder changes as more and more books or products are sold.  Whenever you have a Variable Structure based on Quantity, you must have Running Tally turned on.  AnyBook must know how many books or products are sold in order to calculate the correct royalty.  Here's what the Running Tally Wizard looks like:

The Running Tally Wizard will suggest a course of action depending upon your purposes.  Both of the Wizards are similar.  Differences are noted below . . .

First: Are you running a report for the most recent royalty period?

The first thing the Running Tally Wizard does is to ask if you are running a report for the most recent royalty period.

The answer to that question would be yes if two prerequisites are met: 1) You are not running a report for a previous period of time; and 2) you are not running a report for an odd period of time (different than what you normally run.)  If that's the situation, then there's a problem with your dates.

Let's say that the running tally box on the Set-up Screen shows that 5,000 units have been sold as of 12/31/12.  In the Report Generator you accidentally enter an incorrect starting date of 12/22/12 and an ending date of 06/30/13.  The Running Tally Wizard will be triggered and you'll see this message:

1. If your purpose is to run a report for the MOST RECENT royalty period . . .  

In the Running Tally box on the Set-up Screen, the latest figure for the total number of books sold is 'As of' the following date: 12/31/12.  In order to use this figure, however, the starting date must be: 01/01/13.  You've entered:  12/22/12.  There are two possible ways to fix this.  (1) Usually, it's just a matter of re-entering starting date on the Royalty Generator screen.  Exit from this message and enter 01/01/13 in the Start Date blank.  (2) Occasionally, you may find that you have entered the wrong "As Of" date in Royalty Set-up Screen.  If you are sure the starting date is correct, then the "As Of' date should be 12/21/12.  To correct it, you'll need to exit, go to the Royalty Set-up screen, and make the correction to the 'As Of' date in the 'Running Tally' box.  To make either correction, click: EXIT

It's just a matter of following the directions.  Exit from the Running Tally Wizard and correct the starting date to 01/01/13.

Second: Are you running a report for a past period of time?

If you are not running a recent report, the Running Tally Wizard asks if you are running a report for past period of time.

For example, let's say the current year is 2013, and you want to go back in time two years and try to run a report for the first half of 2011.  The running tally box on the Set-up Screen shows that 5,000 units have been sold as of 12/31/12.  In the Report Generator you enter the starting date of 01/01/11 and an ending date of 12/31/11.  The Running Tally Wizard will be triggered:

At this point, the Wizard will vary in its instructions.  There are two possible routes:

Route #1.  Quantity Breakpoint. The information below describes the Wizard's instructions if you are using Quantity Breakpoints (where the royalty percentage varies depending upon quantity sold).

Running Tally is vital when you use Quantity Breakpoints.  The program has to know how many products have been sold during the time period of the report so it can apply the correct royalty percentage.  Thus, if you go back a year or two, it needs to know how many products had been sold at that time to make sure it's using the correct breakpoint percentage.

The Wizard will say the following:

2. If your purpose is to run an OLD REPORT from a previous royalty period . . .

In order to run an old report, AnyBook needs to know how many books had been sold as of 12/31/13 (the day before your starting date of 01/01/14.   Without the number sold figure, AnyBook does not know which quantity breakpoint to use.  That's important because the breakpoint determines which percentage to use to calculate royalties.)  You have two choices:

A). If you know how many books had been sold as of 12/31/13, enter it here: _____ and click RUN  

B) If you don't know the number sold, but know which breakpoint to use for this royalty calculation, select one and click RUN:   (The Wizard will list each of your quantity breakpoints here.)

If you've kept copies of your past reports, then you can use the "A" option and enter the number of units sold as of 12/31/13.  If you don't have records, but if you have a pretty good idea of which quantity breakpoint should be used, select one of the breakpoints from the "B" option.  If you just need an approximate figure, you can select any of the breakpoints.

If you've selected Option "B" you have an additional choice if you are running a batch (more than one report at a time):  "Apply above choice to all reports in this batch."  In other words, if you've selected two or more from the selection list on the Royalty Generator, you need to decide whether you want to apply the setting to all reports in the batch.  Let's say you've selected the first breakpoint.  That means the first breakpoint will be used for all the reports generated in the batch.  If you are just looking for approximate figures, this would work out fine.  If you are looking for exact figures, then you'll want to run the reports one at a time.

Route #2.  Not a Quantity Breakpoint. If the royalty report that you are generating does not use quantity breakpoints, a different message will appear:

If your purpose is to run an OLD REPORT from a previous royalty period . . .

AnyBook doesn't have to update the total sold figure for past reports.  In that case, the Running Tally feature can be temporarily turned off.  To turn it off:  (Click on the "Turn off Running Tally

Since, in this case, we are not dealing with quantity breakpoints, we don't need to know how many units were sold as of 12/31/13.  We can go ahead and run a report and the data will be accurate.  But--and this important--you must turn off the Running Tally feature.  If we don't turn it off, it will change the number and date on the Set-up Screen.  In our example, it would mean that the "As Of" date will change to 12/31/14.  That really creates havoc because it should be 12/31/15.  But, we can take care of that.  All we have to do is to turn off the running tally feature and no change is made to the date.

Third: Are you running a report for an odd period of time?

If you are not running a recent report or running an old report, we are left with one last question:  Are you running a report for an odd period of time?

For example, let's say that the running tally box on the Set-up Screen shows that 5,000 units have been sold as of 12/31/15.  Let's say that you normally run a yearly report, but you decide to run a report for a two-month period.  In the Report Generator you enter the starting date of 09/01/14 and an ending date of 10/31/14.  The Running Tally Wizard will be triggered:

At this point, the Wizard will vary in its instructions.  There are two possible routes:

Route #1.  Quantity Breakpoint. If you are using Quantity Breakpoints (where the royalty percentage varies depending upon quantity sold), the Wizard will say the following:

If you are running a report for an ODD PERIOD OF TIME (shorter or longer than a normal royalty period) . . . select 2A or 2B above.

In this case, you would select Option "A" (enter the number of units sold) or Option "B" (select one of the breakpoints).  If you know the number of units sold as of 08/31/14, you enter the number.  If you don't know but you know what quantity breakpoint to use, select the proper breakpoint from Option B.  If you just need an approximate figure, select one of the breakpoints.

Route #2.  Not a Quantity Breakpoint. If the royalty report that you are generating does not use quantity breakpoints, a different message will appear:

If you are running a report for an ODD PERIOD OF TIME (shorter or longer than a normal royalty period) . . . Click on the "Turn Off Running Tally" above.

In this case, the report does not depend upon quantity breakpoints.  Thus, it's not necessary to enter a number or a breakpoint.  We do, however, want to turn off the Running Tally Feature.  Otherwise, the "As Of" date on the Set-up Screen will be changed to 10/31/14.  That would throw us off when a current report is created.  To avoid the problem, you can turn off Running Tally and no adjustment is made.

Do you have an inaccurate (or missing) Total Number Sold figure?

If so, directions on how to fix it are found here: Fixing Inaccurate Total Sold.

Fourth: None of the above . . . Run with errors.

The last choice (4) only appears when Running Tally is required (when you have the royalty payment based on the quantity sold: Variable Structure - Quantity).

This is normally used when you need to correct an inaccurate (or missing) Total Number Sold figure found on the Royalty Set-up Screen.  Complete directions on how to correct inaccurate Total Number Sold figure are found here: Fixing Inaccurate Total Sold.