Affiliate Report: Main View

Overview

If you run an affiliate program, you can get reports on your affiliate sales in Hotcakes.  This report will not only help you to track the sales from affiliates, but you'll be able to edit/approve affiliates, make payments, and more.

The affiliate report has several views.  This article covers the main view of the affiliate report.

Requirements

The following prerequisites will be necessary to accomplish the goals of this article:

• Have access to your Hotcakes store administration
• Have the affiliate program enabled
• Configure your site to allow affiliates to register

Getting Started

This report and all of it's functionality will not be useful until you have at least one affiliate added to your site.

Affiliate Report: Main View

You'll find the affiliate report in the Reports menu of the control panel.

The main view of the affiliate report includes a search, search filter, sales summary, and a listing of the affiliates in the store.

The search has several options available to help you find the affiliates you need to see or manage.

Setting	Description
Search	This textbox should include a keyword to help you filter the affiliate list below to show you the affiliate(s) you're looking for.  This keyword will be applied to whatever is chosen in the "Search By" setting below.
Search By	This is the filter field that will be used to define which filter is used for the keyword you used above to search for affiliates.
Date Range	Select or specify the date range that you'd like to filter affiliates by. This date range will specify the period of time to look for orders that are associated with affiliates.
Apply Filter	When this radio button is selected, the affiliates grid listing below will be loaded based upon the search parameters you've provided.
Show Only Non-Approved	When selected, the search filters will be ignored, and only the affiliates that haven't yet been approved will be shown below.
Show Commission Owed	When selected, the search filters will be ignored, and only the affiliates that are owed commission will be shown below.

You'll see a sales summary next, matching the affiliates shown below, based upon the search filters above.

Column	Description
Affiliate Orders	This will be the total number of orders associated to the affiliates below, for the time period specified.
Revenue From Affiliates	This is the grand total of all orders associated to affiliates during the specified time period.
Commission Owed	This is the amount owed from the store to the affiliates, based upon their commission structure.
Commission Paid	This column will contain the amount of commission you've paid towards the affiliates.

The next section of this view is the affiliate listing grid.  It will contain all affiliates with orders during the date range on the first page load, or a result set matching your search specified above.  You can use the buttons above the grid to sort the affiliate list as desired.

Column	Description
[no name]	Check one or many of the checkboxes to enter a payment for the selected affiliate(s).  The payment view is discussed below.
Company	If the affiliate has a company name assigned to its profile, you'll see it displayed here.
Affiliate	This is the full name of the primary contact for the affiliate account.  If you click on the affiliate name, you'll be taken to the respective affiliate activity view.
ID	This is the affiliate ID that's used for referrals to the stores and for affiliate recruitment.
Sales	This column will show the total revenue referred by the affiliate for the specified date range.
Orders	You'll see the total number of orders associated with the affiliate for the specified date range.
Commission	The amount of commission that the affiliate has been paid will be displayed in this column.
Owed	If the affiliate is owed any commission, the commission amount will be shown here.  This will refleft how much you should apply to the affiliate account when you log a payment.
Signups	This column refers to the number of other affiliates this affiliate has referred for the date range.
[no name]	This is an action column, allowing you to first edit the affiliate's profile with the first icon.  The second icon will allow you to permanently delete the affiliate.

The left panel contains a couple of administrative options.

Affiliate Payments

First, you can immediately choose to add a payment now, but you'll need to specify the affiliate ID manually.  This is done a bit easier by first checking the checkbox for the affiliate(s) you wish to pay, then click this button.  

Any payments that you log here will not physically be sent to the affiliates.  This is simply a tracking tool to help you manage the affiliate program.  You'll still need to send an actual payment to your affiliates.

This version of the payment popup has all possible fields shown, because the "Add Payment" button was clicked without selecting any affiliates.

This version of the same popup is what it looks like when you've selected a single affiliate to pay.

If you select more than one affiliate to pay, you'll see this version of the payment popup.

The table below will discuss all of the possible fields that may show in the payment popup. Once you enter the desired information, click the "Save Changes" button to apply your payment.

Setting	Description
Affiliate ID	If you see this field, you'll need to enter a valid affiliate ID so that your payment can be successfully applied to the intended affiliate.
Amount	Enter the commission payment that you wish to log as being paid to the affiliate.
Memo	You can add some optional text to note anything useful about this specific payment you're logging.
Attachment	If you have scanned copy of a check you sent or any other payment information, it will be useful to upload it here.

Affiliate Export

Next, you can export the current listing of affiliates to an Excel file and download it for use outside of Hotcakes.  

The final piece of information you see here is a warning to alert you about a requirement for your affiliate program to work seamlessly.  This is discussed in more detail in the affiliate theme object documentation.