Automated affiliate payouts

With Tapfiliate, it's possible to automate affiliate payouts via Trolley. Use this powerful tool to boost your affiliate program management!

Sonya avatar
Written by Sonya
Updated over a week ago

With this Trolley integration, you will be a few clicks away from enabling automated commission payouts to your affiliates. Next to that, you will have the option to work with

W-9 and other tax forms and/or generate invoices.

We are launching the beta test via Trolley. This is the first step of the automated payout process. As we will be improving the flow in the future.

In this article, we will cover the following:


Who can use the automated payouts

The option is available for Tapfiliate customers starting Pro plan after the 1st subscription payment (not available during trial).

Kicking off your Tapfiliate x Trolley integration

To be able to make automated payments to your affiliates you will have to integrate with a third-party platform: Trolley. The basic steps for enabling automated payouts:

  1. Contact support to join the beta test, and we will enable automated payments for you.

  2. Create an account in Trolley and specify your company details inside the account.

  3. Link your Tapfiliate account to your Trolley account.

  4. Set a new payment method in Tapfiliate.

  5. Send to Support the list of your affiliates who will participate in the testing mode.

  6. Ask your affiliates to fill in their billing details.

  7. When you decide to settle the balances and issue the payouts, submit the payment information to Trolley and process the payout.


Step 1. Contact support to join the beta test

Please write to Customer Support and let us know if you wish to enable automated payouts. You can write us an email, or click on the blue chat icon at the bottom right of this page. Since we are still in the beta test, our developers will activate the options in your account manually.

Step 2. Set up a Trolley account.

The next step is setting up an account with Trolley. Once you've submitted your information during the signup, a Trolley representative will contact you to initiate the account registration process.

Please note: Trolley account activation may take 3+ business days. Trolley’s banking partners have different business registration flows and compliance requirements to complete before opening an account.

If you need assistance the Trolley team is there to help you to make the onboarding process as seamless as possible. Next to that, you can discuss your subscription plan. Trolley's subscription plans start at $49/month. You can view their prices and plans here.

Trolley does not support the following business categories

  • MLM (Pyramid Schemes / Direct Selling companies)

  • Firearms

  • Cannabis / CBD

  • Gambling

  • Cryptocurrency

Step 2. Payment methods in Trolley

After you have completed the onboarding process and your Trolley account is activated, you can set up the payment methods that you will use to manage your affiliate payouts through Trolley.

Enable Bank Transfer Payments

  1. To set up bank transfers as a payout method, log into your Trolley Dashboard and navigate to Settings > Payout Methods, then click “Bank Transfer”.

  2. On the next Bank Transfer page, activate this payout method by toggling on the “Enabled” (green) option which you can find at the right top corner of the page.

  3. In the next section, Trolley lists their available payout countries (all countries are enabled by default). We suggest leaving all countries enabled.

  4. After enabling bank transfers and payout countries, you must fund your Trolley account to send your first batch of payments.

Enable PayPal Payments

  1. To set up PayPal as a payout method, log into your Trolley Dashboard and navigate to Settings > Payout Methods, then click “PayPal”.

  2. On the next PayPal page, fill in your PayPal's NVP/SOAP API Credentials.

  3. Make sure to activate this payout method by toggling on the “Enabled” (green) option which you can find at the right top corner of the page.

Important: To pay your affiliates via bank transfer, please ensure that you have sufficient funds within Trolley: The entire amount to be paid (including any fees covered by you as the Merchant). You can check your Trolley balance on the “Balances” page of your Dashboard.

Read how to top up your balance in Trolley to make payouts here: Adding funds to your account.

Step 3. Setting integration with the Trolley account

To connect your Trolley account to Tapfiliate, you have to obtain your API keys from Trolley.

  1. In your Trolley dashboard, click Settings and select API Keys from the Settings sub-menu.

  2. On the “API Keys” page, click the +Create Production Key button in the top right corner to generate your API keys:

  3. A pop-up window will appear, showing you an “Access Key” and a “Secret Key” that you must store somewhere safe since you will use these API keys later to paste inside Tapfiliate.

