Reconciling commissions across many networks and currencies

Run affiliate offers seriously and your income stops being one number. It becomes dozens of payouts, in several currencies, on different schedules, each sitting behind its own hold and reversal rules. Reconciliation — proving that what you were paid matches the conversions you actually qualified for — turns from a tidy monthly task into a matrix you have to keep straight in your head.

This guide breaks that matrix into its parts: the networks-by-currencies-by-rules problem, how to match payouts to qualified conversions, how to catch the reversed, duplicated and fraudulent events that quietly distort your totals, and how holding money per currency removes a whole layer of conversion noise before you even start.

The networks, currencies and rules matrix

The affiliate-specific difficulty is that three variables multiply together. You are not reconciling one account; you are reconciling every combination of them.

• Many networks. Each has its own dashboard, its own definition of an approved conversion, and its own statement format and timing.
• Many currencies. One network pays USD, another EUR, another GBP, and the rate on the day each lands shifts what hits your account.
• Many rules. Hold periods, validation windows and reversal windows differ by network and often by offer, so a commission recorded today becomes payable — and final — on a different date everywhere.

Reconciling well means treating each network as its own little ledger first, then rolling them up, rather than trying to make one combined statement explain everything at once.

Matching payouts to qualified conversions

The core of reconciliation is a simple question asked carefully: does this payout correspond to conversions I genuinely qualified for, at the rate I expected? Answering it reliably needs your own record alongside the network's.

• Keep your own conversion log. Record what you drove, per offer and per network, in the currency it pays. Without this you are trusting the network's number with nothing to check it against.
• Reconcile at the conversion level where you can. A lump-sum payout that matches a total is reassuring but hides errors. Matching line by line is what surfaces a missing or under-paid conversion.
• Account for the hold. A payout this month usually covers conversions from an earlier period. Line dates up to the right window or legitimate commissions will look missing.
• Reconcile in the earning currency. Compare USD payouts against USD-expected commissions. Converting everything to one currency before matching introduces rate noise that masks small discrepancies.

Catching reversed, duplicate and fraud events

Not every line in a statement is a clean, final commission. Three kinds of event distort totals and need to be caught explicitly rather than absorbed into a number you accept.

• Reversals. Refunds, chargebacks and failed validations pull back commission you may already have counted. Match each reversal to the original conversion so you know what was undone and why.
• Duplicates. The same conversion counted twice, or a payout that overlaps a previous one, inflates income on paper. Per-conversion references make duplicates visible.
• Fraud flags. Conversions removed during a network's quality review. These look like missing commissions unless you can tie the gap to a flagged event.

The habit that catches all three is the same: every line in a payout should map to a specific conversion in your own log, and any line that does not — or any conversion of yours with no matching line — is a question to resolve, not a rounding difference to ignore.

Different schedules and the buffer they need

Because each network pays on its own calendar and finalises on its own reversal clock, your income arrives in an uneven stream and stays provisional for different lengths of time. Reconciliation has to respect both.

Build a simple per-network view of when each pays and how long each can reverse a commission. That tells you which money is genuinely yours to spend and which is still at risk of being clawed back. Treating recently received but not-yet-final commission as provisional, and keeping a buffer against expected reversals, stops a normal end-of-window reversal from turning into a shortfall. The cleaner your records, the smaller the buffer you need, because you can see exactly what is settled rather than guessing.

How Altery fits

Altery is built for exactly this kind of multi-currency, many-source reconciliation. You can hold balances in USD, EUR and GBP, so each network's commissions land and stay in the currency they were earned in — you reconcile per currency without conversion noise distorting the match. Real-time balances and clean, referenced transaction records let you tie each payout back to the conversions behind it and spot reversed, duplicated or missing lines instead of accepting a lump sum on trust.

You convert currencies on your own timeline rather than at whatever rate happens to apply when money arrives, which keeps your reconciliation in the earning currency and your FX a separate, deliberate decision. Ring-fenced reserves let you hold a clawback buffer as a visible balance distinct from spendable funds, mass payouts and business cards with limits run your outgoing spend from the same account, and multi-entity management keeps separate brands or companies cleanly apart. Altery is not a bank, and this is general information rather than advice — but holding and recording money this way is what makes reconciling dozens of networks a matching exercise rather than a monthly investigation.

Frequently asked questions