Affiliates

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Knowledgebase: WHMCS Common Questions.

Affiliates

Posted by Chris W. on 06 July 2008 10:24 PM

WHMCS comes with a built in affiliates system. Affiliates are often key to a business in order to generate revenue by having others refer customers. So with that in mind, WHMCS has a comprehensive affiliate system featuring support for one time and recurring commissions, both percentage or fixed money values, payout delays, minimum withdrawal limits and live stats/info for affiliates from the client area

Configuration

To configure the affiliates system, go to Configuration > General Settings and then click the Affiliates tab. From here you can set the initial bonus deposit amount, the minimum withdrawal level, the payout delay and the percentage to payout.

Commission Settings

In the General Config you can set the default commission percentage that applies to all products & services. You can however overide this on a per product basis in the product configuration area setting. You can then overide the commission settings furthur on a per client basis and set a specific commission rate for an individual affiliate, useful for rewarding your best affiliates.

Payout Delays

With the payout delay setting you can set a period of time to delay paying commission to an affiliate. This is an advanced feature and the idea behind this is to reduce losing money paying commissions for fraudulent orders. The way it works is that instead of paying commission instantly when you are paid, it waits for a period of days and then only pays the commission should the product or service still be active after that period of time has passed.

Affiliate Linking Code

You can specify affiliate link code in the config area. Below is an example:

The above code entered in the Affiliates Link section will display the image preview of the banner first and then the code below it for the affiliate to use. The <( and )> is special syntax which you must use so the code is not executed as true HTML. WHMCS modifies this when displaying it to the client so it will appear as normal HTML.

Affiliates Cookie

The affiliates cookie by default is set to last for 90 days on the users computer. You can change the number of days it lasts for in the aff.php file.

Managing Affiliates

To manage affiliates and view their referrals and earning balance, go to Clients > Manage Affiliates. This is the one central location that allows you to manage and view everything affiliate related.

Assigning an Affiliate to an Existing Order

To assign an affiliate to an order which has already been placed and shows no referral, go to Orders > List and locate the order you want to assign to the affiliate. Once located, click on the Order ID number to open the details for that order. Scroll down to the Affiliate Referral section at the bottom of the page and then choose the Affiliate you want to assign the order to and click Submit to apply it.

Paying Commission for an already paid order

There may be some instances where you apply an affiliate to an order after it has been paid for and that would mean the affiliate has then missed out on the initial commission for that order. To correct that, after assigning the affiliate with the steps above, open the affiliates page (see Managing Affiliates above) and then on the Referrals list for the affilate, click the Pay Now button next to the new account. That will perform the equivalent action of an invoice being paid by the end user for a referred order in terms of crediting the affiliate.