This template belongs to the royalty reconciliation disputes guide, which shows what a settled dispute looks like record by record. Use the template during one call with the franchise finance head, then compare your draft with the completed example.
Template: eight fields, metadata only
Copy the fields below. Each takes a short phrase, a count or "unknown". The business task is the same on every brief of this kind: reconciling royalty reports against POS data and agreement exclusions, and settling disputes.
- Company. [Franchise concept; number of locations; franchisor full-time staff at peak]
- Systems. [Point-of-sale data type; royalty platform; franchise ERP; finance mailbox or ticket queue]
- Coverage. [Record classes held (submitted sales reports, POS data, agreement versions, dispute threads, credit memos, audit files) and years of each]
- Volume. [Reports a year; rough share adjusted after review]
- Owner. [Who maintains the records and would convene the call]
- Authority. [Who approves a licensing discussion; who reviews the franchise agreements]
- Open question. [The link nobody can confirm]
- Deadline. [Any access end date with its source, or "none set"]
Close every brief with the same line: Not included: franchisee or location names, sales figures, payment or customer details, exports, or any estimate of value.
Three fields that need care in franchising
Company: count head office, not the network. The introduced company needs 50+ full-time employees at peak, contractors excluded. Franchisee staff work for separate businesses and do not count toward the brand's headcount, so a 900-location brand with a small head office may not qualify while a 300-location brand with a large support center may.
Coverage: separate reports from POS detail. Many franchisors hold years of franchisee reports but only receive transaction-level POS data from the last POS change, if at all. The difference matters because only transaction data lets a refund be traced to its sale: in Square's refunds API, for example, each refund is created against the unique ID of the payment it reverses, and several partial refunds can sit against one payment. Say which kind the company has, and for how many years.
Owner and authority: three names, three jobs. Fields 5 and 6 should read like a short cast list: who calls the meeting, who signs, and who reads the contracts first. Writing all three saves a round of emails later, because the CEO's first question is usually "has legal looked at this?". The who-can-license tree explains how to work out each name.
Completed example, Illustrative
Illustrative only. The franchisor, counts and dates are fictional and written for this page.
- Company. Quick-service restaurant franchisor, about 350 locations, 280 full-time staff at head office.
- Systems. POS feed from operators, royalty platform, franchise ERP, finance mailbox.
- Coverage. Seven years of submitted sales reports; POS daily totals before the last POS change and transaction-level data since; six agreement versions; dispute threads and credit memos for about five years; royalty audit files.
- Volume. About 4,200 reports a year; roughly 900 adjusted after review.
- Owner. Franchise finance head, who maintains the dispute process and would convene the call.
- Authority. CEO to approve a licensing discussion; general counsel to review the franchise agreements.
- Open question. Whether refunds can still be traced to the original sale after they reach the royalty platform.
- Deadline. Old platform access ends on the date in its contract.
Not included: franchisee or location names, sales figures, payment or customer details, exports, or any estimate of value.
Item 6 of the disclosure document lists recurring fees such as royalties and the formula used to compute them, so "six agreement versions" in field 3 tells the CEO at once that the rule changed over time, which is the point of the history. Older disclosure documents help date each rule, but franchisors only have to keep a sample of each materially different version for three years after the fiscal year it was last used, so counsel may need the signed agreements for anything older. The system map explains why the open question in field 7 decides how readable the disputes are, and the retention timeline explains why the contract end date belongs in the brief.
The covering line for the forward
The brief travels best with one sentence on top, written by the franchise finance head rather than the partner:
"Our royalty dispute history may be of interest to SourceX, which licenses approved business data for AI training and evaluation; the note below is metadata only, and I would like 20 minutes to discuss whether we should explore it."
If you have a relationship with the company, disclose that you may receive a referral reward. The warm introduction brief covers that wording.
What stays out, and what happens next
Leave out anything that would move data before the company approves it: sample reports, dispute emails, screenshots of the royalty platform and any estimate of what the history might be worth. Partners never ask for or handle raw client records. Nobody can estimate value before SourceX's rights review and data preparation scoping, and a number in the brief reads as a promise.
Once the brief is forwarded, the company decides whether to talk to SourceX. SourceX manages the agreement, rights review, data preparation, delivery and payout, and its rights review settles what could be licensed and in what form. Buyer interest and any offer stay unknown until then. Partners sign the Channel Partner Agreement before submitting introductions, and the first valid introduction within the 90-day window is credited when the company submits a verified application.
The introduced company also needs a documented operating history, rights to license and an authorized contact. Companies in the U.S., Canada and the EU qualify, as do companies in the UK, Australia, New Zealand, India, Singapore, South Africa, Latin America, the UAE and Saudi Arabia when at least 90% of the data is in English. Franchisor data monetization covers the sector, and reconciliation exceptions covers a related record type.
Next step
Refer a company. Earn up to $100,000. Default reward: 25% of Actual Supplier Payout, capped at $100,000 cumulatively per referred company. Eligibility and payment conditions apply, and a signed Schedule A or addendum can differ. A lead, meeting or signature alone does not trigger payment.
When all eight fields hold metadata and field 6 names the CFO, register as a partner, confirm the brand's head-office headcount on who qualifies and read the program terms before the brief goes out.