SUCCESS STORY
Royalty Exchange
Streamlining Payouts & Tax Compliance: How Royalty Exchange Saves Time & Avoids Errors with Trolley
77%
reduction in tax season overtime
$20 million
in annual royalty payouts
4-day
payment processing time, down from 17 days
Royalty Exchange
Company Info
Website
Industry
Music royalties, alternative investments
HQ Location
Denver, Colorado
Customer Since
2024
Recipients
Rightsholders, artists, investors
Payout Countries
Global
Royalty Exchange is the world’s largest marketplace for the buying and selling of royalty streams. Their platform connects buyers with creators and rights holders, offering a transparent and efficient way to manage royalty transactions, primarily in the music industry.
Handling $20 million annually in music royalty payouts, Royalty Exchange facilitates transactions between rights holders and buyers, ensuring that payments are processed efficiently and accurately.
As the marketplace grew, the team faced increasing challenges in managing a high volume of payments and tax compliance requirements across multiple platforms. Their existing systems required extensive manual work, making it difficult to scale without adding more complexity to their operations.
By implementing Trolley, Royalty Exchange transformed its payment workflows, reducing manual workload, improving efficiency, and providing a seamless experience for its recipients.
As the marketplace grew, the team faced increasing challenges in managing a high volume of payments and tax compliance requirements across multiple platforms. Their existing systems required extensive manual work, making it difficult to scale without adding more complexity to their operations.
By implementing Trolley, Royalty Exchange transformed its payment workflows, reducing manual workload, improving efficiency, and providing a seamless experience for its recipients.
The challenge: Managing high-volume royalty payouts with manual processes
Before adopting Trolley, Royalty Exchange’s payout and tax reporting processes were spread across multiple workflows and platforms, making it difficult to track and reconcile payments efficiently.
“We were using multiple systems to try to pay everybody. It was a huge time-consuming process. We were manually collecting tax forms, reviewing them, emailing people to follow up, and then manually collecting bank account information if there were issues. It wasn’t scalable.”
Janice Brake, Accounting Manager, Royalty Exchange
Without a centralized solution, payment issues became a regular bottleneck. Processing daily payouts and settlement payments required multiple manual steps, increasing the risk of human error.
"Before Trolley, I had to manually export files, review them, edit payments, upload them to multiple systems, email companies for approval—it was a nightmare," said Marissa Laug, Royalty Administration Manager at Royalty Exchange. "Payments took 15 to 17 days to process, and if something went wrong, we had to redo the whole process."
Tax season was another major challenge. The team spent weeks manually collecting and reviewing tax forms, often needing to follow up with recipients multiple times to ensure compliance. "Last year, I worked 88 hours of overtime just to complete tax filings," Janice added. "We needed a better system that would allow us to scale without spending weeks manually processing payments and tax forms."
"Before Trolley, I had to manually export files, review them, edit payments, upload them to multiple systems, email companies for approval—it was a nightmare," said Marissa Laug, Royalty Administration Manager at Royalty Exchange. "Payments took 15 to 17 days to process, and if something went wrong, we had to redo the whole process."
Tax season was another major challenge. The team spent weeks manually collecting and reviewing tax forms, often needing to follow up with recipients multiple times to ensure compliance. "Last year, I worked 88 hours of overtime just to complete tax filings," Janice added. "We needed a better system that would allow us to scale without spending weeks manually processing payments and tax forms."
The solution: A centralized, automated payout & compliance platform
To find the right solution, Royalty Exchange outlined a list of must-have features, including the ability to consolidate payments, automate recipient onboarding, tax form collection and validation, and integrate seamlessly with their back-office system.
After researching multiple providers, they narrowed their selection down to five, then to a final shortlist of three—including Trolley. What set Trolley apart was its user-friendly interface, automation capabilities, and deep experience with the music industry.
After researching multiple providers, they narrowed their selection down to five, then to a final shortlist of three—including Trolley. What set Trolley apart was its user-friendly interface, automation capabilities, and deep experience with the music industry.
"Trolley’s system was intuitive right away. I could immediately see how to use it. The recipient experience was also so much better—it was simple and easy for them."
Janice Brake, Accounting Manager, Royalty Exchange
Trolley also offered expertise and flexibility that competing solutions couldn’t match.
"Some of the other platforms we evaluated would say, ‘Oh, maybe we can do that, but we’ll have to ask our tech team.’ With Trolley, everything we needed was already there."
