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Handling product returns and cancellations

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A returned, cancelled or refunded order should not earn the affiliate a commission. For each conversion, you have three possible decisions: accept it, refuse it or lower its amount. This page tells you which one to take, in what order, and with which tool.

Prerequisite: your commission rules put new conversions on hold (field Status of new conversions: pending). Set to accepted, this field accepts conversions as soon as they are created. Without a grace period, they are then locked straight away and no return can be taken into account any more.

Which decision for which order

THE ORDER	YOUR DECISION	FOR THE AFFILIATE
Kept by the customer	Accept	The commission is due
Cancelled, unpaid, refunded or fully returned	Refuse, with the reason Order returned, cancelled or refunded	No commission, and they can see the reason
Partly returned	Lower the amount to the amount kept, then accept	The commission is recalculated on the amount kept
Still within the return period	Wait, the conversion stays pending	Nothing changes for now

The amount to enter is the amount the customer keeps, excluding tax, after discounts and excluding shipping costs, like the amount your tracking sends. If the rule’s commission is a percentage, it goes down in the same proportion. If it is a fixed amount per sale, it does not change.

A full return is always handled by a refusal, never by lowering the amount.

In what order

Wait until your return period is over, without going past your validation period on the 2026 plans (see below)
First lower the amount of the partial returns
Then accept these conversions and the orders that were kept
Refuse the cancelled or fully returned orders

Why lower the amount before accepting? Accepting or refusing can lock the conversion straight away: this happens when the rule’s grace period is 0, and always on the 2026 plans. A locked conversion no longer changes, neither its status nor its amount.

The rules to know

Lowering an amount: downwards only, once per conversion, on a pending conversion or an accepted one that is not locked yet
Refusing: possible on a pending conversion, or on an accepted one as long as it is not locked
Going back on a refusal: a refused conversion can be accepted again as long as it is not locked
Locked conversion: a padlock appears next to its status and nothing can change any more. As long as the mention Will be locked on is shown, you can still act
Conversion Under review: it has been contested and is waiting for Affilae’s decision, no action is possible until then

On the 2026 plans

Immediate and final decision: the grace period is managed by Affilae, and accepting or refusing locks the conversion straight away
Validation period: a conversion still pending 30 days after it was recorded is accepted automatically, at its original amount (default period, your contract may set another one). Handle your returns before this deadline
Returns after validation: a return, a cancellation or an unpaid order can only be handled during the validation period. It is not a ground for contesting a conversion that has already been validated: contesting is reserved for fraud, tracking errors and breaches of the program rules
Invalidation threshold: once you have refused 15% of the conversions recorded in a given month (default threshold, your contract may set another one), you can no longer refuse other conversions from that month. The month’s rate is shown in the validation banner. Beyond it, when you refuse conversions from the conversions list, the refusal is blocked and the Request a review button lets you send a request with your reasons and supporting details (order references, dates). Affilae reviews it within 15 days. During the review, these conversions are Under review and are not accepted automatically. This request can only be made from the interface

With which tool

TOOL	ACCEPT, REFUSE	LOWER AN AMOUNT	BEST FOR
Conversions list	Yes	No	A moderate volume, on screen
CSV file import	Yes, one file per action	No	A large volume prepared in a spreadsheet
API	Yes	Yes	Automatic processing from your own system
AI assistant (Claude, ChatGPT)	Yes	Yes	An order export to process, with no development

Lowering an amount is not possible from the interface: use the API or the AI assistant.

From the conversions list or with a CSV file

Filter on the Pending status, select the conversions or import the file of their order numbers, then click Accept or Refuse. For a refusal, choose the reason Order returned, cancelled or refunded. The details are in How to automatically validate large volumes of conversions through a .csv batch-file?

With the API

Find the ID of each conversion with GET /advertiser/conversions.list (filters status=pending, from, to, externalId), then:

CASE	CALLS, IN THIS ORDER
Order kept	`POST /advertiser/conversions.accept` with `program` and `id`
Partial return	1. `POST /advertiser/conversions.update` with `id`, `amount` (new amount excluding tax, in cents) and `reason` 2. `POST /advertiser/conversions.accept`
Full return, cancellation	`POST /advertiser/conversions.refuse` with `program`, `id` and `reason` = `return_or_cancel`

The other refusal reasons are self_purchase_or_brand_order, test_order_or_technical_error, fraud and incorrect_attribution, the last one with a mandatory comment, visible to the affiliate. The details are in Automating conversion tracking via API.

With the AI assistant

Connect Claude or ChatGPT to your account with Read & write access (Connect an AI assistant to Affilae), then give it your orders, for example an export from your back office. You can ask it for example:

Here are my October orders: accept the delivered ones, refuse the cancelled ones and adjust the partial returns
List my conversions pending for more than 20 days on program X

The assistant matches your orders with the conversions by order number, then shows you a plan: how many conversions it will accept, refuse or adjust, for which amounts, and what it leaves aside. It only acts once you have approved this plan, in the order described above, then reports back line by line. If your amounts include tax, say so: Affilae expects amounts excluding tax.

The assistant acts when you ask it to. For automatic daily processing with no intervention, use the API.

Good practices

Set a regular slot, for example every week, after the end of your return period and before the validation deadline
Always match on the order number, the ID column of the conversions list
Test on three to five orders before processing a full batch
Keep a dated record of your files or plans, useful if an affiliate has a question

Frequently
asked questions

On the 2026 plans, a pending conversion is accepted automatically 30 days after it was recorded (default period), at its original amount, and the return can no longer be taken into account. On the other plans, it stays pending and the affiliate is not paid.

If the mention Will be locked on is still shown, refuse the conversion, or lower its amount for a partial return. If a padlock is shown, it is locked and can no longer change. This is always the case on the 2026 plans, where accepting locks straight away: wait for the end of the return period before accepting.

No. The amount of a conversion can only be changed once. Check the amount kept before saving it.

No, the amount can only go down. To pay an affiliate more, add a commission manually.

Three possible reasons: the conversion is locked, it is Under review, or, on the 2026 plans, the month’s invalidation threshold has been reached. In that last case, our support team is informed, and you can ask for these refusals to be reviewed with the Request a review button, shown in the conversions list when the refusal is blocked.

Yes. They see the status of each conversion and, for a refusal, its reason. For a lowered amount, the commission shown is updated.