Follow these instructions to learn how to navigate AAM’s filing tool for business and farm publications.
As an additional resource, view AAM's b2b/farm publisher's statement filing webinar at the end of the article.
Getting Started
The left-hand menu is broken out into three sections:
- General Information and Circulation Data
- Analysis
- Review and Submit
Each section contains additional information that reflects the data in each paragraph of your AAM publisher’s statement. Let’s start by taking a more in-depth look at these three subsections.
Publication Information
This section requires you to declare print and digital circulation, as well as qualified paid, nonpaid (where applicable) and frequency. Here, you can update publisher and contact information, the field served and the definition of qualified recipient. When completed, click the Save or Save and Continue button at the bottom of the page.
Quick Tips:
- Your selections for circulation type and categories will determine the categories made available throughout the filing tool. If you do not see the correct category displayed within the filing tool, double check your selection in the Publication Information section.
- When entering text, do not include any apostrophes ('). These will be added by AAM during statement review.
Issue by Issue
The Issue by Issue section in the filing tool collects data for each applicable distribution category, and automatically populates six-month averages for each. The output for the Issue by Issue paragraph will continue to report in the qualified paid and qualified nonpaid summary format only.
To complete the Issue by Issue section, please note the following:
- Review the assigned calendar dates for each issue. The assigned calendar date column will be prepopulated if the issue name contains a month or date. These dates are used for ordering the issues chronologically. If a publication does not have a physical date (i.e., winter issue), a calendar date needs to be assigned for that issue.
- To add or delete a row, click on the plus or red X icons.
- Be sure to indicate which issue is the analyzed issue by checking the Analyzed radio button next to the applicable issue.
Enter data for each applicable distribution category by issue. Note: Don’t forget to enter your nonqualified circulation.
- The reporting of Qualified Paid distribution should be net, meaning returns have been deducted from paid distribution.
- If you are reporting a special issue, check the Special Issue box next to the appropriate issue. Special issue(s) will not be calculated in the six-month averages for Qualified Paid and Qualified Nonpaid sections. Note: Six-month averages appear at the bottom of the grid.
- The Show Totals button allows you to view totals by paid and nonpaid.
- Check the Not reporting adds/remove box if you are not reporting optional adds or removes.
- Instead of entering data directly into the filing tool, you may upload the issue by issue data section as a CSV file. To download an example file, click on the Download Excel Example link. Click on the CSV Specifications link for instructions on setting up your CSV file.
Quick Tips:
Please enter issue names according to the following:
- Monthly: First three letters of the month (e.g., May, Jun, Jul)
- Weekly: First three letters of the month followed by the two-digit date (e.g., Jun 01, Jun 08, Jun 15)
- Multi-month: Two three-letter abbreviations (e.g., Jun/Jul)
- Multi-week: Three-letter abbreviations followed by two-digit date/two-digit date (e.g., Jun 01/08)
- Other: Complete issue name (e.g., Football), Annual (e.g., 2016), Seasonal (e.g., Winter), Volume (e.g., Vol#24)
- Indicate any changes to the previously-filed BOA with a note in your uploaded Excel file. All format changes must be approved by AAM prior to the publisher’s statement release.
- Do not use periods with abbreviations
- Include a leading zero (e.g., Jun 08) in dates 1 to 9
- Uppercase the first letter
Issue by Issue Overall Example:
Regional and Demographic Editions
This section is only for the reporting of editions in which advertising was sold separately. Each edition will report the applicable paid and/or qualified nonpaid distribution. If you do not have separate editions, please skip to the next section of the filing tool.
Business and Occupational Analysis
The Business and Occupational Analysis (BOA) takes the analyzed issue and details the paid and/or qualified nonpaid distribution by applicable business, industry, job titles, occupations or functions.
To file the BOA, click on Business & Occupational under the Analysis section within the filing tool. This section does not contain a data entry area, but will be completed and submitted via an Excel template.
Important Notes:
- BOAs are submitted via template format only.
- Emailed BOA’s will not be accepted.
- If reporting an international geographic analysis, please include it as a separate tab within your BOA template.
