Returns System FAQs - Consumer Magazines

We recommend you work out your circulation figures before looking at the return. You’ll need to create an ‘issue by issue’ worksheet of your own design before you start.  Once you have that sheet showing issue by issue figures split by category, totals and averages, filling in the return is easy.

We recommend you have separate worksheets for ‘Print’ and ‘Digital (depending on what you are claiming).

There’s no right or wrong way. You can fill in any order, but we recommend you start on the left and move right.

Start with ‘Contact details and logo’.

Don’t worry. Only claim in the categories and tabs relevant to your title. You don’t need to remove the tabs that don’t apply to you.

Yes, you don’t need to fill it in all at once. Just remember to press ‘Save’ before you leave to save and new data you've entered. You’ll be able to leave the return and come back another time.

This is easy. In the ‘Returns Navigator’, the menu on the left under ‘Select Status’. There is a box - ‘Closed Returns’. Check that box and you’ll be able to choose which previous returns to view.

We are always here for help. There is a ‘Summary Data’ tab on the return which is a ‘view only’ page to help you. Scroll down that tab and there are some ‘crosscheck’ summary tables to help identify problems with the data you’ve entered into the return.

If you’d like more specific advice please contact us.

If you are filling out your return and have issues which are still unclosed through retail, you need to make an estimate for those copies in your figures. Include the estimates on your worksheet and make a note of which issues are estimated.

You’ll enter the estimates in two tabs on the return:

• Include the estimates for ‘Paid Single Copies’ in the affected issue(s) total(s) you enter on the ‘Issue data’
• On the ‘Paid Single Copies’ Tab, the average you put into the ‘Paid Single Copies analysis’ needs to include the estimates you have made for any unclosed issues. Under that table there is another table ‘Do you have any UNCLOSED issues in relation to these Paid Single Copies?’. This is where you separately tell us about the estimates that you’ve made for any issues in this reporting period.

There is no absolute formula for estimating the figures, but we recommend it is as accurate as possible based on historical information.  You’ll tell us the ‘actual’ figures for those estimates and reconcile them on the next reporting period’s return.

These are reconciled on the ‘Paid Single Copies’ Tab. If you made estimates last period for unclosed issues in the previous reporting period, you’ll need to reconcile them this time. To do this, please fill in the box ‘Please tell us the actual sales for the unclosed issues from last period’.

The adjustment required is then calculated under that box; ‘User adjustments required to Paid Single Copies analysis based on the above’. You take those calculated figures and incorporate them into your figures in the table ‘Paid Single Copies analysis’. You’ll either be adding on copies or removing copies, depending on how accurate your estimate was last time.

Yes, you can. Most tables in the return have a function to download an excel sheet. You then fill the sheet in and upload the excel data straight into the return. We have a handy guide to the Table Upload feature.

Don’t Panic! You’ll be emailed a draft certificate. If you spot an error, please contact us and we can ‘open’ your return so you can amend and re-submit.

Please check your certificates carefully and promptly, as there is only a short time window for this to be completed.