A catalogue audit is a systematic check of every song you've released against every database that's supposed to pay you — your PRO, The MLC, and SoundExchange — looking for the registration gaps that quietly stop royalties from reaching you.
It answers three questions: Is every song registered everywhere it should be? Do all the registrations agree with each other? And is anything already sitting unclaimed?
What an audit actually finds
Across independent catalogues, the same problems show up over and over:
- Unregistered works — songs that made it to streaming services but never got registered with the PRO, the MLC, or both. Distribution does not register compositions; many artists don't realize these are separate steps.
- Mismatched writer names — legal name in one database, artist name in another, a typo in a third. Matching algorithms treat these as different people, and unmatched royalties don't pay out.
- Missing identifiers — no ISWC on the work, missing IPI numbers on writers, recordings not linked to compositions by ISRC.
- Conflicting splits — co-writers who registered different percentages for the same song, putting the work into conflict and holding payment for everyone. (A signed split sheet at the session prevents this — an audit finds where it already happened.)
- Missing SoundExchange registrations — no rights-owner registration, unclaimed recordings, or producers owed a share with no Letter of Direction on file.
Who actually needs one
Artists with 15+ releases — below that, you can realistically audit yourself with our free checklist in an afternoon. Above it, the cross-checking becomes a real project, and older releases are the most likely to have gaps.
Anyone who changed distributors, names, or teams — transitions are where metadata breaks. New distributor, new artist name, a departed manager who 'handled the admin' — these all leave seams.
Artists with collaborators on most tracks — every co-writer, producer, and feature multiplies the ways registrations can disagree.
Managers and labels — a roster multiplies everything. Registration gaps across ten artists' catalogues compound into real money, and none of it shows up on any royalty statement you receive — that's what makes it invisible.
DIY or done-for-you?
The honest answer: if your catalogue is small and your records are tidy, do it yourself — the checklist covers every step. Where a paid audit earns its fee is volume and the ugly cases: works stuck in conflict, duplicate registrations, claims on historical unmatched royalties, and catalogues where nobody's sure what was ever registered in the first place.
Our Catalogue Audit covers up to 25 works for artists (up to 100 for the pro tier, and custom scopes for rosters). You get a work-by-work gap report: what's missing, what's mismatched, what it's likely costing you, and a prioritized fix list. If you want the fixes handled too, our Registration Cleanup add-on closes the gaps for you.
Whichever route you take, the worst option is the default one: assuming the systems got it right. They frequently didn't — and they don't send an email when they don't.