For each of the following messages please make the necessary updates/changes to enable the payment instruction to be sent to Accounts Payable (AP). Contributor commission fees are only be sent to AP once all outstanding issues are resolved and 48 hours after the last change was made to the commission.
- contributor/payee needs approval by the Rights team
All new contributor entered on the system need to be approved by either the RCS administrator or a member of the Rights department. If the payment for a contributor is delayed with this message and all the contact/postal address details appear to be complete please contact the RCS administrator or someone in the Rights department.
- the contributor's contact/postal details are incomplete
Payments are held back until the contributor's full street address and town have been entered. This is because Accounts Payable requires this information in order to setup a new payee.
- contributor may be a duplicate: this will be checked before payment is released
Checks are made to prevent duplicate contributors from being entered. The system will consider a contributor as a potential duplicate of another if the contributors share a similar name, address, or the same phone number or email address etc. If you receive a possible duplicate supplier warning when entering a new contributor and you know it is not the same person/organisation please email the RCS administrator with details. Please see Duplicate supplier for more information.
- approval required for rights
The Rights for most types of commission are reviewed and approved by the Rights department. If this is delaying payment contact the Rights department to prioritise the review of the commission.
- copyright assignment not yet returned /framework agreement not yet issued/ book extract issued on ...... not returned
If there is an assignment of copyright, or the commission is for a book extract, an assignment contract or book extract contract is issued to the contributor. Also for every new contrbution a framework agreement is issued. These contract needs to be signed and returned to the Rights department before payment can be released.
In all these cases if the commission payment is delayed, or the contributor says they have returned their signed contract, please forward the matter to the RCS administrator.
- contributor's 1st commission fees need approval / staff commissions need approval /fee needs approval as above editor's limit of £..
Commissions with these messages are queued for approval under the appropriate Department Head or Managing Editor. The relevant approver will be listed in brackets.
- commission is unfulfilled
As a general rule a commission can only be fulfilled by matching it to published content. If the content delivered for the commission has not been published yet and you need the commission fee to be paid then please contact the RCS administrator.
- AP do not have the payee's bank details
Bank account details are maintained by the AP department. If AP have bank details for a contributor on file then the Bank a/c? checkbox in the contributor details screen is ticked. Payments instructions are always held in RCS until AP has the bank details. For any questions regarding bank details for a contributor please contact Accounts Payable (supplier.details@theguardian.com)
This is usually followed by Bank-Details form ACTION COMPLETED at... where the form is completed by the contributor but the details have not updated by the AP department. Or Bank-Details form has NOT been issued where the form has not been sent out yet.
- no fees have been set up
A fee (rather than an estimate) must to be set up in order to make payment. For more information on adding a fee to a commission see Fees
- there is an unresolved query
This message indicates that there is an unresolved query attached to this commission. For more information on queries click here. If you are unsure of how to resolve the query please contact the RCS Administrator or whoever originally created the query.
- registered address for VAT-registered, agented contributor required
If a contributor is VAT registered and is paid via their agent then AP needs to have their address on record.
- failed AP validation when sent at... Please refer this issue to the Rights team
The payment instruction has been bounced back from Fusion. The RCS administrators will already have this on their list. If required please raise a query