Importing merch docs: Merch home, the "Import merch docs" tile. Drop files or a whole FOLDER; it walks the folder and pulls every file out. Many at once is normal.
THE TWO KINDS OF DOC DO DIFFERENT JOBS:
- Sales report. Per-item, per-size units sold. Fills that show's COUNTS. It can never create a money record.
- Settlement: the money split (gross, venue cut, tax, VAT, card fees, seller fee, artist net). Writes that night's MONEY.
Most merch companies send BOTH per show. Import both; each does its own half. ATOM recognises that pair and will not call it a duplicate.
WHAT IT READS: atVenu, National Merchandise (UK), venue-specific Excel and PDF, one-off statements, and photos. A digital PDF is read from its text layer (fast and exact); a genuine scan or photo falls back to reading the image.
BEFORE ANYTHING SAVES: every row shows every field the document actually stated. Grouped like the settlement editor, plus what the doc stayed silent on. A doc that writes money cannot commit on one click; you confirm the real figures first.
DUPLICATES: ATOM compares the MONEY, not just "is something already here". It catches the same doc twice in one drop, two files landing on the same night, and a doc whose figures match what was already imported onto that date. Anything you do not want, hit Skip. Reversible, and there is a "Skip all N already on file" for a big drop.
IT WILL NOT BURY A HAND COUNT. If somebody physically counted the shelf for that night, a sales report will not quietly replace it. A sales report says what SOLD and nothing about what was on the table, so importing over a real count would swap measured opening and closing numbers for "opened with what sold, ended at zero" and lose the shrinkage check for the night. You get a warning and have to confirm. Bulk import skips those rows entirely.
PRODUCTS AND SIZES: a product on the document that is not in your inventory gets created. A SIZE the document sold that your product does not carry yet gets added to that product, so those sales record instead of being dropped. The review screen lists exactly which sizes are being added. New sizes start with no stock tracked; set stock in Inventory when you know it.
IMPORTED COUNTS ARE NOT SHELF COUNTS. Neither a sales report nor a settlement contains starting stock. There is no way to work it out from them, and ATOM does not pretend otherwise. An imported night reconstructs the opening from what sold so the arithmetic matches the document, and it is flagged as imported so nothing treats it as inventory truth.
THE MONEY COMES OFF THE DOCUMENT, NOT OUT OF A CALCULATOR. Most venues take their percentage off ADJUSTED gross. Gross less sales tax less card fees, so the rate times the gross does not equal what the venue actually keeps. ATOM records the cut and the artist's net exactly as the settlement states them, and shows its own arithmetic underneath when the two differ. Editing a rate or a gross yourself drops the document's figure and goes back to calculating.
WHO KEEPS THE SALES TAX MATTERS. A settlement that says the artist retains the tax means the artist holds it tonight and remits it to the state later, so it does NOT come off what the venue owes. A settlement that says the venue retains it does. ATOM reads that off an imported document automatically; typing a settlement in by hand, use the "Tax retained by" choice next to Sales Tax in the editor to say the same thing yourself. It was missing there until 2026-09-03, so a hand-entered settlement that plainly said "retained by artist" still had the tax deducted as if the venue kept it. When nothing says either way, ATOM leaves it deducted rather than guessing in the artist's favour.
THE CARD FEE WORKS THE SAME WAY, PLUS A REAL DOLLAR OVERRIDE. Whoever's card reader ran the sale is who actually eats the processing fee. The artist's own reader at a self-run table, or the venue's if they process merch through their own point of sale. Same "CC fee retained by" choice, same effect: when the artist bears it, it stops reducing what they're owed. Separately, a real processor's fee is almost never an exact percentage of the card total (it charges per transaction, so the blended rate on a signed statement lands close to round but not on it). Enter the settlement's own dollar figure into "CC fee amount (override)" and it wins over the percentage, the same relationship VAT's dollar override already has to VAT's percentage field.
THE DOCUMENT IS KEPT. The atVenu PDF itself is stored against the night it belongs to, so a settlement is never just a set of numbers with nothing behind it. Open it from Merch > Reports. The paperclip next to the night's source chip. Files are recognised by their CONTENTS, so re-dropping the same folder costs nothing and never creates a second copy; a renamed copy of the same file is still the same document. Settlements are always kept. Sales reports are bulkier and rarely disputed, so they are only kept if you turn that on. A whole year of one tour is about 70 documents and 7MB.
IF A FILE FAILS: it retries on its own, then shows the real reason and a Retry button. A file covering TWO nights is flagged. A document can only be filed under one date, so both nights' sales would land on the first one.
PER HEAD MEANS PER BODY. ATOM divides merch gross by the drop count. The door scan, the people who could actually buy something. Tickets that were sold but never showed up should not count against a per head. That is also what lands in a settlement's headcount box in practice: atVenu lets the merch seller choose what to put there and most put the drop, even though the box is labelled "Paid Attendance". If no door count has been entered, the booth screens fall back to the room's capacity and label the figure as an estimate; Money shows no per-head at all rather than a number built on a guess. Capacity is the size of the room, not a count of who came, and on real tour data it runs two to four times low. Separately, "average item price" (gross divided by units sold) is a different number and is labelled as such.
WHO CAN DO THIS:
- Merch seller, tour manager, tour accountant, admins: full access to the Merch module and its imports.
- Artist, management, business manager, production manager: can look, not import or change. Booth money only for people who can see Money (an artist once the TM or admin turns it on).
- Band (hired players), crew, driver, vendor, family, travel agent: no access to Merch at all; the module is role-gated, not just hidden from the nav. The TM can grant it to one person.
- Writing MONEY additionally needs Money edit rights. Someone with merch access but not money rights can still fill counts from a sales report.
- Everything imported is stamped with where it came from, so a parsed document is never mistaken for a settlement signed in person at the booth.
GMAIL: "Scan Gmail" does the same thing from your inbox instead of your desktop, with the same duplicate catching, the same money confirmation and the same Skip.
MERCH AND MONEY SETTLE TOGETHER: a merch settlement (atVenu, Bravado, a venue receipt) dropped on the Merch page also goes into that show's Money settlement, with Include merch ticked: the show's settlement is updated, or one draft is made if it has none, never a second copy. The sheet's own figures travel (what the artist is owed, the venue's cut, the adjusted gross), and what the sheet says is owed shows as outstanding until you log the payment. The import says where it landed. It needs Money edit access; without it the sheet saves in Merch and says to ask your TM. A closed Money settlement isn't changed. The other way: a merch sheet dropped in a Money settlement reaches ATOM Merch when the night has no merch settlement there yet; the booth's own count or signed settlement is never overwritten.