Affiliates & rebate partners as agents

Affiliates, referral partners, and merchants who receive a profit-share are all modeled the same way in SplitRun: as an agent who receives a deduction that's "paid to an agent." The deduction comes out of the revenue before commissions, and the affiliate gets their own statement.

This is the same primitive as a fee — the only difference is that a fee is paid to no one, while an affiliate/partner deduction is paid to an agent.

The two-step setup

Step 1 — Create the deduction stage (once per data source)

On the data source's revenue flow, add a deduction (e.g. Affiliate, Partner) and mark it Paid to an agent, choosing its base (usually Remaining). This creates the stage; nothing is assigned yet. See Add a deduction.

Until a paid-to-agent stage exists on a source, the affiliate assignment tools on that source and its merchants show guidance text instead of controls — so this step is the real starting point.

Step 2 — Assign the affiliate to merchants

Point the affiliate agent at the merchants they earn on. You can do this three ways:

• On the data source page — the assign affiliates & partners panel: pick the payee stage, pick the affiliate agent, set the rate, and select many merchants via a searchable checklist or a pasted list of merchant IDs. It even offers an "Owned by [agent]" filter with Select all — so you can point one affiliate at another rep's entire book in a couple of clicks.
• On the merchant page — attach the affiliate deduction to a single merchant.
• On the affiliate's agent page — the Deductions card: add the affiliate to a data source's payee stage and select its accounts.

All three write the same underlying assignment, so they stay in sync automatically.

Rate: inherit or override

Each affiliate assignment can inherit the stage's default rate or override it per assignment. Edit the rate inline (the pencil) on any assignment; leave it blank to fall back to the stage default.

A common real-world pattern

A merchant closes deals and, per their agreement, gets a profit share on the accounts they brought in — the merchant is the affiliate. You'd add the merchant as an agent, then assign the affiliate deduction to the accounts they own (often another rep's accounts). In reports, that affiliate income appears on the merchant-as-agent's statement, separate from any rep commission.

Where affiliate earnings appear

• On the Agents list, a pill for the deduction type (e.g. Affiliate) with the account count.
• In reports, a dedicated Affiliate & Partner Earnings section on the agent's statement, and a Deduction Report per payee type (summary by payee, then detail per payee's accounts). See Reports overview.
• In the payout preview, as part of that agent's payout breakdown.

Verifying affiliate math

Affiliate cuts are usually "% of remaining," so their base and their position in the stack both matter — see Choosing the base. If an affiliate amount looks wrong while the rep's own commission looks right, check the stage's base and order first.