Affiliation/Commissions - Looking for feedback, ideas, suggestions

[Ithiel]

2 hours ago, Kian said:

@Ithiel Finally it works 😭

Woohoo!!! <3

2 hours ago, Kian said:

47 or 49%?

My bad, sorry. 47%. Not sure if I just made a typo there or something.. but yeah, ATO says 47%, so 47% it is.

2 hours ago, Kian said:

Second question. Let's say that you owe 1000 AUD to your sales representative. This guy has has ABN and GST therefore I have to issue a RCTI / Credit Note with GST that will look like follows:

• Payout | 1000 AUD
• Subtotal | 1000 AUD
• GST 10% | 100 AUD
• Total | 1100 AUD

Is it correct?

 

Yes... assuming the following:

1. The affiliate that referred the sale was registered for GST and provided an ABN (per your comment)

2. The seller/store owner was registered for GST

3. The product(s) sold that generated the commission incur GST

4. The sale of those products incurred GST (i.e. wasn't sold to a foreign business or to an entity that is exempt from GST)

 

If the affiliate referred two sales that were $5500 Inc. GST each, so total sales referred of $11000 (of which $1000 is GST), then his 10% commission would be:

$1100 Inc. GST ($1000 subtotal, $100 GST)

 

If the affiliate referred one sale that was $5500 Inc. GST and one sale that was $5000 (No GST), then his 10% commission would be:

$550 Inc. GST + $500 (No GST) = $1050 Inc. GST

 

If the affiliate referred two sales that were $5000 (No GST), so the total sales referred was $10000 (of which $0 was GST), then his 10% commission would be:

$1000 (No GST)

[Kian]

Let's talk about Milestones for a moment. CM awards commissions for things like Top 3 Revenue. Let's say that an affiliate manages to rank #1 unlocking a fixed reward of 100 AUD. Should I consider Milestones taxed (100 AUD + GST) or GST-free (100 AUD no GST)?

I was thinking about basing it on WHMCS Tax configuration. As you probably know there's an option that allows to define where you want to apply tax:

• Domains
• Billable Items
• Late Fees
• Custom Invoices

Milestones should fall into "Custom Invoices" category hence if "Custom Invoices" has been selected 100 AUD will be considered as taxed.

Edited November 28, 2019 by Kian

[Ithiel]

17 minutes ago, Kian said:

Let's talk about Milestones for a moment. CM awards commissions for things like Top 3 Revenue. Let's say that an affiliate manages to rank #1 unlocking a fixed reward of 100 AUD. Should I consider Milestones taxed (100 AUD + GST) or GST-free (100 AUD no GST)?

From my understanding, yes - assuming the seller and the affiliate were both registered for GST, I believe that milestones would be subject to GST.

That is, if there was a bonus is $100 for hitting that milestone, the amount payable to the GST-registered affiliate would be $110 Inc. GST ($100 AUD + GST), as its considered payment for a services rendered (which is subject to GST). The important thing to note is that this would be the case even if the products that the affiliate helped sell weren't subject to GST.

 

• Example: If an affiliate referred $10000 in sales to an overseas end client (who thus didn't pay GST) and earned a $1000 (No GST) commission, if that won him the  'top 3 in revenue' bonus, that bonus would still be $110 Inc. GST.

 

For reference, while there are GST exemptions to bonuses, I believe that they're limited to things like taxi/ride sharing services... which have their own super-freaking-complicated set of rules that we're not going anywhere near here, haha.

[Kian]

Job done.

It works and will be released with Billing Extension 2.2.101 and Commission Manager 2.0.8 hopefully tomorrow BUT first I want to say something to myself...

On 7/2/2019 at 2:53 PM, Kian said:

3-4 days 🤔

3-4 days??? Are you kidding me?! 🤬 Next time use Google and you'll find things like Australia's tax system third most complex in the world. They even told you! And next week you have Slovenia's electronic payments followed by... Swden? 😖 Stop this!