Marissa Laug, Royalty Administration Manager, Royalty Exchange
After implementing Trolley as its global payouts platform, Royalty Exchange was able to automate recipient tax form collection, ensuring that missing or incomplete forms were flagged immediately.
Their finance team no longer had to spend hours following up with recipients manually. Payment processing became significantly more streamlined, allowing the team to reduce processing times while improving accuracy.
Lisa Jackson, Head of Customer Success at Trolley explained the benefit of Trolley, "The real game-changer is automation. Trolley eliminates multiple manual steps, making it significantly easier to process payments at scale."
Their finance team no longer had to spend hours following up with recipients manually. Payment processing became significantly more streamlined, allowing the team to reduce processing times while improving accuracy.
Lisa Jackson, Head of Customer Success at Trolley explained the benefit of Trolley, "The real game-changer is automation. Trolley eliminates multiple manual steps, making it significantly easier to process payments at scale."
The impact: Faster payments, fewer errors & a drastically reduced workload
Since implementing Trolley, Royalty Exchange has seen significant improvements in efficiency, accuracy, and scalability. With automated payments and tax form processing, the company has drastically reduced the amount of time spent on payment processing—from 17 days down to just 4 days.
For the finance team, tax reporting overtime has been reduced by 77%, dropping from 88 hours to just 20 during the 2024 tax season.
Plus, Trolley’s intuitive recipient widget has meant that collecting tax information comes with fewer questions from recipients and less time spent explaining tax form details over email.
The improved automation allows Royalty Exchange to handle $20 million in annual royalty payouts more efficiently, without increasing operational burden.
For the finance team, tax reporting overtime has been reduced by 77%, dropping from 88 hours to just 20 during the 2024 tax season.
Plus, Trolley’s intuitive recipient widget has meant that collecting tax information comes with fewer questions from recipients and less time spent explaining tax form details over email.
The improved automation allows Royalty Exchange to handle $20 million in annual royalty payouts more efficiently, without increasing operational burden.
“We used to struggle getting recipients to submit tax forms and payment details across different platforms. Now, they do it all in one portal. It’s a way better experience for them.”
Marissa Laug, Royalty Administration Manager, Royalty Exchange
Bookkeeping has also been streamlined, with the time required for payment reconciliation dropping from five days per month to just one.
By centralizing its payouts and tax compliance with Trolley, Royalty Exchange has been able to scale confidently without adding complexity to its financial operations.
"Royalty Exchange’s success with Trolley is a perfect example of how automation transforms financial operations,” said Conor Conor Cox, VP Revenue at Trolley. “By centralizing their payments and tax workflows, companies like Royalty Exchange can scale without increasing their workload, ensuring a seamless experience for their team and recipients alike."
By centralizing its payouts and tax compliance with Trolley, Royalty Exchange has been able to scale confidently without adding complexity to its financial operations.
"Royalty Exchange’s success with Trolley is a perfect example of how automation transforms financial operations,” said Conor Conor Cox, VP Revenue at Trolley. “By centralizing their payments and tax workflows, companies like Royalty Exchange can scale without increasing their workload, ensuring a seamless experience for their team and recipients alike."
The future: Scaling with confidence
With their payouts now fully automated, Royalty Exchange is well-positioned to scale its marketplace without worrying about payment complexity. The team expects even greater efficiency gains in the coming months as their processes continue to improve.
"Now that we’ve fully integrated Trolley and trained a new team member on it, I expect our processing time to decrease even further this year," said Marissa.
Looking ahead, Royalty Exchange is exploring additional tax reporting and compliance automation features within Trolley to further streamline operations and enhance the recipient experience.
With Trolley’s automation and seamless integration, Royalty Exchange has not only saved time but also ensured a better experience for royalty recipients and buyers alike—critical factors in their continued growth.
Want to simplify your royalty payouts and tax reporting processes? Learn more about how Trolley can help.
"Now that we’ve fully integrated Trolley and trained a new team member on it, I expect our processing time to decrease even further this year," said Marissa.
Looking ahead, Royalty Exchange is exploring additional tax reporting and compliance automation features within Trolley to further streamline operations and enhance the recipient experience.
With Trolley’s automation and seamless integration, Royalty Exchange has not only saved time but also ensured a better experience for royalty recipients and buyers alike—critical factors in their continued growth.
Want to simplify your royalty payouts and tax reporting processes? Learn more about how Trolley can help.
