In our continuing efforts to increase transparency, we have added a billing screen to the Sortable dashboard. This provides a breakdown of funds processed through Sortable and the total amount owed to/by Sortable. To access the billing screen, from your Sortable dashboard, click Billing on the left navigation menu.
Your billing screen displays the most recent invoice. Each month's invoice is finalized on the 20th day of the following month. For example, on August 20, the July invoice will become available. If multiple invoices are available, buttons associated with specific months are at the top right hand corner of the billing screen. If a button is grey, that month is not available.
Each invoice has four main sections: Net Revenue, 3rd Party Revenue, Adjustments, and Balance Owing. If there is no data for one (or more) of the sections, that section will not appear in your invoice.
If a section has an arrow beside it, click the section for a further breakdown of the numbers. You can also hover your cursor over any question mark for a brief description of that item.
Net Revenue
This section includes all revenue earned by your account this month. If you would like to run a report to see your revenue/fees for a different period of time, create a default report, and then complete the report with the steps listed for each line.
Net revenue can be further broken down into the following categories:
Line | Description | Run a report | ||
Gross revenue | Includes all programmatic and direct revenue | Select the Gross Revenue metric. | ||
Programmatically-managed Revenue∞ | Includes all programmatic revenue on your site |
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Sortable Demand Seat Revenue | Revenue generated for your account from Sortable's programmatic demand sources. |
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Partner Demand Seat Revenue | Revenue generated from your own sources. This includes your own demand seat accounts, and AdX if we are integrated with yours. |
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Direct Revenue | Revenue generated from all Direct campaigns, House campaigns, and backfill orders. If you are using Sortable's Self-Serve platform, all of that revenue appears here.§ |
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Fees | A breakdown of Sortable’s fees. This includes any Ad Serving and Platform fees, Rev Share, and any additional fees as per your contract. | Run the default report with the metrics Gross Revenue and Net Revenue selected. The total is equal to Gross Revenue minus Net Revenue. | ||
Ad serving fee | This fee applies if you are using Sortable's Ad Manager. This fee applies to every ad request on your site(s) and is waived if you are using your own Ad Manager. |
For example, if you have a $0.01 cent Ad Serving Fee, the equation would be (Requests * 0.01)/1000. | ||
Header bidder impression fee | A fee charged per header bidder impression. This is only applied if it is part of your contract. |
For example, if your header bidder impression fee is $0.02, the equation is Requests * 0.02 / 1000. | ||
Platform fee | This fee applies to every ad request on your site(s)—both programmatic and non-programmatic. It offsets costs associated with:
| This is calculated in the same way as the Ad Serving Fee. | ||
Rev share | This is Sortable's rev share, which is a percentage of all programmatic revenue.♦ |
For example, if your rev share is 15%, the equation is Gross Revenue * 0.15 |
Create a default billing report
If you would like a more detailed financial report, or if you would like billing information for a certain period of time, the following steps detail how to create a default report:
- Create a new Ad Revenue Report.
- Set the date range to Customize.
- Set the start and end date to the appropriate month.
- Set the timezone to America/Toronto (UTC-04:00).
- Add the dimension Month.
- Save the report and call it "Default Billing Report." You can then use it to run any of the reports detailed above.
- Complete your report with the appropriate steps in the Run a report column of the table above (in the Net Revenue section, above).
3rd Party Revenue
This is the total revenue of the account that is independent of Sortable. This includes any non-programmatic DFP deals and publisher demand seats. Since the billing screen is used to determine the net revenue owed by or owing to Sortable, third-party revenue is subtracted from the total, as it is paid externally. These amounts are not being charged by Sortable; they are removed from the total since it is paid out externally and is part of the net revenue.
Partner Demand Seat Revenue – This is identical to Partner Demand Seat Revenue in the Programmatically Managed Revenue section. It is subtracted here since the publisher is being paid by the demand partner directly.
Direct Revenue – This is identical to Direct Revenue in the Gross Revenue section. This is being subtracted since the publisher is being paid directly by the ad source.
Adjustments
This section includes any clawbacks, HST, or manual adjustments to the account during the billing period. If there is a billing error, the correction will be made on the following month within the Adjustments section. In this example, it is called “Manual Adjustment” but if an adjustment needs to be made to your account, it will be clearly named based on the cause. If there are no adjustments to the account, this section does not appear.
In this instance, clawbacks are described as "Google Invalid Traffic Deductions." For more information on clawbacks and how to avoid them, see Sortable's Guide for Preventing Invalid Traffic.
Balance Owing
This is the Net Revenue without 3rd Party Revenue included. (in this case, it is the sum of the two since 3rd Party Revenue is negative). If this value is positive, it is the amount Sortable will be paying you for this billing period. If it is negative, it is the amount owed to Sortable.