    Note: You can view or download the specific API solely at this stage, it is impossible to recover them later. However, if needed, you can create new Trolley API keys anytime.

4. Then go to your Tapfiliate account, go to the Settings in your Tapfiliate account > and then the Payments section. Choose the Bank transfer (automated payout) and/or PayPal (automated payout) method and fill in the Trolley access key and Trolley secret key fields.

Step 4. (additional) Set up invoices and/or W9 forms.

To create invoices or W9 forms you will need to configure tax forms in Trolley. Trolley has written step-by-step guides on how to set it up:

After configured and set, Tapfiliate will apply additional fields for affiliates in the payment method section. Here they can provide all the necessary information for generating invoices or W9 Forms.

Step 5. Setting a new payout method for affiliates

In the previous step, you set the Trolley payout method.

Now, you can submit a list of your affiliates' email addresses to Tapfiliate support (support@tapfiliate.com) for us to grant them access to the beta. This payout method will only be exclusively available to the participating affiliates. Other affiliates will not see this payout method in their accounts. If it may happen that after the start of the beta test you have new affiliates to pay via Trolley, you will need to notify and send us their information too. Our Devs will enable the option in their account.


At the bottom of this article, you will find the automated payment set-up instructions for affiliates which you can share. Once your affiliates have followed the steps, and filled in the form, they will be created as a recipient in Trolley, and commission payouts can be automated.

Step 6. Making payments

Completed the full integration? Amazing! Now it's time to actually make the commission payouts.

1. Go to Payments > and click on settle a single affiliate's balance or settle all balances.

  • If the affiliate is eligible for automated payouts, Tapfiliate sends their commission payout information to Trolley.

  • If the affiliate is not eligible for automated payouts, Tapfiliate will include them in the generated CSV file which is automatically downloaded in your browser when you settled balance(s).

  • If the commission balance of the affiliate is below Trolley's minimum payout amount we will add the balance to the generated CSV file too. For more information, kindly refer to: Trolley Working with Payment Minimums in the API)

    Note: the affiliate commissions for beta affiliates are automatically sent to Trolley. The ones who are not participating in the beta test will be represented in the generated CSV file and you can make additional payments through your preferred method.

    2. Now you will need to log in to your Trolley account to fulfill the payment. Per the previous step, the payout commissions of your participating affiliates have been submitted to Trolley automatically.


    3. You can find the Recipients on your Recipients page. Check the box and click on Pay Recipients. It will direct you to the Payments page. Read Trolley's article on:



Question section


1. I want to cancel an automated payment

If by any means you need to cancel a Trolley Payment, you will have to remove the issued commission from Trolley manually and return the amount to the affiliate's balance in Tapfiliate's Payment section. Read more on how to manage refunds or cancelations in this article: "How to handle refunds and cancelations".

2. How long does it take to create a Trolley account?

Trolley provides you with a 30-day free trial. Trolley is a payment service and therefore needs to verify its customer's businesses. After signing up and uploading the necessary information and documents it can take up to 3+ business days for Trolley to verify the account and for you to start integrating with Tapfiliate.

3. Am I eligible for automated payout beta testing?

This beta test feature is available for Pro and Enterprise users only.


4. I want to give you guys some feedback, where can I reach out to?

Even though we strive for perfection, we're still in the beta version of this new feature, and we can only assume you will have feedback for us on where to improve. We're more than happy to hear your thoughts. Please share any ideas, thoughts, or complaints with our support team by e-mail or simply click on the blue chat icon at the right. We plan to improve this feature in the future.


For affiliates

Please fill in payment information in SettingsPayouts methodsNew payout method.

The image below shows all the required fields you must fill in if the Bank transfer (automated payment) payout method is selected. Please pay attention to the hints near these fields.

For the PayPal (automated payment) payout method, fill in the PayPal account email address.

After completing the payout you will receive an email confirmation.

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