General Overview of How Commission Voiding Works
The standard practice is for affiliate managers to review commissions regularly (weekly, monthly, etc.). By default, a tracked conversion has a Pending status, and your affiliates are waiting for you to either approve or disapprove it.
There are several situations where it makes sense to disapprove a conversion, including:
Refunds or cancellations – the customer requested a refund or canceled their purchase
Returned orders – the product was returned
Fraudulent activity – suspicious or invalid traffic or orders
Self-referrals – affiliates purchasing through their own links
Duplicate conversions – the same purchase was tracked more than once
Violation of program terms – the affiliate did not follow your program rules
Test or internal orders – test purchases made by your team
Disapproving these conversions helps ensure your affiliate program stays fair and accurate for everyone involved.
You can approve or reject a conversion in the Conversion tab by clicking on the conversion and selecting a status from the dropdown menu:
Manual Processing (via the Interface)
In the case of a refund, return, or cancellation, you have a couple of options:
If the commission has already been paid out: locate the conversion and disapprove the commission.
The commission amount will then be subtracted from the affiliate’s outstanding balance.
Pro Tip: Regardless of the scenario, it’s good practice to leave a comment on the commission. This way, the affiliate knows why the commission was disapproved and why their balance was adjusted.
For partial adjustments: you can edit the commission amount for the approved conversion.
The difference will be subtracted from the affiliate’s outstanding balance.
Automatic Processing
If you’re using a smart integration that connects directly to your Tapfiliate account—like our Stripe or WooCommerce integration—you can choose to have refunds, cancellations, and disputes automatically handled for you.
To enable or disable this option:
Go to your Integrations page
Select the integration
Go to Settings and toggle the option(s) on or off
This feature is enabled by default when you connect your WooCommerce or Stripe account to Tapfiliate.
Advanced Processing (Using the REST API)
A developer can help automate the commission disapproval process or update commission/conversion amounts using the REST API.
The relevant endpoints for these actions are:
Keep in mind that implementing these automations requires a developer.
FAQs
❓Why is an affiliate's balance negative?
Affiliate balances are calculated as follows: all approved commissions minus paid-out amounts.
This means that if a commission that has already been paid out is later changed (for example, due to a refund), the adjustment will be reflected in the affiliate’s current balance.
To illustrate this, consider the following example:
An affiliate generates a conversion with a $10 commission. At this stage, the affiliate’s balance is $0.
Once the commission is approved, the affiliate’s balance increases to $10.
After the commission is settled and paid out, the affiliate’s balance returns to $0.
If the order or conversion is later refunded, you can disapprove the associated commission.
Once the commission is disapproved, the affiliate’s balance becomes –$10.
Note: An affiliate’s balance is adjusted only if the commission being disapproved has already been paid out.