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Managing Your Affiliate Payouts: The Essential FAQ Guide

Ensuring your affiliates are paid accurately and on time is the cornerstone of a successful partnership. This guide covers setting minimum payment thresholds, custom payout methods, and automating your entire invoicing and mass payment workflow.

Sonya avatar
Written by Sonya
Updated this week

What’s in this guide?

1. Setting an Affiliate Payment Threshold

A payment threshold is the minimum amount an affiliate must earn before a payout is triggered. This helps you manage administrative costs and avoid processing dozens of tiny transactions.

  • How to set it: You can define a threshold the moment you click "Settle all Balances." A window will appear allowing you to set the minimum amount.

  • Exclusion Logic: In this same window, you can choose to exclude affiliates who haven't selected a payment method yet.

  • Eligibility: Only affiliates who meet or exceed this threshold will be included in the generated payment file.

  • Pro Tip (Automation): If you use Automated Payouts via the Triggers feature, we strongly recommend setting a threshold to keep your finances organized.

2. Adding Custom Payout Methods

While we offer standard methods like PayPal and Bank Transfer, you might want to offer something specific like Crypto, Store Credit, or a local transfer service.

How to Create a Custom Method:

  1. Navigate to Settings > Payments.

  2. Scroll to Custom Payout Methods and click "Create New Payout Method."

  3. Define the Fields: Ask yourself, "What specific info do I need to send this money?" (e.g., for a Wire Transfer, you might need "IBAN" and "SWIFT Code").

Note: We already collect First Name, Last Name, and Email by default. You don't need to ask for these again!

3. How to Make Mass Payments via PayPal

If you have a large pool of affiliates, paying them individually is a bottleneck. Using the PayPal Payouts (formerly Mass Pay) feature allows you to settle all balances in one upload.

Step-by-Step Instructions:

  1. Requirement: You must have a PayPal for Business account.

  2. Generate File: In Tapfiliate, settle your balances and download the "PayPal mass payments" CSV file.

  3. Upload to PayPal: Log in to PayPal, go to Tools > All Tools > Mass Payments (or "Payouts").

  4. Finalize: Upload the CSV file you got from Tapfiliate, review the totals, and click send.

4. Handling Invoicing and Tax Compliance

Tapfiliate focuses on tracking and generating payout data, but it does not act as an invoicing or tax software.

  • Automated Invoicing: You can use our Triggers feature or Zapier to connect Tapfiliate to tools like Quickbooks, Xero, or FreshBooks. This allows an invoice to be created automatically every time a payout is processed.

  • Tax Forms (W9/1099): If you use PayPal for your payouts, they often handle the 1099-K reporting for you once certain volume thresholds are met. For specific tax advice, we recommend consulting with a certified accountant.

Next Steps

Ready to dive deeper? Explore these resources to streamline your workflow:

  • Troubleshooting: Check more FAQs here for quick solutions.

  • Automation: Learn how to use Triggers to automate your payout notifications and workflows.

  • Integrations: Connect your favorite apps with our Zapier Integration guide.

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