With 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.
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 the trial period).
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:
Enable Trolley integration in your account.
Create an account in Trolley and specify your company details inside the account.
Link your Tapfiliate account to your Trolley account.
Set a new payment method in Tapfiliate (either the Bank transfer (automated payment) or PayPal (automated payment)).
Ask your affiliates to fill in their billing details in their Tapfiliate account and choose the respective automated payment method.
When you decide to settle the balances and issue the payouts, submit the payment information to Trolley and process the payout.
Step 1. Enable automated payouts
In your Tapfiliate account, go to Settings -> Payments and toggle on the option for Trolley integration.
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.
Trolley's subscription plans start at $49/month.
Standard Pay module is USD 49/month - to issue the payments only
Standard Tax module is USD 149/month - to issue the taxes
Trolley does not support the following business categories
MLM (Pyramid Schemes / Direct Selling companies)
Firearms
Cannabis / CBD
Gambling
Cryptocurrency
Step 3. 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
To set up bank transfers as a payout method, log into your Trolley Dashboard and navigate to Settings > Payout Methods, then click “Bank Transfer”.
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.
In the next section, Trolley lists their available payout countries (all countries are enabled by default). We suggest leaving all countries enabled.
After enabling bank transfers and payout countries, you must fund your Trolley account to send your first batch of payments.
Enable PayPal Payments
To set up PayPal as a payout method, log into your Trolley Dashboard and navigate to Settings > Payout Methods, then click “PayPal”.
On the next PayPal page, fill in your PayPal's NVP/SOAP API Credentials.
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 4. Setting integration with the Trolley account.
To connect your Trolley account to Tapfiliate, you have to obtain your API keys from Trolley.
In your Trolley dashboard, click Settings and select API Keys from the Settings sub-menu.
On the “API Keys” page, click the +Create Production Key button in the top right corner to generate your API keys:
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 5. (additional) Set up invoices and/or W9 forms
To create invoices or W9 forms you will need to configure tax forms in Trolley.
If you need/want to use Trolley's Standard Tax module, you need to add a tax subscription in your Trolley account, and then configure your tax settings.
Navigate to Settings → Subscription Plans → Click on the toggle under Tax to activate.
Depending on your tax compliance settings, affiliates will require a completed tax form on file to be paid out. Since Tapfiliate doesn’t have visibility with Trolley, you will need to ensure that the status of your affiliates within Trolley is ‘Active’. The affiliates will be ‘Incomplete’ until a tax form is submitted.
You can do a quick check of this by navigating to the Recipient tab in Trolley, filtering by ‘Latest Tax Form Status = missing or incomplete’. If needed, you can select all, and then select ‘Request Tax Form’. This will trigger a white-label email to the affiliate directing them to the portal to fill out their tax information.
On the Recipient tab, you will also be able to see whether an affiliate is in an ‘Active’ or ‘Incomplete’ status.
Step 6. Setting a new payout method for affiliates
At the bottom of this article, you will find the automated payment set-up instructions that you can share with your affiliates. Once your affiliates have followed the steps, they will be created as the recipients in Trolley, and their commission payouts can be automated.
Step 7. Making payments
Completed the full integration? Amazing! Now it's time to actually make the commission payouts.
Go to Payments > and click on settle a single affiliate's balance or settle all balances.
If affiliates have followed set-up instructions for automated payouts, Tapfiliate sends their commission payout information to Trolley.
If affiliates have not completed the set-up steps for automated payouts, Tapfiliate will include them in the generated CSV file which is automatically downloaded in your browser when you settle 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 the Payment Minimums in the API.
Note: the affiliate commissions for affiliates are sent to Trolley automatically. The ones who have not completed the set-up steps for automated payouts will be represented in the generated CSV file and you can make additional payments through your preferred method.
Now you will need to log in to your Trolley account to fulfill the payment. Per the previous step, the payout commissions of your 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 how to create a payment.
Frequently asked questions (FAQ)
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 payouts?
This integration is available for Pro and Enterprise users only.
If you'd like to gain access to this feature, you may upgrade your plan on your Billing page.
4. I want to give you guys some feedback, where can I reach out to?
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 Settings → Payouts methods → New 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.