Payout Process Overview
In Tapfiliate, payouts are fully under your control, allowing you to decide when and how your affiliates get paid. This gives you full oversight of your budget, payment schedule, and approval process.
Why This Matters:
Total Control: Approve commissions, verify results, and pay only when ready.
Flexible Timing: Plan payouts to match your cash flow and business policies.
Accuracy First: Double-check performance data before sending payments.
Freedom of Choice: Make transfers via your preferred payment method.
Looking ahead, Tapfiliate will introduce the Hands-Free Payout Service in 2026, making affiliate payouts even easier. This feature will support payment methods such as PayPal, ACH, bank transfers, and Payoneer, and will be available in the Scale plan with a beta phase preceding full availability. Stay tuned for updates!
The affiliate payout process in Tapfiliate can be summarized as follows:
Define Payout Methods: Set up the payment options your affiliates can choose (e.g., bank transfer, PayPal, etc.). These are the methods you’ll use to pay your affiliates.
Affiliate Conversions: Affiliates drive conversions through your program.Approve Commissions: On a regular basis, review and approve or disapprove commissions.
Balance Formation: Once commissions are approved, balances are formed for each affiliate.
Settle Balances: Settling balances generates a CSV file, which you then process using the payment methods you defined earlier.
Understanding Affiliate Balances
The Balances are calculated the following way: Balances = All approved commissions – Paid amounts
Examples:
Commission approved: $10 → Balance = $10
Paid out: $10 → Balance = $0
Refund or disapproved commission: Balance = -$10
Negative balances indicate overpayments. Positive balances indicate underpayments.
Example of a negative balance in the advertiser portal:
Example of a negative balance in the affiliate account:
Step-by-step guide how to payout your affiliates
Review and approve commissions inside Tapfiliate in your commissions tab:
Please, note that you can toggle on Automatically approve commissions in Programs - General settings to enable every commission automatically approve or approve and disapprove commission using our REST API.
2. Generate a payout when ready.
Paying affiliates is a two-step process, and only the first step happens inside Tapfiliate:
Settle balances in Tapfiliate and download the CSV file.
Upload the CSV file to your payment provider to execute payments.Settling All Balances
When it’s time to generate payouts for your affiliates (weekly, monthly, or quarterly): The timing of these payouts is entirely up to the advertiser/brand and is not tied to any fixed month-end cycles.
Go to the Payouts tab → Balances.
Click Settle All Balances. A window will pop up where you can:
Define a minimum payment amount (optional)
Hover over affiliate bubbles to see individual amounts payable
Use the toggle to include affiliates who have not set a payout method
Click the blue button to complete the action.
A CSV file will be generated and downloaded to your device.
You can also find the CSV file formed in the Payout → Payment History tab.
Be careful with the toggle for affiliates without a payout method. If you include them, their balance is settled and they are marked as Settled, but there are no payment details for them in the payout file, so your payment provider has nothing to pay out to. See "Correcting a Payout That Did Not Reach an Affiliate" below.
Settling Individual Balances
To pay a single affiliate:
Click Settle Balance next to the affiliate.
In the popup window, indicate the amount to settle.
A CSV file will be generated and downloaded to your device.
Complete the transfer via your payment provider (PayPal, bank transfer, etc.), using the payout file. Do this in the same session as settling, so that "settled" and "paid" stay in step.
Before you settle: a short checklist
• Review and approve the commissions you intend to pay.
• Check which affiliates have a payout method on file, and decide deliberately whether to include the ones who do not.
• Use the Up to filter next to Settle All Balances if you only want to pay commissions up to a certain date.
• Set a minimum payment amount if you do not want to generate very small transfers.
• Download the payout file and process it with your payment provider in the same session.
What "Settled" Means
When you settle a balance, Tapfiliate does two things:
•It deducts the amount from the affiliate's balance and marks it as Settled.
•It generates a payout CSV file, which you can also find later under Payouts → Payment history.
Settled means the amount has been settled from your balance in Tapfiliate. It does not mean the money has left your account. The actual transfer is completed separately, by you, through your payment provider, using that payout file. Because the transfer happens outside the platform, Tapfiliate cannot see whether the money arrived on the affiliate's side.
This is why an affiliate can show as Settled in your dashboard and still tell you they have not been paid.
Checking Past Affiliate Payments
To view payments for a specific affiliate, go to the Affiliates tab and click View Full Profile. Here’s where you can review the payment history for a particular affiliate.
Affiliates can view their balances in the Payouts tab of their account.
A balance marked as Settled means the amount was settled from the affiliate's balance in Tapfiliate. To confirm that money actually arrived, check the transfer in your payment provider and ask the affiliate to confirm receipt in the account tied to their payout method.
Correcting a Payout That Did Not Reach an Affiliate
The most common cause of a missed payment is settling affiliates who had no payout method. The affiliate then adds a payout method later, sees nothing owing in their portal, and asks where their money is.
If a payout was settled but never actually paid:
1. Go to Payouts → Payment history.
2. Find the payouts in question, open the dropdown for each one and select Cancel.
3. The amounts return to the affiliate's balance.
4. Make sure the affiliate has now added a payout method.
5. Settle the balance again, generate a new payout file, and process the payment through your payment provider.
FAQs
❓ An affiliate says they were not paid, but my dashboard shows Settled. Who is right?
Both can be. Settled confirms the amount left their Tapfiliate balance. Check your payment provider for the actual transfer, and ask the affiliate to confirm whether it arrived in the account tied to their payout method.
❓ The affiliate's payout email is different from their sign-up email. Is that a problem?
Not usually. It is normal for the payout email to be another address attached to their payment provider, for example a second PayPal address.
❓Can I cancel a payment?
Yes. Go to Payments history, click the dropdown for a payment, and select Cancel. The amount is returned to the affiliate’s balance.
❓Can I pay out commissions up to a certain date?
Yes. Use the "Up to" filter next to Settle All Balances to include only commissions before the date.
❓What’s in the CSV file I exported after settling balances?
It contains affiliate payout amounts and payout details (if provided).
❓Why is an affiliate’s balance negative?
Negative balances result from overpayments or adjustments to previously paid commissions. Read more about it here.
❓How is invoicing for affiliate payouts dealt with?
Invoicing isn’t handled directly within Tapfiliate.
That said, you can easily connect your invoicing software to Tapfiliate to fully automate the process. Many of our customers do this by using Triggers or by integrating Tapfiliate with their preferred invoicing tool through Zapier.
Tax Forms (W-9 & 1099)
If you use PayPal to pay your affiliates, PayPal will take care of the tax reporting on your behalf.
You can find more details about how PayPal manages this in their documentation. ❓ Does Tapfiliate support all currencies for payouts? No, Tapfiliate does not support all currencies. For example, RMB/China is not supported. Payments and tax responsibilities are managed outside the platform, and users should rely on external payment providers for these functions.