Royalty & Contract Compliance Auditor

The Firm:

HW Fisher is a top 30 audit and advisory firm. We are a commercially astute organisation with a personal, partner-led service aimed at entrepreneurial small and medium enterprises (SMEs), large corporates, Not for Profit organisations and high-net worth individuals.

Our clients come from many different backgrounds and are active in all branches of commerce and industry. Our reputation is grounded in quality, delivering premium advisory services efficiently and cost-effectively.

Founded in 1933, the practice comprises 25 partners and approximately 300 staff supplying a range of services spanning audit, corporate taxation, private client services, VAT and forensic accounting, together with a range of sector groups offering specialist industry knowledge.

HW Fisher Forensic:

The Forensic Department (HW Fisher Forensic) comprises 2 Partners, 4 Directors and a large and experienced team, acting for an array of vast multi-national, listed companies and gifted individuals across the world. The three main services provided to these clients are Royalty Auditing, Valuations and Contract Compliance, always utilising advanced forensic accounting techniques and approaches.

Our strength is twofold. We have an incredible client base, including some of the largest companies in the world and highly successful individuals, who provide us with diverse and challenging work. Secondly, we have extremely talented people providing services to these clients, continuously striving to expand what we do and improve the way we do it.

Our main competition is from the Big 4 Accountancy firms, who cannot match our depth of experience and expertise across the sectors in which we operate (including Music, TV, Film, Pharma, Automotive, Sport, Brand Extension and Gaming). Operating effectively as a boutique practice, we can move flexibly and swiftly to meet our client’s requirements. We have grown substantially over the last 10 years and continue to grow, which is why we are looking for more people to join us.

The Role:

The role will principally support our music royalties team. It will involve carrying out a portfolio of music focused Royalty Audits and assisting with Music Catalogue Valuations. It is anticipated that this will be the focus for around 60% of your time.

In addition, the candidate will perform other non-music royalties audit work across a variety of other industries, helping to maximise the benefits gained from the relationships our clients have with their business partners and Licensees.

The department regularly performs high profile Music Catalogue Valuation and Due Diligence work, so a core function of the role will be assisting the Director in charge to perform this work.  These assignments can be part of an artist’s catalogue sale and may have short and inflexible deadlines.

A typical Royalty Audit or Contract Compliance engagement will involve you undertaking detailed and comprehensive data analysis which allows us to quantify the financial and operational compliance with the contract, as well as agreeing findings with third parties and communicating important issues in a clear, succinct manner.

The role can involve international travel, where required.

The Candidate:

The candidate preferably needs to have a grounding in accountancy, but foremost an in-depth understanding of music royalties.

The candidate must have proven music royalty accounting experience and be familiar with master recording and music publishing agreements. In addition, we require a comprehensive knowledge of the various flows of music royalties.

Prior music royalty audit experience is preferable, but should the successful candidate not have this experience, on the job training will be provided.

As the candidate will assist in the preparation of Music Catalogue Valuations, they will need to possess excellent Microsoft Excel skills, including Microsoft PowerQuery and PowerPivot (or a similar database tool), so that they can analyse and manipulate vast quantities of data.

The candidate needs to possess the skills to deal directly both with clients representing large multi-national conglomerates and the Licensees being audited. In particular, the candidate will have the ability and skills to obtain the required data from these companies to perform the work.

The candidate must be self-motivated and well organised, as much work will be carried out unsupervised, and there may be numerous live assignments at a time – therefore they must be good at multi-tasking and working under deadline pressure.

The candidate must be driven to identify audit findings and perform their work to high standards, always looking to improve their techniques and skillsets.

The successful candidate will receive high quality on the job training from highly skilful expert auditors. Support is always available and enthusiastically given from the large, experienced team and collaboration is actively encouraged in numerous ways to ensure that new team members progress at a rapid rate.

The Benefits:

  • Salary: Competitive
  • Group Life Cover
  • 22 days holiday on commencement
  • Buying and Selling Holiday Scheme
  • Hybrid working policy – at least 2 days in the office a week, with a core hours system in place
  • PHI (Permanent Health Insurance)
  • Contributory Private Health Scheme
  • Non-Contributory Health Cash Plan
  • Season Ticket Loan (after qualifying period)
  • Discounted Gym Membership
  • Discounted Tastecard
  • Pension Scheme
  • Cycle voucher scheme

To apply for this position please contact Michael Fraser at mfraser@hwfisher.co.uk


Contact us

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Contact us

We’d love to hear from you. To book an appointment or to find out more about our services: