The first 30 days of data on an artist you have just taken on

The first month with a new artist is a race against a question you cannot yet answer. A label asks how it is going, a booking agent asks how the last tour sold, the artist asks whether the campaign worked, and the honest answer is that you do not know yet, because the numbers are spread across a dozen logins you do not have. This is a four-week plan for getting to a written starting position, and it shows how much of the work moves when the artist's sources are connected into one Backline project instead of collected by hand.

It is for managers and small management teams taking on a working artist who already has releases, accounts and some history. It is not for an artist with nothing released yet, where there is no data to collect, and it is not legal advice on the management agreement itself.

The problem with doing this by hand

Without a shared view, the first month goes on collecting. Streaming sits in one place, social in another, the ad accounts in two more, the website and search tools in two, the ticketing platform in another and the newsletter tool in another. Each has its own login, its own date range and its own idea of a week. By the time you have copied the numbers into a spreadsheet, they are a few days old and nobody has looked at what they say.

A Backline project is built to remove that step. It brings the streaming, audience, social, advertising, website, search, ticketing and press data for one artist into one dashboard, so a manager is reading the data in the first week instead of assembling it. The rest of this plan assumes you have that view, and says what still has to be done by hand.

Week one: connect the sources and secure the accounts

Do two things in parallel. First, set up the project and connect the sources the artist already uses: streaming and catalogue, advertising, website and search analytics, the ticketing platform and the newsletter tool. Advertising accounts are connected through read-only access, so you are not handed anyone's ad login. Press coverage for the project is collected automatically. Every source can be disconnected at any time.

Second, get into the platform accounts in your own name, because some things only the platforms can give you. Each has its own idea of who can see what, so check the role you are given rather than assuming it.

• Spotify for Artists. Each team member has an access level of Reader, Editor or Admin. A Reader can view music and audience stats. An Editor can also change the profile and run campaigns. An Admin adds payment methods. Separately, a Team Admin can invite and remove people and change their access levels, and only a Team Admin can change those levels. So ask who the Team Admin is before you ask for a role.
• Apple Music for Artists. The artist or the manager who first gains access to a page becomes its Admin, and an Admin can add people and assign roles. An Analyst can view the artist's data and promote content, and a Profile Editor can change images, lyrics and details. If a label representative has requested access, that request expires after 30 days if nobody acts on it.
• YouTube. Channel permissions have a role ladder from Owner down to Viewer, and there are Limited versions of the Editor and Viewer roles that cannot see revenue data. If you need to see what the channel earns, check that you were not given a Limited role. Invitations expire after 30 days if they are not accepted.

Then list the accounts that sit outside any dashboard: the distributor, the publisher and collecting society accounts, the merch store and the website. For each, write down who the owner is, who else has access and where the recovery email goes.

Week two: collect the statements and the paper trail

This is the part no data platform does for you. Ask the distributor, the label and the publisher for the last two years of statements and the contracts that explain them. File them, and note which are missing. An accountant or a royalty consultant is the right help here.

When you read a streaming royalty statement, the Music Managers Forum's own list of checks, written with a royalty consultant and an accountant, is a sound structure to follow. It asks whether the money is master or publishing income, which collecting society or publisher issued the statement, what share of the song the artist owns, whether platforms are reported separately, whether the figures are global or one territory, what accounting period they cover, whether every track on a release appears, and whether lines such as YouTube are unmonetised. It also warns that royalties can lag by up to two years, so compare the period on the statement with the plays you are looking at in the dashboard. That comparison is easier when the dashboard already holds the project's streaming history in one place.

That list was published in 2016, so treat it as a method rather than as current practice, and ask your accountant what has changed. The MMF later set out 20 pieces of data it says managers need from labels and distributors, grouped into usage data, royalty data and information about the deals with streaming services. Use those three headings as a prompt for what to ask for, even if you never see the full list.

Week three: read the baseline

This is where connecting the sources pays off. The point of a baseline is not to judge the artist. It is to fix what normal looks like before you start changing things, so that three months from now you can tell a result from a coincidence. By week three the numbers are already on one dashboard, so the work is reading and recording them rather than collecting them.

Record, at the same date:

• the last 28 days and the 28 days before them, for streams, listeners and followers;
• the markets that matter most and the share of listening they hold;
• the best and worst week of the last six months, with the reason if you can find one;
• upcoming shows with capacity and tickets sold;
• anything already running: ads, a newsletter, a release plan, press.

Because the sources share one timeline, you can lay one over another and see what moved what: whether the streams rose before or after the ad spend, whether a press piece lined up with a market that grew. Ask Backline AI answers questions like these from the project's own connected data, and tells you when a source is not connected rather than guessing. Mark every figure with its source and the date you read it, and leave out benchmarks from other artists. The baseline is the artist against the artist.

Week four: write the starting position

Write one page, in plain sentences, and send it to the artist. State what you found, what you could not find, what looks strong, what looks stalled, and the three decisions you want to make in the next quarter. Include the access list from week one and the list of missing statements from week two. Project notes you add in Backline, such as what you agreed and why, sit with the data, and a branded report can turn the page into something you can send to a label or an agent.

Two things make this page useful. It is dated, so it becomes the reference point for every later conversation about what has changed. And it is honest about gaps: an artist who sees "streaming statements for 2024 not yet received" learns that you read paperwork, which is worth more than a confident chart.

Where Backline fits, and where it does not

Backline is a data intelligence platform for music business professionals, with one dashboard per project and an assistant that answers from that project's own connected data. For this plan it earns its place in weeks one, three and four: it replaces the scattered logins with one view, so a manager is reading the data early rather than still collecting it. Access is invite-only, and you can join the waitlist from the home page.

It does not collect your statements, hold your contracts or manage splits. For the paperwork in week two, an accountant and a royalty consultant are the right help, and an all-in-one management suite may suit you better if contracts and settlements are your bottleneck.

What to do this week

1. Make a list of every account the artist has and which sources you would want in one view.
2. Ask for admin or equivalent access in your own name on the three platforms above.
3. Ask for two years of statements and write down what is missing.
4. Put a date in your diary 30 days out for the one-page starting position.