After exporting your transactions report from Affilimate, you might notice that your total commissions summed up in the Commission amount column don't match the total earnings being reported in the Affilimate dashboard.
This is because the Total earnings in your dashboard and on the Performance page inside Affilimate have already taken into account any negative commission values such as refunds, cancellations or disputes while the Transactions export includes raw transaction values.
What the numbers mean in the transactions export
In the Transactions export, there are no negative commission values reported because these are raw, individual transactions. Every transaction, whether it has been finalized or refunded, includes the value of the original commission amount as a positive number.
In this exported report, we are simply stating that a transaction occurred with a value of 1.43 (for example) whether you have been paid a 1.43 commission or your merchant has refunded 1.43 to the buyer, both of those are reported as a transaction of the amount 1.43.
This is where the Status column becomes important. In order to take these negative commission values into account and get a better snapshot of your earnings, you'll need to make some adjustments based on the status of the transaction.
To see a sum of commission amounts in the transaction export in a tool like Excel:
- If the status column is Pending or Final, leave the amount as-is
- If the status is Refunded, multiply the amount by -1
- If the status is Canceled, treat as zero
We try our best to leave the original amounts visible for canceled transactions so you know the value of any lost revenue.
What the numbers mean in the content export
In the Content export, we have already combined data from different formats and sources, so you are seeing the end result of those calculations. Hence why the columns don't include raw numbers, but instead are formatted values in the account currency.
As a result, your Transactions export may appear to show higher earnings than what you see in the Content export or your Affilimate Dashboard because we have already automatically used the transaction statuses to subtract any refunded transactions from your Total earnings.
