Approve and Reject Conversions

When a referred sale comes in, Siren records a conversion for the collaborator and works out their reward straight away. The reward is an obligation, and it waits as “Awaiting conversion approval” until the conversion is approved. Only then is it “Approved”, which means it’s owed and the next fulfillment can pay it. Approving is your check before money is owed: it’s where you catch fraud, test orders, and sales that don’t meet your terms. A sale whose reward comes to nothing, such as a percentage of a free order, has no reward to approve. Its conversion still appears in the Conversions list, and approving it changes nothing about payment.

You can let a program approve its sales for you, approve them yourself, or mix the two across programs.

The screens below are the same in the WordPress plugin and on Siren Cloud. On WordPress they’re under Siren > Conversions and Siren > Obligations. On Siren Cloud they’re under Track > Conversions and Reward > Obligations.

Approve sales automatically

Open the program, and in its “Incentive Structure” card, check “Auto Approve Completed Transactions”. The checkbox is offered for sale incentives: a percentage of the sale, a fixed amount per sale, or a fixed amount per product.

With it on, a conversion is approved when its order completes, which is usually when the payment goes through. A LifterLMS or North Commerce renewal is approved when its own payment completes. So is a Stripe renewal on Siren Cloud. A renewal that’s still Pending after its payment completed can be approved by hand, as below. A sale that arrives already complete, such as one sent through the API, is approved as soon as it’s recorded, and so is a completed transaction you credit to a collaborator by hand. An order left on hold, such as one waiting for a check, keeps its conversion pending until the order completes. Whichever way a conversion would be approved automatically, a reward held because the sale is in another currency waits for you, as the next section describes.

Lead programs have no automatic approval, so lead conversions always wait for you.

Sales in another currency

Siren doesn’t convert currencies. When a line a percentage program pays on is in a currency the program doesn’t pay in, Siren works out the program’s whole reward on the sale at face value, so ¥10,000 reads as $10,000 to a program that pays in dollars, and holds the reward for review. This applies to every sale a percentage program pays on, however it arrives. On Siren Cloud, that includes Stripe and Shopify orders and sales from a connected WordPress site.

“Auto Approve Completed Transactions” skips a held reward, so its conversion stays Pending. Approve or reject the conversion, from the Conversions list or the conversion’s page. Approving makes the reward payable at the face-value amount, and rejecting means it’s never paid. Siren has no screen for changing the amount, so if the face value is too high, reject the conversion and pay the collaborator what you owe outside Siren. A refund of the whole sale reverses the reward as usual, and a refund of part of it replaces the reward with one for the new amount that stays held. Rewards from other programs on the same sale that aren’t held are approved as usual. A note on the reward, its conversion, the sale, and the program names both currencies.

Fixed per transaction and fixed per product programs pay their amount whatever the sale’s currency, so they’re never held. To pay sales in another currency without a review, run a percentage program that pays in that currency. If a collaborator is in programs in both currencies, the program in the other currency still holds its reward on the sale, for you to reject.

Approve or reject by hand

Go to the Conversions screen (Siren > Conversions in the WordPress plugin). To review the ones waiting, set the Status filter to “Pending”. The list shows each conversion’s date, so if you wait out a return window before approving, approve only the ones older than it.

You can also click a pending conversion to open its page, which shows the collaborator, the program, the transaction, how the collaborator was credited, and the reward in its “Obligations” card. The “Approve” and “Reject” buttons in the page’s header act on that one conversion straight away, without asking you to confirm.

What the statuses look like

An approved conversion reads “Complete” in the list and on its page. (A reward also reads “Complete”, but for a reward it means a fulfillment has put it in a payout.) To find approved conversions, filter on “Complete”. The “Approved” filter is for conversions created through the REST API with that status, so it’s normally empty. A rejected conversion reads “Rejected”, and one you’ve deleted reads “Trashed” and moves to the Trash, linked at the bottom of the list.

What each action does to the reward

Action	What happens to the conversion	What happens to its reward
”Approve”	Becomes Complete	Awaiting conversion approval becomes Approved, payable in the next fulfillment
”Reject”	Becomes Rejected	Becomes Rejected. If it’s in a payout that hasn’t been sent, Siren takes it out. A payout that’s being sent or already paid is left as it is
”Mark as Pending”	Goes back to Pending	An Approved reward that isn’t in a payout goes back to Awaiting conversion approval. A reward in a payout is left as it is
”Delete”	Moves to the Trash	Stays as it is, so an Approved reward is still paid
”Restore (Pending)” in the Trash	Comes back Pending	Same as “Mark as Pending"
"Delete Permanently” in the Trash, with no confirmation	Removed for good	Refused while the conversion’s reward still exists, so permanently delete the reward from the Obligations Trash first

The “Undo” link that appears after you delete conversions restores them the same way, as Pending.

When you change your mind

Approving a conversion you already approved leaves its reward alone, so its amount never changes and a paid reward stays paid.

To approve a conversion you rejected, tick it in the list and click “Approve”, because its page shows the buttons only while it’s pending. The conversion becomes Complete, but its reward stays Rejected. To pay it, also open the Obligations screen, tick the reward, and click “Approve”.

To stop paying a reward, reject its conversion. Deleting the conversion doesn’t stop the payment, because the reward stays Approved.

What collaborators see

Collaborators follow their rewards on their dashboard and earnings page, in their own words:

• “Awaiting approval” for a reward whose conversion isn’t approved yet, including a reward held because the sale is in another currency, shown at its face-value amount.
• “Payable” once it’s approved, and while it’s in a payout that hasn’t been paid.
• “Paid” once its payout is paid.
• “Rejected” for a reward that won’t be paid.

Their lifetime earnings count payable and paid rewards, not ones awaiting approval.

On Siren Cloud, you can also email people about rewards. Under Settings > Notifications, click “New notification” and choose an event. “Reward earned” goes out once when a sale earns a reward, before approval, and skips rewards worth nothing and rewards held for review. “Reward approved” goes out when a conversion is approved, by you or by automatic approval. Approving many of one collaborator’s conversions at once sends them one email, and approving the same conversion again sends nothing. Each can go to the collaborator, your admins, the Property’s admins, or another address, and Siren sends neither until you make one. “Reward held for review” is different: your organization starts with one that emails your admins once per collaborator per sale that holds a reward, and you can switch it off or delete it. You can also make one for the Property’s admins or another address, not for the collaborator. The WordPress plugin sends no reward emails. Notifications and Email covers the editor and merge tags.

When you’re ready to pay approved rewards, see How to Pay Collaborators.