How AffCheck works, start to finish

AffCheck answers one question every cycle: of the commission your networks are about to approve, which lines are on orders that were refunded, cancelled, claimed twice or bought with someone else's discount code? It answers it from two files you already have, and it leaves every decision to you.

The four steps

Step 1: your Shopify orders

Export your orders from Shopify admin and drop the CSV on the Imports screen. The file is parsed on your device: the customer columns in it — name, email, address, phone — have nowhere to travel to, because the payload AffCheck sends has no field for them.

Export a range that starts a few days before the oldest transaction you want to check. An order outside the range cannot be matched, and its transaction is flagged R06 · not found in Shopify rather than quietly ignored. The full steps are on Export your Shopify orders.

Step 2: your network export

Export your pending transactions from your network and drop that CSV on the same screen. AffCheck recognises the common layouts; when it does not, it asks you once which column is the order reference, the sale amount, the commission, the status, the date and the publisher, and remembers the answer for next time.

There is a page per network with the export path and what to watch for:

• Awin · CJ Affiliate · impact.com · Rakuten Advertising
• Webgains · Partnerize · Tradedoubler · any other network

Step 3: review what is flagged

Matching runs in the background as soon as the rows land, and the Review screen fills with the flags. Rows are grouped by reason, under four running totals — declines, amends, approve, check — so you can see what a decision is worth before you make it.

Each row carries the facts it was raised from: the Shopify order, the refund amount and date, the network row it came from, and the publisher that claimed it. Working through the review queue explains the screen, and reason codes explains each flag.

Step 4: decline before the deadline

A pending commission stops being yours to change when the network's validation period ends. AffCheck dates every pending row with the day its network auto-approves it and shows the nearest date on the Deadlines screen; see deadlines and validation periods.

When you have confirmed your decisions, the file goes to the network by your hand: upload your decisions to your network lists where each network takes them and what it expects.

How often to run it

Once a week is enough for most programmes, and the day matters more than the frequency: run it while the oldest pending transactions still have days left. A 30-day validation period and a monthly routine will lose rows in every cycle, because a sale tracked on the 2nd auto-approves before a check on the 5th of the following month.

The routine behind these four screens is the same one you would run in a spreadsheet, and it is written out step by step — including the parts AffCheck does not do for you — in the monthly affiliate validation checklist.

What AffCheck never does

• It never submits anything to a network. Every flag is a suggestion; every decline is a file you upload or a row you set yourself.
• It never stores your files. Neither export is kept — not the file, not its name. Only the rows read from it are saved.
• It never stores customer details. Names, emails, addresses and phone numbers are dropped on your device, before anything is sent.
• It never invents a number. A missing validation period leaves a row undated rather than guessing, and money is never converted between currencies.