Affiliate program. General information

BILLmanager allows to add and manage affiliate programs. An affiliate program will compensate a certain amount of purchase on referred new customers.

An affiliate can bring referrals in two ways:

• Via an affiliate link. The billing system generates a unique link for every partner. The system considers that clients who clicked through referral are invited by a particular partner. As a rule, the provider's partners place affiliate links on their websites.
• Using a promo code. Each partner has a unique promotion code. Affiliates need to enter a promo code when ordering services. Clients who used this promo code are considered to be invited by this particular partner. 

Affiliate program configuration

To add a new affiliate program navigate to BILLmanager Marketing → Affiliate programs → Add:

• Provider — a service provider who launches an affiliate program.
• Name — the name of the affiliate program. 
• Promo code template — you can use the macro @ID@ - a unique partner ID. A promo generated without this macro is invalid. A promo code is only valid when used for the first time. If a client has several unpaid services on his account, the promo code won't work.
• Reward — percent of a client's expenses that will be added to the affiliate account at the end of the month.
• Referral period — period in months during which a client will get a percentage from referral expenses.
• Connect automatically — when connecting to the provider, clients will automatically select a referral program. By default, only one referral program can be active at a provider.
• Website URL — the URL of the provider website. Add the '?from=' parameter to the domain site to generate an affiliate link. Using this parameter, BILLmanager defines an affiliate who referred a client. Every affiliate has a unique URL with its id at the end.
• Client group — a group of clients who can participate in the affiliate program.
• Forbid for group members — a group of clients who won't be rewarded for the affiliate program.

How to configure affiliate program rules

By default, the affiliate program applies to all types of services, across all expenses of the referral. You can configure specific rules for particular product types in Marketing → Affiliate programs → Rules button → Add:

1. Enter the Reward — the percentage of the referral's expenses that will be accrued to the partner at the end of the month.
2. Select the Product/Service for which the specific rule will apply. Press Ok.

For example, the provider has created the referral program "For individuals — 20%". All types of services are rewarded with 20% under this program. An exception is the type of service "Shared hosting". A separate rate for this type of service exists — 30%. The provider has set this amount of reward using a rule. Partners will be rewarded according to this rule, specifically, 30% of the attracted referral’s expenses.

Integration with your website

To keep track of clients who followed the affiliate links and got registered, add the following code into any page of the provider's website: 

<script language="javascript"> var counter_url = "https://billmgr.domain/mancgi/counter?rnd="+Math.random()+"&project=1&r="+escape(document.referrer)+"&p="+escape(window.location.href); document.write("<img src='" + counter_url + "' border=0 width=0 height=0 style='display: none;'>"); </script>

Assigning a client manually

To associate a referral with the client, navigate to Clients → Clients → select a client → Accounts → select an account → Edit → Referred by client:

Paying commission to affiliates 

At the 1st of each month, the affiliate gets paid for the payers he sends. The amount is calculated based on the referral expenses for the previous month. The billing system automatically creates a payment for the affiliate. 

The provider can run the operation manually:

/usr/local/mgr5/sbin/billmaintain --command affiliatemonthly --date 2016-04-01

The billing system generates referral rewards for the current month. if the '--date 2016-04-01' parameter is specified, the system will generate the payments for April (the fourth month).

Withdrawal of funds

To make a withdrawal from the personal account:

1. Enter Clients → Clients → select a client → click Accounts.
2. Select an account → click Refund.
3. Fill in the form:
   1. Payment method — the payment method by which the refund will be made. A negative payment will be created with the specified payment method. 
   2. Refund rules — Select the rule that determines the amount of the withdrawal fee. 
   3. Payment — select the payment from which you want to perform a refund. All credited and unspent advances are available for selection. 
   4. Amount — enter the amount of the refund.

Refund rules

To add a rule, enter Settings → Refund rules → click Add:

1. Name — specify the name for the refund rule. 
2. Fee amount — specify a fixed commission amount. Specified in the provider's currency. If the field is not filled in, no fixed commission will be charged.
3. % from refund — specify the percentage rate of the commission charged. If the field is not filled in, no percentage rate will be charged.
4. Calculate amount of refund — select the rule for calculating the total commission amount. Enabled if the fields Commission amount and % of refund amount are filled in.
   • % + amount — calculated according to the formula: (refund amount / % of refund amount) + Commission amount.
     For example, a provider has processed a refund to a client using the "10 + 10" rule. The amount of refund is 200 rubles. Commission amount - 10 rubles, % of refund amount - 10%.
     The commission amount will be 30 rubles ((200 / 10) + 10), including: 20 rubles - 10% of 200 and 10 rubles - fixed commission.
   • amount + % — calculated according to the formula: Commission amount + ( (refund amount - Commission amount) / % of refund amount).
     For example, a provider has processed a refund to a client using the "10 + 10" rule. The amount of refund is 200 rubles. Commission amount - 10 rubles, % of refund amount - 10%.
     The commission amount will be 29 rubles (10 + (200 - 10) / 10%), including: 10 rubles - fixed commission and 19 rubles - 10% of 190.
5. Expense name — specify the name for the commission withdrawal expense.