[Ithiel]

12 hours ago, Kian said:

Job done. It works and will be released with Billing Extension 2.2.101 and Commission Manager 2.0.8 hopefully tomorrow BUT first I want to say something to myself...

12 hours ago, Kian said:

BUT first I want to say something to myself... 3-4 days??? Are you kidding me?! 🤬 Next time use Google and you'll find things like Australia's tax system third most complex in the world. They even told you! And next week you have Slovenia's electronic payments followed by... Swden? 😖 Stop this!

haha, yeah.... sorry 'bout that. But on the bright side, we've both learned a lot about GST :-P

(hopefully a large chunk of this will apply to India/Canada's GST as well)

Let me know when it's live and I'll go buy 'em and start the install/configuration adventure, haha

[Ithiel]

Well, that made a mess... 😂

 

Righto, so... the Billing Manager's default configuration is 'somewhat at odds' with Australia's requirements. All easy to change setting (once you figure out what has happened), but when I installed the plugin over the weekend (with the plan of configuring it on Monday), I hadn't expected it to unleash havoc on our billing cycle Monday morning. My bad, I guess.

So... a couple of suggestions:

1. BM: Have the default setting for invoice numbering set to "continue from where WHMCS was already at", not "reset invoice numbers to 1". 😕

2. BM: Option to convert proforma back into invoice. I really didn't want it to automatically convert that invoice (paid for with credit) back into a proforma... Now I can't figure out how to turn it back into an invoice. I've disabled that in the future, but I can't figure out how to change what it's already done.

3. BM: Suppress notification invoice you still want to generate. I need to generate those $0 invoices, but I don't need them emailed to the client. They just need to exist for our/client reference (and the fact that a whole bunch of $0 invoices were suppressed has me quite annoyed, so an un-suppress-and-generate-the-missed-ones option would be grand, but I understand that probably isn't a practical possibility... such is life).

4. CM: The admin portal sidebar dropdown menu link for 'Commission Manager' (to show the sub options like settings and such) doesn't work. Clicking it just takes me through to the Commission Manager Dashboard - I've had to code inspect the page to find the link to the sub pages.

5. CM: Clarification as to how Commission Manager Commission Rules impact/override/add-to/whatever the per product based Affiliate Commission settings that WHMCS has as default (that I already have configured). I have no idea what commissions are now applying for products that affiliates have already referred, as CM says everything is "No", while WHMCS affiliate commissions still lists the old amount.

6. Please add a BIG ASS WARNING when installing BM/CM that 'this automatically chances a bunch of stuff - quickly go and configure right this section or sadness will engulf your life!"

 

That being said, it looks like you've put an amazing amount of work into this and I'm really looking forward to seeing how it can help our business... I just need to make sure it only fixes the problems I already have and not have it create new ones 😛

 

[Ithiel]

11 minutes ago, Ithiel said:

So... a couple of suggestions:

7. BM: Reset Invoice Numbers Annually?! Oh my word, is this a thing in places?! Crap, glad I spotted that one and disabled it. 

8. BM: Gaaahh.... Why is it now sending notification emails every time we modify an invoice? We're trying to correct things (which requires saving a few times), it floods the clients with notifications. I've checked the 'suppress notifications' option, and can't find anything relating to that. How do I make that horror go away?! If/when I want to notify clients of the change, I will click the button that says to send it to the client.

Much sadness, this has brought :'-(

[Kian]

Before installing BX first you should review all settings to make sure it works in line with your regulations. It's a billing module not a template with hundreds of features and even 8 plugins (basically additional modules inside the "core" module). Every feature/setting comes with descriptions and often an article in documentation. It's not a "plug-and-play" software as mentioned in Completing the installation "we recommend to double-check all settings to make sure that everything has been properly configured"

10 hours ago, Ithiel said:

1. BM: Have the default setting for invoice numbering set to "continue from where WHMCS was already at", not "reset invoice numbers to 1". 😕 

You're probably using {NUMBER} auto-tag instead of {ID}. More info here.

