Track affiliate commissions with rules instead of spreadsheets

Affiliate commission tracking becomes fragile when recurring revenue, refunds, product-specific rates, and tier changes are handled in a workbook.

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Details

What to know

Recommended setup

Model affiliates as payees, imported sales as revenue events, and commission terms as versioned rules.

Create one payee per affiliate or partner.
Map recurring revenue products before calculation.
Use tiers or product-scoped rules for different commission terms.
Review refunds and clawbacks before issuing statements.

Monthly close workflow

Keep commission close work repeatable by running the same review path every period.

Import or sync revenue rows.
Review product mappings and rule readiness.
Simulate significant rule changes before they go live.
Run calculations, inspect payee totals, then generate statements.

Reference Tables

Fields and checks

Worked affiliate commission example

Use this simple case to compare manual spreadsheet math with Allocora rule output.

Input	Example value	Calculation note
Net eligible revenue	USD 12,000.00	Revenue rows that match the affiliate, product, period, and refund policy.
Commission rate	15%	Stored as a versioned rule with effective dates.
Refund clawback	USD -300.00 at 15%	Refund rows reduce the commission basis when they qualify.
Base formula	(12,000.00 - 300.00) x 0.15	Produces USD 1,755.00 before downstream payout execution.

Spreadsheet before / Allocora after

Use this comparison when migrating affiliate close work out of a workbook.

Spreadsheet before	Allocora after	Why it matters
Affiliate names in free-form columns.	Affiliates are payees with stable identifiers.	Statements and exports can use the same recipient record every period.
Rates copied into formulas.	Rates live in versioned rules.	Prior periods remain tied to the rule that produced them.
Refunds handled in side tabs.	Refund rows are reviewed before calculation.	Clawbacks become part of the explainable run output.
Final totals copied into emails.	Statements come from reviewed calculation runs.	Payee-facing evidence is generated from the governed result.

Examples

Sample CSV rows and formula

These rows show the type of source evidence a commission rule can evaluate.

Sample affiliate CSV rows

external_revenue_id,transaction_date,amount,currency,revenue_type,external_product_id,payee_hint,metadata_affiliate_id
inv_1001,2026-05-01,12000.00,USD,sale,sku_pro,Northwind Partner,aff_001
rf_1001,2026-05-18,-300.00,USD,refund,sku_pro,Northwind Partner,aff_001

Simple commission formula

eligible_revenue = 12000.00 - 300.00
commission_due = eligible_revenue * 0.15
commission_due = 1755.00

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Apply this in a workspace

Start free, use sample data, then replace examples with your own revenue rows when the workflow is clear.

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