A regular cadence of order corrections is a critical part of effectively managing your affiliate program. Corrections allow advertisers to reverse the commission of an order before it is paid out to the attributed publisher. Common scenarios that require corrections include:
- All or part of a transaction is returned by the customer and a refund is issued
- The order was cancelled
- The transaction was fraudulent
- In a lead program, the lead could not be qualified is valid, or advertiser-specific criteria was not met
Corrections should be processed regularly, on a cadence reflective of the program’s locking period, the time in which advertisers can make corrections to orders before payment. For example, an advertiser with a 30-day locking period should reconcile and correct orders at least twice a month.
Transactions can be corrected manually or in bulk.
Manual Corrections
Manual corrections can be processed from the Transaction Details Report (Track > Transactions > Transaction Details). Locate the order that needs to be adjusted (specific Order IDs can be entered to filter the results) and click “Correct”. If you are utilizing our Itemized or Dynamic tracking, the individual items within that order will need to be adjusted. If you are using our Basic tracking, the sales total is the only adjustment needed. Note that both the item price and quantity should be set to zero for a full correction. Once the adjustments are made, click “Save”.
Bulk Uploading Corrections
Corrections can be uploaded in bulk via the Ascend Platform under Transactions > Bulk Modify Transactions.
Uploading bulk transactions requires a file formatted to Pepperjam specifications. Click on the “Bulk Upload Documentation – Corrected Transactions” link for complete instructions.
The upload file must be in CSV (comma separated value) format. The first line of the file must contain all required outlined the documentation.
Bulk corrections can also be processed via FTP. Advertisers can host a corrections file at an FTP location of their choosing, which Pepperjam will access daily and process any available corrections. Pepperjam does not offer an FTP to advertisers for file hosting. Note that all corrected orders in a given period can be sent for correction; advertisers do not need to aggregate a list of affiliate-specific transactions. The corrections process will ignore order IDs not relevant to the affiliate channel. Orders not recognized will generate a transaction error which can be cleared following the corrections process.
For advertisers utilizing Pepperjam’s Shopify Extension, a corrections URL is available. For new integrations, the URL will be presented during the setup process. If the Extension has already been configured, advertisers can locate the corrections URL in Shopify’s administrator panel under Apps > Pepperjam.
Reporting & Invoicing
The record of an order correction will show in advertisers’ Transaction History Report (Track > Transaction > Transaction History) in the month in which the correction was processed. Consider an order placed in March and corrected in April. The first record of the transaction is recorded in March’s reporting, while the line item correcting the transaction is listed in April. A similar reporting structure exists in the invoicing process.
Should a transaction be made and corrected within the same month, both actions will be accounted for on the advertiser’s total balance due for the billing period. However, the process differs for transactions made and corrected in different billing periods. Rather than correct a settled invoice, corrections will be shown as commission adjustments on the invoice for the month in which the correction was made. For example, if an order is placed in September but corrected in October, the corrections will reflect on the October invoice under the commission adjustment line items.