How to Export Affiliates from Refersion: CSV Export Guide (2026)

Refersion lets you export your affiliate data as CSV files in three places. People usually look for these exports for one of four reasons: switching platforms, building external reporting, backing up data before a major change, or running custom payout calculations.

This guide walks through all three export types, names every column you'll get, and flags the common mistakes that cost people an hour of post-export cleanup.

Where to find each export

Refersion has three separate export tools, one per data type:

• Affiliates export — Affiliates → All Affiliates → Export. Top-right of the affiliate table. Outputs one row per affiliate with their tracking code, contact info, commission rate, and lifetime totals.
• Conversions export — Conversions → Export. One row per conversion with order ID, affiliate code, commission amount, status, and date.
• Payouts export — Payouts → History → Export. One row per historical payout batch with affiliate, amount, method, and date paid.

Each export is a separate request. There's no "export everything at once" option.

Affiliates export: column reference

Refersion's affiliate CSV includes these columns:

Common gotchas

• Commission format is inconsistent. Refersion sometimes stores commission as "10", sometimes "10%", sometimes "0.10". When importing elsewhere, normalize: anything between 0 and 1 is probably a decimal share (multiply by 100), anything 1+ is a percentage.
• Excel may strip leading zeros. Affiliate codes like "007BOND" become "7BOND" if you open the CSV in Excel and save it. Always open with a text editor or import directly into the target platform.
• BOM character in the header. Excel-saved CSVs sometimes get a UTF-8 BOM prefix on the first column header. Most importers handle this, but if a parser breaks at column 1, that's why.
• Total Sales / Total Commission are point-in-time snapshots. They're accurate as of the export moment but won't update later. Don't use the export for ongoing reporting.

Conversions export: column reference

The conversions export has more rows than the affiliates one. Key columns:

• Order ID — Shopify order reference
• Affiliate Code — the attributed affiliate
• Order Total — sale amount in store currency
• Commission Amount — what's owed to the affiliate
• Status — Approved / Pending / Refunded / Reversed
• Conversion Date — when the order happened
• Currency — for multi-currency stores

For switching platforms, the conversions export is typically informational only — you don't need historical commission data in the new platform because it's already been paid out. Keep it as an audit trail.

Payouts export: column reference

Less commonly exported. Includes payout date, affiliate, amount paid, payment method, and payout batch ID. Useful for accounting reconciliation more than anything operational.

What to do with the export

Four common destinations:

• Switching to a new affiliate platform. Most modern platforms (including AffRef) accept Refersion's CSV format directly. Full migration guide.
• External BI / reporting tooling. Push the conversions export into Looker, Mode, or a custom dashboard for analysis Refersion's UI doesn't surface.
• Backup before a major change. Take an export before bulk-editing affiliates or commission rules, in case you need to roll back.
• Custom payout calculations. Build a spreadsheet that applies different commission rules per affiliate based on tiered bonuses Refersion can't natively compute.

FAQs

Can I export data for a specific date range?

For conversions, yes — filter by date range first, then export. The export only includes filtered rows. For affiliates, the export is always all-time (no date filter).

Does Refersion's export include affiliates' password hashes?

No. Affiliates re-set their password when they sign up to the new platform (if they sign up — some migration flows preserve the email without forcing re-registration).

What if Refersion's export is missing affiliates I know exist?

Check the filter at the top of the affiliate table — if it's set to "Active only" or similar, the export reflects that filter. Set the filter to "All" before exporting to get every affiliate including Pending and Banned.

Can I export historical pending commissions?

Yes, via the Conversions export filtered by Status = Pending. Pay these out (manually) before moving to a new platform, otherwise you risk paying twice (Refersion when they get released + new platform doesn't know about them).