10 hours ago, Ithiel said:

2. BM: Option to convert proforma back into invoice. I really didn't want it to automatically convert that invoice (paid for with credit) back into a proforma... Now I can't figure out how to turn it back into an invoice. I've disabled that in the future, but I can't figure out how to change what it's already done.

Completing the installation > Incorrect Invoice Detection. I quote a small part of it that includes the solution.

WHMCS doesn't distinguish between proforma and invoices and doesn't even support credit notes. On the contrary Billing Extension marks every document as Proforma, Invoice or Credit Note. This difference might raise a problem. In fact there's no intelligibile way to detect document type when you install the module for the first time. Of course on your system can easily say the difference between a proforma and an invoice by simply looking at invoice numbers. Probably you're using a prefix like "F", "I" or "INV" to mark invoices but the module cannot know what prefix or suffix every company is using therefore it will try to guess this information based on various criteria.

10 hours ago, Ithiel said:

3. BM: Suppress notification invoice you still want to generate. I need to generate those $0 invoices, but I don't need them emailed to the client. They just need to exist for our/client reference (and the fact that a whole bunch of $0 invoices were suppressed has me quite annoyed, so an un-suppress-and-generate-the-missed-ones option would be grand, but I understand that probably isn't a practical possibility... such is life).

Invoice Suppression. I quote:

Occasionally WHMCS issues zero balance invoices (no amount). This event occurs also when customers order free services, use 100% discount coupon codes or fully pay invoices with their credit balance. In most of the countries such invoices can be suppressed since there are no payments involved. Before enabling any of these features please consult your accounting advisor.

By default BX suppresses the following invoices:

• No amount (zero)
• Full discount
• Fully paid by credit

But you can customize this feature in one click from Addons > Billing Extension > Settings > Billing Preferences > Invoice Suppression.

10 hours ago, Ithiel said:

4. CM: The admin portal sidebar dropdown menu link for 'Commission Manager' (to show the sub options like settings and such) doesn't work. Clicking it just takes me through to the Commission Manager Dashboard - I've had to code inspect the page to find the link to the sub pages.

 

You're probably using a custom Admin template like Lara Admin or something else. Our submenu has been crafted for standard templates of WHMCS for the simple reason that we can't be in the head of every single designer of the world to predict where they place elements. At the end of the day it's our fault 😅 We get used to it. Our modules are full of fallbacks to integrate with third-party templates (even though we can't officially support every template). That said, let me know what's the name of your Admin template.

10 hours ago, Ithiel said:

5. CM: Clarification as to how Commission Manager Commission Rules impact/override/add-to/whatever the per product based Affiliate Commission settings that WHMCS has as default (that I already have configured). I have no idea what commissions are now applying for products that affiliates have already referred, as CM says everything is "No", while WHMCS affiliate commissions still lists the old amount.

Getting Started > WHMCS Affiliates.

11 hours ago, Ithiel said:

6. Please add a BIG ASS WARNING when installing BM/CM that 'this automatically chances a bunch of stuff - quickly go and configure right this section or sadness will engulf your life!"

As I said earlier, BX is a billing module. It's not something you can activate without worrying about anything. It has features to adapt to EU, US or whatever country/federation tax system of the world so it's obvious that it needs your supervision when installing.

10 hours ago, Ithiel said:

7. BM: Reset Invoice Numbers Annually?! Oh my word, is this a thing in places?! Crap, glad I spotted that one and disabled it. 

This is mandatory in several countries with exceptions. In the same country, company X could be required to reset numbers annually while company Y could keep increasing numbers. As you can imagine this is not something that BX can predict that's why, as I said earlier, you have to review all settings before going live.

