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Affiliates

Updated

With the affiliate programme, your customers earn a commission on what the customers they send you spend. An affiliate shares a link. Anyone who opens the link and then signs up becomes that affiliate's referral, and each paid invoice of a referral adds a commission to the affiliate's balance.

Turning it on

There is no on/off switch: the programme is always available. A customer joins it in two ways:

  • Themselves. In the client area, Account → Affiliates shows Join the affiliate programme. Join the programme makes them an affiliate straight away.
  • By you. Billing → Affiliates → Add Affiliate, choose the client. PNLCS also sends them the Affiliate Welcome Email (an email template under Setup → Email Templates).

Every new affiliate starts at 10 % commission on every paid invoice. Change it per affiliate (see Commission settings).

On a client account with extra users, a user sees the affiliate page only with the affiliates permission (see Client Logins & Permissions).

How referrals are tracked

  1. The link. The affiliate's link is your site address with ?ref= and their affiliate number, for example https://example.com/?ref=12. An affiliate can also choose a Personal code (3 to 32 lower-case letters, digits and dashes, not only digits), so the link becomes https://example.com/?ref=ayse. The numbered link keeps working. ?aff= works in place of ?ref=, and the link can point to any page of your site.
  2. The cookie. Opening the link stores a cookie in the visitor's browser for 90 days. Each new cookie counts as one visitor for the affiliate. A visitor who opens the link again is not counted again.
  3. The sign-up. When that visitor opens an account (at checkout or on the registration page) within the 90 days, the new client is linked to the affiliate for good.

Rules:

  • Only new accounts are linked. An existing customer who clicks a link is not.
  • The first referral wins. A later link from another affiliate doesn't take the customer over.
  • No self-referral. An affiliate can't be their own referral.
  • A link can't be added to a client by hand afterwards.

Commission

Commission is added when an invoice of a referred customer is paid.

  • What counts: the invoice's lines after discounts. Tax is not included, and neither are Add Funds lines or payments that settle several invoices at once (each of those invoices earns its own commission when it is settled).
  • New sale or renewal: the invoice of an order earns the affiliate's Commission Amount. Any other invoice (renewals and invoices you raise by hand) earns the Renewal commission when one is set.
  • Refunds: refunding a paid invoice takes back the same share of its commission. If the affiliate has already withdrawn the money, the balance only drops to zero, never below.

Commissions appear in the affiliate's Commission History and in the Referral History on their admin page.

Commission settings

Billing → Affiliates, then the affiliate's row (needs the manage affiliates permission).

The Settings card on the affiliate's page:

Field What it does
Commission Type Percentage of the invoice, or Flat Amount per paid invoice.
Commission Amount The percentage or amount for new sales. Default 10 (%).
Renewal commission Paid on renewals and other invoices that did not come from an order. Leave empty to pay the same as on new sales. 0 pays nothing on renewals.
One-time commission only Pay only on the first paid invoice of each referred customer.
Personal link code The same personal code the affiliate can set themselves.

Press Save Settings.

Payouts

An affiliate's balance is what they have earned and not yet taken out. There are two ways to take it out:

Way Who What happens
Add to Balance Affiliate (client area) or staff (affiliate page, Amount to Add) The amount moves from the affiliate balance to the client's account credit, which pays their own invoices. Any amount.
Withdrawal Affiliate: Request Withdrawal in the client area Asks you for a cash payout. At least 25 (in your default currency); there is no screen to change the minimum.
Pay Staff: Payout Amount and Pay on the affiliate page Records a payout you made, for example by bank transfer.

PNLCS records payouts, it doesn't send money

A Request Withdrawal takes the amount off the affiliate's balance straight away and records it as a withdrawal, but PNLCS doesn't send the money or notify staff. Look for Affiliate withdrawal entries in the affiliate's Referral History or under Billing → Transactions, then pay the affiliate yourself.

Don't press Pay for a withdrawal the affiliate requested: the amount has already left the balance, and Pay would take it off a second time. Use Pay only for payouts the affiliate did not request.

The affiliate's page

Client area, Account → Affiliates:

  • Total Referrals (visitors), Signups (accounts linked to them), Total Earnings (earned in total) and Pending (current balance)
  • Your Referral Link with a copy button, and the Personal code field
  • Request Withdrawal and Add to Balance
  • Commission History: the last 50 commissions, with the invoice and the referred client

Admin screens

  • Billing → Affiliates: totals (affiliates, earnings, withdrawn, visitors) and the list of affiliates with their visitors, commission type, rate, balance and withdrawn amount. Search by name or email. Add Affiliate turns a client into an affiliate.
  • The affiliate's page: details, referral link, settings, payout and credit forms, and the Referral History: commissions, reversals, withdrawals and payouts.
  • Reports → Affiliates Overview: every affiliate with visitors, balance, withdrawn and total earned (see Reports).

Affiliates can also be listed and created through the API (Affiliates).