Quick Tips:
- Indicate any changes to the previously filed BOA with a note in your uploaded template file. All format changes must be approved by AAM prior to the publisher’s statement release.
- Excel is the only accepted format for the completed BOA file upload.
- Upload only one template file. If your publication also has a supplemental BOA, please include it as a separate tab in the template file.
- Include any images/graphics pertaining to the BOA in the template file.
- For any file edits that need to be made after statement submission, please contact AAM.
- If you would like to include a chart for your BOA, contact AAM.
Steps for submitting your analysis.
Use the customized AAM template
The AAM template has been formatted based on your previously filed BOA. The template is a set format and cannot be changed. Any changes to the BOA format must be submitted and approved by AAM prior to the statement release. The format and graphics of your BOA in the Excel file will be the same as it appears in your printed publisher’s statement. Your template will be stored in the publishing filing tool.
- Click on the Business & Occupational link under the Analysis section.
- Download the linked template. Note: only one template file should be used per publication. If you have supplemental sections within your BOA and/or an international geographic analysis, these sections will appear as separate tabs within the template.
- Open the downloaded template, click on Enable Editing and save the file to your computer.
- Enter the Business & Occupational data for the analyzed issue selected during the statement period.
- If you wish to include graphics in the BOA template file, please contact AAM.
- Save the completed file to your computer.
- To upload the completed BOA, select the Choose File button.
- Navigate to the saved file on your computer.
- Click Open.
- Select the Upload Business & Occupational File button to upload the file.
Final Steps:
- Once you have uploaded your completed BOA Excel file you can view your file in the Business & Occupational drop down on the View Data screen of the filing tool.
- If you need to make any changes, you may edit and reupload your Excel file. Files can be reuploaded until you submit your filing. Once submitted, please contact AAM to make additional edits.
Age of Source
The Age of Source section examines the analyzed issue by the source of circulation and the age of that source. Update this section with your current selected analyzed issue information. If you report by totals only and not by detail, click on the Report by total only button. If you wish to combine the reporting of qualified paid and nonpaid in the Age of Source section, check the box next to “Click here if you are reporting paid and nonpaid circulation in aggregate.”
Mailing Address
This optional section reports how the copies in the analyzed issue were addressed. If you choose not to report this information, check the Not Reporting box and click Save and Continue.
Geographical Analysis
On the Geographic Analysis screen, you will enter the circulation for the designated analyzed issue by state and/or province. If you would like to report Units, check the box to report units. Remember to Click Save and save often when entering your data. To view totals, click the Show Totals button.
Note: If you have an international geographic analysis to report, create a separate tab within your Business Occupational and Analysis (BOA) spreadsheet and include your International geographic analysis.
U.S.
Canada
There are two options for entering your publication’s geographic analysis: manually or via upload. The following instructions outline how to prepare and upload a customized geographic analysis spreadsheet to the Publisher Filing Center.
1. Complete the Publication Information in the General Information section of the filing tool. The tool uses this information to customize your geographic template with the proper distribution categories for your publication.
2. Navigate to the Geographic section under Analysis. Click on Download Template and save the downloaded Excel template file to your computer.
Quick Tip: In order for the geographic upload function to work in the filing application, only the pre-determined AAM Excel template may be used.
3. Enter your publication’s geographic information into the downloaded template and then save your completed file to your system. Note: The format of the Excel file cannot be changed. However, you may cut and paste the date elements from your Excel reports into AAM’s customized Excel file.
Quick Tip: The customized AAM Excel template may be used for future publisher’s statement filings if your publication’s distribution categories remain unchanged.
4. Now that you’ve saved your Excel file, go back to the Geographic section in the filing tool and click on the Choose File button. Select your file and then click on the Upload button to populate the geographic section of the filing tool. Remember to click on Save or Save and Continue at the bottom of the screen to save your uploaded data.
5. Edits may be made either directly to the data in the geographic section or to the customized Excel template and then reuploaded to the tool.
Quick Tip: Do not add any symbols to the fields in AAM’s Excel template. The spreadsheet format is not editable and the state/province/country order cannot be changed.