10 hours ago, Ithiel said:

8. BM: Gaaahh.... Why is it now sending notification emails every time we modify an invoice? We're trying to correct things (which requires saving a few times), it floods the clients with notifications. I've checked the 'suppress notifications' option, and can't find anything relating to that. How do I make that horror go away?! If/when I want to notify clients of the change, I will click the button that says to send it to the client.

 

Of course there's no "feature" that floods customers with emails therfore please submit a ticket. Probably they're all sent by WHMCS but let us know.

 

 

 

 

[Ithiel]

On 12/3/2019 at 9:32 PM, Kian said:

You're probably using a custom Admin template like Lara Admin or something else. [...] That said, let me know what's the name of your Admin template.

SwiftModders WHMCS Admin Theme

On 12/3/2019 at 9:32 PM, Kian said:

Getting Started > WHMCS Affiliates.

I checked that page, it doesn't answer my questions. I understand how to setup commissions in Commission Manager (still trying to figure out how to set limits - such as only paying for the first 24 months of a subscription product, but that's a separate issue).

While initially I couldn't understand "what happens with the affiliate settings you already configured in WHMCS's default options" (i.e. you go and edit a product and set a commission of X%), the penny dropped with the opening sentence that reads:

"Commission Manager doesn't share any bit of information with the standard Affiliates system of WHMCS. There's no connection between them for the simple reason that WHMCS is quite basic hence there wasn't much to integrate. We built a whole new system from scratch to let you manage affiliates. On paper both systems could work separately."

Which answers one question, but opens up another as to how I transfer existing affiliates (along with their corresponding affiliate commissions that they're owed, and what products/clients they referred) to this new platform... but from the looks of things, the answer is "do it manually, then deactivate the WHMCS integrated affiliate tools". Not as streamlined as I was hoping for, but manageable none the less.

On 12/3/2019 at 9:32 PM, Kian said:

Of course there's no "feature" that floods customers with emails therfore please submit a ticket. Probably they're all sent by WHMCS but let us know.

We were modifying an invoice. Each time we hit save, it automatically sent an "Invoice Modified" email to the client (rather than us being able to manually send a single update at the end when we were finished fixing things). This automated message hadn't happened before installing BX. :-/

Edited December 7, 2019 by Ithiel

[Ithiel]

Hmm... I just realised that this no longer works with Affiliate Plus, which is the nifty plugin that allowed me to create nice affiliate URLs on my parent site (instead of directly to WHMCS - more on how I had that configured is detailed in my review here - https://marketplace.whmcs.com/product/3617)

Unfortunately though, the redirect links don't seem to track with commission manager.

Is there a way to setup custom affiliate landing pages/url redirections with Commission Manager? I'd like something that I can setup that will redirect them out of WHMCS and onto the actual 'nice' landing pages on our main website.

[bipixel]

Thank you @Kian love this plugins 🙂 .

[Ithiel]

All in all - loving the extra functionality (still to fully migrate the affiliates across to the new platform, but I'll tackle that over the holidays). However, we have come across another bug, which is causing some problems in our reporting and accounting.

Since the documentation states that {ID} isn't a compatible with invoices (documentation says that {ID} is "available for proformas only"), and using just "{NUMBER}" caused all sorts of head aches for us, we have started using this invoice number format: {YEAR}-{NUMBER}

However, parts of WHMCS still show the invoice as being the ID and ignore the new invoice numbers.

• If I look at the unpaid invoices page, I see the new invoice number (all good)
• If I run a client statement report (reports -> more -> client statement), it shows the ID instead of the new invoice number.
• In our accounting software, which syncs via the "MyWorks QuickBooks Sync Module", the invoices are coming across as the ID.

We either need to be able to:

a) make sure that everything shows the new invoice number

OR

b) be able to set {ID} (the WHMCS default) as the invoice numbers again.

--- If I am already able to do this (and it's just the documentation that's wrong), please let me know and I'll change the invoice number to {ID} instead.

 

Thanks!

