Adding an Affiliate

The following information is needed whenever we set up a new affiliate:

• The company name of the affiliate

• The commission rate (This can be a percentage, dollar amount per customer type, or the net rates the charter company receives after commission).

• Who is collecting the payment from the customer at the time of the booking? Learn which affiliate set up it should be depending on who is collecting payment (Billing, Referral, or Referral Deposit).

• Contact name and email for the affiliate.

• Which booking option they’d like their affiliate to resell by (learn more about booking direct options by clicking here).

1. Go to the Charter’s Dashboard.
2. Click Settings.
3. On the left-hand side under Network, click Affiliates.
4. Click + Add affiliate.

Then make sure the ‘affiliate company’ is selected:

• If the affiliate is reselling the tours at the same rate as the charter’s retail rates (i.e. the rates they are selling at online), you can add the affiliate with the “Online” total sheet.
• If the affiliate will be reselling the tours at different rates, you will need to create a new total sheet.
• See Affiliate Total Sheets.

Create invoice sheets based on the commission and type of affiliate setup (is this a billing or referral setup?).

If an invoice sheet is already created and can be added to the new affiliate, use the already created invoice sheet. If there is not an invoice sheet that can be used, this is where you’ll need to make a new one.

• If the charter company is collecting 100% of the customer’s payment:
  • Building and Adding Referral Affiliates
• If the affiliate is collecting 100% of the customer’s payment outside of FH in their own Point of Sale system:
  • Building and Adding Billing Affiliates
• If the affiliate is only collecting their commission from the customer and leaving the due amount for the charter:
  • Referral Deposit

Cancellation Policy

• Affiliates should only have a cancellation policy if all of these conditions are met:
  • The Charter company requested the affiliate be able to cancel in FH.
  • The affiliate is a billing style affiliate.
  • The affiliate books directly – either through an API or through an affiliate Dashboard.
• See the Cancellation Policies help pages for steps on how to create a cancellation policy and Affiliate Cancellation and Rebooking Rules.

Permission Group

• Only give an affiliate a permission group if they are going to be booking directly.
• If they will not be booking direct, do not assign them a permission group.
• See the Affiliate Permission Groups doc to learn more about what they are used for and how to create them.

Every affiliate has a default payment option. This makes it easy to understand as a charter or an affiliate whether to charge a card or say the affiliate took payment outside FareHarbor. If an affiliate is booking direct, their payment option should match their permission group.

Payment Options

Affiliate Taking Payment

‘Affiliate taking payment’ means that the affiliate is collecting payment outside of FH in their own POS system. When making a booking, it will autoselect ‘Collected by Affiliate’.

Depending on the invoice sheet set up, it will either show that the affiliate collected 100% of the booking (billing) or that the affiliate only collected their commission (referral deposit).

Referral Deposit/Charge Company Card

This is generally used when an affiliate is set up on net rates. The affiliate is collecting full payment from their customer outside of FH and then charges their company credit card at the net rates to avoid invoicing.

When making a booking, it will autoselect ‘Pay in Full’ and ‘Collected by Charter’ with the affiliate’s saved credit card selected (Click here for the Company cards help page).

If the affiliate is booking through the affiliate dashboard, they will need to have a permission group that allows them to see pricing. A card cannot be charged if the price is not being shown.

Charging Card

This setup is typically used for a referral setup. The affiliate is charging their customer’s card directly into the charter’s FareHarbor account.

When making a booking, it will autoselect ‘Pay in Full’, ‘Collected by Charter’, ‘Charge Card’.

If the affiliate is booking through the affiliate dashboard, they will need to have a permission group that allows them to see pricing. A card cannot be charged if the price is not being shown.

Save Card to Charge Later

When making a booking, it will auto-select ‘Save Card to Charge Later’ and you can enter the guests card on the booking to be charged at the start of the tour.

Don’t Add Payment

When making a booking, it will auto-select ‘Don’t Add Payment’ so that the booking can be completed without requiring payment.

If an affiliate is booking through an affiliate dashboard, they will need to have the permission selected in their permission group to ‘skip payment’ to use this option.

Require a voucher

A voucher is a piece of paper that a customer will bring to the tour to show that they have already paid. In other words, it’s the confirmation reference in the affiliate’s system. The affiliate will provide the customer with a voucher # that they must present to the company. Vouchers are usually only ever required in a billing sense – you can uncheck this box if you are adding a referral/affiliate.

For any bookings made online, the guest will receive 2 emails – a confirmation email and a receipt email.

The receipt email will look like this:

Show Prices in Confirmations

By default, the Show prices in confirmations box is not checked when adding an affiliate. This means the confirmation email will not display a rate.

If you decide to check the Show prices in confirmations box, the confirmation email will show the rate (as shown in the example below) for all bookings made online. If the booking is made through a dashboard and a credit card is charged, the receipt will have to be manually sent.

Include affiliate name and voucher in emails

If you decide to enable Include affiliate name and voucher in emails, all customer communication will display the affiliate’s name and the booking’s voucher number (as shown in example below). This includes confirmation, reminder, follow-up, message and receipt emails.

Confirmation & Receipt Emails

For any bookings made online, the guest will receive two emails – a confirmation email and a receipt email.

The receipt email will look like this:

You can add affiliate notes that will display in the affiliates table when viewing the affiliates in the Dashboard. These can be useful to make note of things like used ASN links, links to docs with current year rates, or other applicable information.

Navigate to the Dashboard’s Settings > Affiliates, and select Edit>> next to the affiliate you’d like to add notes for. Input your desired notes, then Save your changes.