🚀 Label Onboarding: The Step-by-Step Checklist
Setting up your label on Tone involves various sections; we’ve designed Tone to make this process as easy as possible. However, it’s important to review these onboarding steps in advance to understand what’s involved. Please leave yourself ample time to set up, and get started well ahead of your accounting deadline.
Uploading a first sales file is a good starting point (see step 1), however there is no strict order of doing things, and progress can be made on all items at once.
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Before running a period, double check all items are linked and there’s no unmapped catalog
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📊 1. Sales Data Setup
A good place to start is uploading your income sources on the Sales page. That way you’ll get immediate use of the Timeline and Sales Explorer tools to analyze your revenue and can use the Unmapped Catalog Tool via ‘Review new catalog from sales’ to import catalog directly from your sales file (see step 2).

- Upload Sales Files: Use the Upload button to bring in your first sales reports.
- Create File Sources: Set up sources (e.g., Spotify, Apple Music) and use Subcategories if you receive multiple files from the same source e.g. physical, downloads, YouTube
- Reporting Frequency: Set this to how often the sales source reports statements to you (Monthly, Quarterly, etc.). Note: This is separate from your accounting period.
- Create Templates: Once you process a file, Tone saves a template. Future files from this source will "auto-match," saving you time.
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Click here to learn how to upload sales files and here to learn how to process those files.
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💿 2. Catalog Management
You can import your catalog directly from your sales files to ensure nothing is missed.

- Bulk Import: Go to Bulk Catalog Tools > Manage Unmapped Catalog. You can use the Spotify integration to enhance missing data and import everything at once.
- Linking is Key: * Tracks to Releases: Ensure every track is connected to a release (where applicable - e.g. music videos may not have a ‘release’). Filter by "0 Tracks" in the Releases view to find items needing attention.
- Tracks to Contracts: Every catalog item must be linked to a contract before it can be included in a royalty calculation.