Could someone explain the Affiliate system?

[nibb]

Someone using the Affiliate systems, maybe can shed some light into it.

The affiliate account is exactly the same as a customer account or its a different account?

This means, someone that signs up as Affiliate can also order regular products and the other way around?

I want to activate this option in Hostbill but only for registered clients. This means, I don´t want users registering into the Affiliate systems, but I want customers being able to sign up as Affiliate.

[Lawrence]

All affiliates are customers, but not all customers are affiliates. Users can't really just sign up to be an affiliate, they'll be signing up as a customer would, but without ordering a product.

If you enable affiliates, you'll be giving everyone in your HostBill install access to sign up as an affiliate. All they'll have to do is click the button that says become an affiliate.

[nibb]

Ok I think I get it.

So signing up as Affiliate creates a customer account + affiliate privileges.

But just signing up as customer does not turn you automatically into an affiliate correct?

This means you can still enable a customer as affiliate from the admin side.

So what happens if a customer that was already signed up as a customer wants to be an affiliate? I assume he can still sign up...

I guess its not possible to restrict this only to customers with active services.

How about earnings? How do this work here? Usually an Affiliate systems you pay out, via check, paypal, etc.

As far as I know Hostbill is a billing system, so its designed to receive incomes not send them out. And I don´t want this either. I just want to credit customers. This means earnings from affiliates, I don´t want them to be paid out in cash, but just as credits to customers, so they can use this to order or pay invoices.

[Lawrence]

All existing customers can sign up to be affiliates. Unfortunately a customer doesn't need an active service to be an affiliate if that's what you're looking for.

The earnings before this recent release were a complete mess. I'm hoping that this release has fixed it. If you're just starting out, and the earnings are fixed, then you're starting out at the best possible time, but make sure you update to the latest version with the affiliate fix.

You don't have to pay customers out, and you could just pay them in the form of credit. This is fine, and easily done.

[nibb]

What do you mean it was a mess?

You mean the Affiliate system was not working before 4.6.0

Ouch... that makes me reconsider it then, because the reason I did not used it before, was because I delayed myself.

I don´t want to use hostbill for payouts, this means, sending money via PayPal, checks, ec. Just turn earnings into credits. So they can use it for their own invoices.

I would also prefer to manually activate affiliates, since you say its not possible to have only customers with active services. How about? I activate the affiliate system but need to manually approve Affiliates accounts. Is that possible?

[Lawrence]

By mess, I mean it wasn't recurring subscriptions (Which is said to be fixed now), and the reporting is still a bit sloppy. This is prior to 4.6.x, still haven't tested the updates however.

Payouts I believe are manual. Your client can request a withdrawal, but you'll have to approve it. At that time, you just adjust their credit balance. All payouts are recorded.

Currently affiliates can be activated manually, but only with the affiliate system enabled. This would in turn make it available to everyone, which of course doesn't work in your best interest.

[UCG_Keith]

We use the Affiliate system for our Sales Reps ONLY. We have removed the Affiliate links from the Client Portal.  As of 4.6, the recurring subscription seems to be working fine (no complaints from our Reps).  We do not allow our clients to become a Rep (Affiliate).

My 2 cents

Keith

[nibb]

That was one idea. To activate the system, and then remote the links for signup manually. Then I can just activate it manually for those accounts which I want or need.

I guess that could work.