Collaborator splits and Flutterwave subaccounts

A collaborator is anyone credited on a product: a co-producer, a songwriter, a vocalist, an engineer. TrakRoom records what they are owed and tells them when the product sells.

WHAT THE TWO PERCENTAGES MEAN

Revenue split % is their share of the money from each sale of that product. It is what gets paid out.

Publishing share % is their share of YOUR side of the composition — not of the whole song. Your side is set in Licenses under Contract document, and is 50% by default, with the other 50% going to the artist who writes to the beat. So a co-producer entered as 50% here ends up with 25% of the whole song, you keep 25%, and the artist keeps 50%. It is written into the licence and follows the song, but it is not paid out by TrakRoom. Someone can have publishing with no revenue, or the other way round.

The two are separate on purpose. A songwriter may own publishing without taking a cut of beat sales; an engineer may take a cut with no publishing claim.

HOW A COLLABORATOR ACTUALLY GETS PAID

Right now TrakRoom routes automatic splits through Flutterwave only. When a buyer pays with Flutterwave, the collaborator's share is sent straight to their Flutterwave subaccount at the moment of the sale. You never handle their money.

For any other gateway the split is recorded as credit metadata and shown on your order inspection, but nothing is routed automatically. You pay the collaborator yourself. Paystack, PayPal and Stripe split support is planned; until then, Flutterwave is the only gateway that pays collaborators automatically.

CREATING THE SUBACCOUNT

The subaccount is created in Flutterwave, not in TrakRoom. TrakRoom cannot create one for you, because the collaborator's bank details belong to them.

1. Ask the collaborator for their bank name and account number.
2. Sign in to your Flutterwave dashboard.
3. Open Settings, then Subaccounts.
4. Create a subaccount using their bank details. Give it a name you will recognise, such as the collaborator's artist name.
5. Copy the subaccount ID. It begins with RS_.
6. In TrakRoom, open the product, edit the collaborator, and paste the ID into Flutterwave subaccount ID.

The ID always starts with RS_ followed by letters and numbers. If what you copied does not look like that, you have copied the wrong value — it is the subaccount ID you need, not the account number.

WHY THE ID IS REQUIRED WHEN THERE IS A REVENUE SPLIT

If you give someone a revenue split with no subaccount, TrakRoom has nowhere to send their money. The sale still completes and their share is still recorded, but the payout silently never happens, and you will usually only find out when the collaborator asks where their money is. TrakRoom therefore asks for the subaccount before you can save a collaborator who is owed a percentage.

A collaborator with a 0% revenue split does not need a subaccount. They are being credited, not paid — a publishing-only writer, for example.

WHAT THE COLLABORATOR SEES

When a product they are credited on sells, they get an email naming that product, their percentage, and the amount they are due in the currency the buyer paid.

They are told about their own products only. If a buyer purchases six items in one order and three of them have different collaborators, each collaborator hears about their own product and nothing else. They never see the order total, the buyer's identity, or the other collaborators.

WHAT THE AMOUNT MEANS

The figure in the email is what their percentage comes to on that sale before payment-provider fees, and before any refund or chargeback. It is what is owed on the sale, not a settled payout. Flutterwave's fees apply on the way out, and a refunded order reverses the split.

CHECKING A SPLIT

Open Dashboard, then Orders, and inspect the order. Every collaborator on every line is listed with their name, email, percentage and expected amount. That view is yours alone — buyers never see your splits on their invoice, only the collaborator credits.