Answers/Getting started/How to Fill Out a Split Sheet (With Every Field Explained)

Getting started

How to Fill Out a Split Sheet (With Every Field Explained)

By Boboy Watson·Last verified August 31, 2026·2,072 words·Getting started

The worst split problem I have had was not a disagreement. Everyone agreed. We just each remembered the numbers slightly differently when we came to register months apart, and the work sat unmatched while three people compared screenshots.

That is what a split sheet prevents. Not arguments — those are rarer than people think. It prevents three honest recollections diverging into three different registrations. Here is every field, what it is for, and a worked example that adds up.

What is a split sheet and what is it not?

A split sheet is a one-page document, signed by everyone who contributed to a song, recording who wrote it and in what proportion. It is filled in at the session and it costs nothing.

A split sheet is not a registration. Filing one with nobody is not the same as registering the work, and no organisation receives it. It does not register a copyright with the US Copyright Office, it does not create a claim at ASCAP or BMI, and it does not tell The MLC anything.

What it is, precisely: the source document you register from. When you fill in the work registration form at ASCAP or BMI, and again at The MLC, and again for any publishing administrator, you are copying numbers off the split sheet into three systems. The shares must be identical in all three, and the split sheet is the reason they are.

How do you fill out a split sheet, step by step?

1. Open the sheet before anyone leaves the session, not later. The conversation about who gets what costs nothing while the song is worth nothing, and becomes a negotiation between people with opposing interests once it earns.
2. Write the song title exactly as it will be released, plus any working or alternate title the files are under. Registrations match on title across ASCAP, BMI, The MLC and international societies, so a work written as "Untitled 3" and released as something else needs both names on the record.
3. Record the date the song was written and the studio or session location. The date establishes when the work was created if authorship is ever questioned, and the location is how a session gets identified years later when nobody remembers which week it was.
4. Write one line at the top stating that the percentages below refer to the composition, not the master. Composition shares and master ownership are two different things, and the confusion between them causes more disputes than the numbers themselves.
5. For each contributor, enter their legal name as it appears on identification, then their professional or artist name. Payments and registrations run on legal names — an artist name in a legal name field breaks matching at The MLC and at your PRO.
6. Enter each contributor's role: writer, co-writer, topliner, producer, featured artist or session musician. The role is what distinguishes a person with a writing share from a person who played on the recording and has no claim on the composition.
7. Enter each contributor's PRO affiliation and IPI/CAE number. ASCAP, BMI, SESAC, GMR or none — and the IPI number from their member dashboard, which is the field people leave blank and then spend a week chasing.
8. Enter each contributor's publisher name and publisher IPI if they have one, and write "none" if they do not. The publisher half of the performance royalty is payable only to a registered publisher, and an unclaimed publisher share sits unpaid rather than reverting to the writer.
9. Enter each contributor's percentage of the writing share, and check that the column totals exactly 100%. Do the arithmetic out loud before anyone signs, because a sheet totalling 99% or 101% will be rejected by the validation at every organisation you file it with.
10. Enter contact details — email and phone — for every contributor. You will need to reach these people at registration time, and possibly two years later when a sync request arrives; the split sheet is often the only place their current details exist.
11. Record master ownership separately, in its own labelled section. Who paid for the session, who owns the recording, and in what proportion, stated explicitly rather than assumed to follow the writing split.
12. Have every contributor sign and date the sheet, and give everyone a copy the same day. A sheet signed by three of four contributors is an incomplete document, and the missing signature is always the person who becomes hard to reach.
13. Add the ISRC and ISWC to the sheet once they are assigned. The ISRC comes from DistroKid, TuneCore or CD Baby when you release; the ISWC is assigned to the composition through registration. With both added, the sheet becomes a complete record of one song across every system.
14. Register the work at ASCAP or BMI and at The MLC using the exact numbers on the sheet. This is the step that converts the document into money, and the numbers must be identical in both systems and identical to what your co-writers file.