6. Once you are satisfied with the data in the geographic section, remember to click Save or Save and Continue.
Prices and Optional Data
This section is optional. It allows publishers to report price data, term data and sales channels. Please use your previous publisher’s statement as a reference. If you are not reporting these paragraphs, simply check Not reporting this optional paragraph. If you are reporting qualified nonpaid circulation only, then this section is excluded.
Notes
The Notes section is where you may further explain any circulation claimed within the previous sections. Click on the Add Notes button to see a list of all possible disclosures. Add those that apply to this statement period.
Quick Tip: When entering text, do not include any apostrophes ('). These will be added by AAM during statement review.
Publisher Comments
Add any comments or issues related to the processing of your statement.
Upload Images
AAM encourages you to brand your document by adding logo and cover images. Visit the Upload Files section to submit images for your document. Logos, cover images and web page screenshots appear in different areas of the document. Below is a summary of where each image type appears and their optimum display settings.
Logo – Logos appear on the front page of your document. Logos need only be submitted once to AAM, unless your logo has changed. For optimum display of your logo, the image should be a high-resolution file of at least 300 dpi in TIFF or JPEG format.
Cover Images – Cover images appear on the front page of your document. A new cover image should be submitted each time you file with a cover date that falls within the filing period. For optimum display of your cover image, please submit a high-resolution file of at least 300 dpi in TIFF or JPEG format.
Web Page Images – Web page images appear on the front page of the Consolidated Media Report. Web page images represent your cross-media reporting channels (additional print product, website, e-newsletters, mobile, etc). There is a limit of four web page images per document, one per media channel. New web page images should be submitted each time you file, with a cover date that falls within the reporting period. For optimum display of your web page images, please submit a high-resolution file of at least 300 dpi in TIFF or JPEG format.
Other – This category is used for additional images that you wish to include in your report (i.e., sample questionnaires, maps). When using this option, please include a descriptor of what the file is in the field next to the radio button (i.e., questionnaire):
For optimum display of your images, the files should be a high-resolution file of at least 300 dpi in TIFF or JPEG format.
Please note: The submission of signatory forms is no longer required.
View Data
The View Data section summarizes all information entered into the filing tool and allows you to print or save a summary report.
View Snapshot
This area reflects your paragraph 1 data and Snapshot entry. If edits are necessary, please return to the General Information & Circulation Data section of the filing tool and make your corrections.
View Alerts
This section identifies any data errors. Please address all error messages before submitting your data.
Statement Submission
Once you have reviewed any alerts or errors and are ready to submit your data to AAM, enter your name, title and check the box to save your data. This serves as your certification of the data you are about to submit.
Then click the button to Submit Publisher's Statement Data to AAM. You will receive a confirmation email stating that the data has been submitted.
How to Approve or Reject Your Data Submission
Once you have submitted your data, you will receive an email from AAM stating that your data has been filed successfully. AAM will then review the data and send a follow-up email stating that your data has been approved or that it needs adjustments. If AAM approves the data, you will have an opportunity to review the data and either accept or decline your data submission.
Please note that AAM no longer sends a PDF proof of your publisher’s statement for review. Instead, you will need to follow the instructions below to appropriately review and approve or decline your recent data submission.
Note: For those publications that file a CMR, you will receive two emails. First, an email will be sent for you to approve your publisher’s statement data through the filing tool as outlined below. Once your data has been approved for release, you will receive a second email containing a proof of the actual PDF CMR for you to approve.
1. First you will receive an email from AAM that looks like this:
2. Click on the link for the Publisher Filing Center and reenter your member number, username and password.
3. Select Publisher’s Statement Filing from the drop-down menu to the right and then choose the most recent period.
4. Once you’re in the tool, click on View Data under the Review & Submit section in the left-hand menu.
5. If you’re satisfied with your data, return to the email and select Approve. Now your data will be released to the Media Intelligence Center and the publisher’s statement will be produced and released.
6. If you’re not satisfied with your data, return to the email and select Decline. The filing tool will reopen for you to make any adjustments.
Questions on Filing - Contact Information
For question or assistances, please contact Andie Dumler or Kelly Murphy. For training contact Sandi Licking.
AAM webinar: B2B/Farm Media Publisher's Statement Filing Tips & Tricks