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Merging two records of one affiliate

Updated

Sometimes one person appears twice on the Payouts screen. This article explains why that happens and how to merge the two records into one.

Why an affiliate can appear twice

The plugin tells affiliates apart by the email address on their coupons, or by the name when a coupon has no email. Orders you have already paid for stay with the affiliate who was paid.

So if you add an email address to a coupon, or change it, after paying its affiliate, the paid orders stay under the old name or address while newer orders move to the new one. The same person then shows up as two affiliates.

Merge the records

  1. First make sure every coupon of this person carries the same name and email on its Affiliate tab.
  2. Go to Affiliate Reports → Payouts and open the statement of the older record, usually the one without an email address.
  3. Under Merge into another affiliate, choose the record to keep. The list shows each affiliate as their name with the email address in brackets.
  4. Click Merge, then confirm with OK.

The statement of the record you kept opens with the notice “The two records were merged. Everything below now belongs to this affiliate.”

The Merge into another affiliate box on a statement, with the record of Jane Doe at jane@example.com chosen as the one to keep

What merging does

  • All orders, payments and payment lines of the merged record move to the record you picked, and take its name and email address.
  • The merged record disappears from the Payouts screen.
  • Anything owed, or owing, on the merged record now counts toward the next payment to the record you kept.
  • Coupons are not edited. That is why step 1 matters: an order that has not been paid for yet always follows what its coupon says, so a coupon that still carries the old name or address would bring its unpaid orders back under the old record.

A merge cannot be undone from the plugin, so check the choice before you confirm.

The box appears only when there is another affiliate on record to merge into. If the merge cannot be done, for example because the record you picked no longer exists, the screen says “Pick another affiliate to merge into. Nothing was changed.”

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