What does every field on a split sheet mean?

What does a completed split sheet look like?

Here is an illustrative three-contributor sheet for one song. The names are examples; the structure is the point.

Song: "Kalapana Line" (working title: "Beat 44") · Written: 12 March 2026 · Session: home studio, Puna, Hawaii These percentages refer to the composition. Master ownership is recorded separately below.

Master ownership: Bo Watson 100% — session paid for and recorded by Bo Watson. Ari Lucero and M. D. Hale hold no ownership in the sound recording. ISRC: added at release · ISWC: added after registration at BMI

Two things about that example matter more than the numbers. The percentages total exactly 100%, and the master ownership is stated separately in plain words rather than left to be inferred. Those are the two failures that cause the most trouble later.

Why must the shares match across ASCAP or BMI, The MLC and everywhere else?

Because every one of those systems validates claims against each other, and a mismatch freezes the money rather than splitting the difference.

Here is the mechanism. You register the work at BMI claiming 50%. Your co-writer registers at ASCAP claiming 40%, because they remembered it differently. ASCAP and BMI exchange registration data, the claims on the composition now total 110%, and the overlapping share is held pending resolution. The same comparison happens at The MLC, where a work with conflicting claimants sits unmatched and pays nobody.

Nothing about this is a penalty for making a mistake. It is the system working correctly — it cannot pay out 110% of a royalty, so it pays out the undisputed part and holds the rest.

The split sheet exists to make those four sets of numbers identical. It is a coordination document, and that is its entire job.

What is an IPI or CAE number and why is it on the sheet?

An IPI number — also called a CAE number — is the unique identifier assigned to a writer or publisher in the international rights database. ASCAP and BMI issue yours when your affiliation is approved, and it appears on your member dashboard.

It matters on a split sheet because names are not unique and IPI numbers are. Two writers called Chris Anderson are indistinguishable to a matching system working from a name alone, and an international society receiving your work from a reciprocal partner has no other way to identify who to pay.

This is the field most often left blank at the session, because nobody has it memorised. Take the extra two minutes: have everyone open their PRO dashboard on their phone and read it out before they leave.

When should you fill out a split sheet?

The day the song is made, before anyone leaves the room.

On the day of the session nobody knows whether the song is worth anything, everyone is in a good mood, and agreeing that the person who wrote the hook takes 20% costs nothing emotionally. Eighteen months later, if the song is earning, the identical conversation is between two people with real money at stake and genuinely different memories.

There is also a purely administrative reason. At the session everyone is present, reachable and willing to type their IPI number into a shared document. Two months later they are on tour, off social media, or no longer speaking to a third party on the sheet.

What does a split sheet not cover?

Four things it is not, worth stating plainly because people assume otherwise:

• It is not a copyright registration. Registering with the US Copyright Office is a separate filing, costing $45 for a Single Application, $65 for a Standard Application, and $65 for a whole album under Group Registration of Works on an Album of Music.
• It is not a royalty registration. ASCAP or BMI and The MLC both need the work registered directly, and neither receives your split sheet.
• It does not cover the master. Sound recording ownership is a separate matter and belongs in its own section, which is why the example above states it explicitly.
• It is not a publishing agreement. It records shares in a composition; it does not assign administration, grant rights to anyone, or create a publishing deal.

What do you do with the sheet once it is signed?

Give everyone a copy the same day, store yours somewhere that is not one laptop, and then use it. Within a week of the session, register the work at ASCAP or BMI with those exact numbers, and register it at The MLC with the same numbers again. Add the ISRC to the sheet when your distributor assigns it at release, and add the ISWC when it comes through.

A split sheet in a folder that never became three matching registrations has done half a job. The document is the easy part; the point of it is the registrations it makes correct.

I am an independent artist who has had to reconstruct splits from memory and would rather you did not, not a lawyer — for anything contested or high-value, get proper advice before you sign.