[Ithiel]

GAAAHHH!!!! As of late December, the system is creating proformas (with numbers that match other invoices - creating a whole mess identifying who is paying what), even through Proformas is set to "Off".

I just wanted a thing that gave me GST compliance with affiliate programs, and now every month there is another drama with the billing side that previously never had any problems. 😭

How do I make sure that everything "proforma" dies in a fire? I never want a proforma generated for anything under any circumstances. #RealInvoicesForever..

[Ithiel]

Proforma Invoicing: Disabled

But it still creates proformas!

WHY IS IT SO?!?!!?!?

*cries in a proforma-corner*

[Ithiel]

Looks like the persistent proforma problem is a bug with "enhanced renewals" - if that is enabled, proformas will be created for renewals, even if proformas are disabled. Disabling it seems to have fixed the problem.

 

FEATURE REQUEST: I'd really like {ID} to be a valid auto-insert tag for invoices. This would allow me to keep with WHMCS's default invoice numbering while using this extension. You currently allow {ID} for proformas, but not for invoices (you allow {NUMBER}, but that doesn't always stay aligned with the ID).

 

I really didn't imagine when we started down this rabbit hole that trying to sort our problem with affiliates would create so many dramas with billing, haha.

[Ithiel]

Four and a half months on.. and I still can't get commission manager to work.

• Commissions track against their affiliate.
• The affiliate requests a payout.
• I approve it in the dashboard and... nothing.

I sent a ticket to Katamaze support, they suggested a series of steps I had already tried, and when I said it didn't work, they ignored the ticket until it timed out and closed automatically.

Really disapointed that after throwing all of this time, energy and money at trying to find a solution, I'm even further away from a working affiliate system than I was before I started with this addon.

Ithiel

[Ithiel]

We're now approaching a year since I asked @Kian if the functionallity I needed was possible.

We're now at six months since the requested functionallity was released.

We're still at 0 affiliate commissions being paid out correctly - because it still doesn't actually work >.<

 

Growing my affiliate network is going to be one of the major factors of me surviving this pandemic or not.

I can't stress how important it is that I get this working... but no one at Katamaze is responding to my support tickets.

[Ithiel]

@Kian,

This is getting crazy. What the hell is going on?

A large part of my business is on hold until I can get this mess sorted.

What do you need to make this a priority for you and to get this fixed?

Ithiel.

[Ithiel]

[Ithiel]

Hi @Kian,

Any update?

Really trying to remain civil here, but you're not making it easy 😅

Ithiel

[Ithiel]

Hi @Kian,

In Mid-September, you said that you would ask your colleague to take a look at our issue.

We are now three months on from that post (over a year since we purchased the software), but the only responce we've had from anyone at Katamaze was that our ticket was closed.

I really can't stress this enough - I need this to work. I have already offered to pay more for the fix if that's what it takes. I need this to work, and I need it urgently.

Can you please respond.

Regards,

Ithiel

[Ithiel]

On November 21, 2019, @Kian released an update to make Commission Manager compatible with Australia's GST rules.

Sadly, it didn't work. Payouts were initially generating invoices as bills (so a $10 commission would make an invoice saying the affiliate received a $10 invoice) and everything that was discussed about GST was completly ignored by the system.

After months of back and forth, @Kian finally had a very brief look at it... after which the system became completly inoperable, where users could no longer request pay-outs at all. A giant step backwards.

Since then, nothing. Months rolled on, and it's now 2021. @Kian refuses to reply to messages, he refuses to respond to support tickets, and refuses to respond to community posts.

This has been lodged with WHMCS Support, his marketplace account flagged for his refusal to support his products, and I've been given tacit approval to stalk him across the forums to kick up a fuss as much as I am able - as long as I keep it "classy".

I gave Katamaze/Kian another oppertunity to respond over the holiday period, warning him that I'd kick up more 'public' fuss if he continued to refuse to reply. His silence is my answer.

Guess we all know what happens next 🤷