General MLM Knowledge FAQ's
Question: How do I set autoship to exclude people who qualify for exclusion by volume for the month?
Answer: See Autoship Setup (Allow Conditional Autoship).
Question: How do I set up different pricing for set amounts of a product, or have different attribute options all under the same main product?
Answer: See Setting up Product Item Codes.
Question: Why are my sales reports not reflecting what I expect?
Answer: The report only includes paid orders, regardless of whether you choose paid date or order date. Pending orders are not included if you select "Paid" as an option. Most of the time, selecting order or paid date will be the same, but sometimes if a credit card declines or for whatever reason, the paid date may be 1 or several days after the order date. Which one you choose depends on how you decide to date the transactions in your system.
Deleting of members is generally not an acceptable practice. Delete means delete. All history is wiped, and therefore is only available to you as a courtesy for data entry errors and the like, and should only be used within the first day or so of a signup. To terminate a distributor has it's own function, called "Terminate" that will completely lock that person out of the system, but will maintain his history, including support, orders, personal balances, nugget information, everything. Do NOT use delete for a live account if there have been any transactions at all.
Question: How do I limit the number of times a product can be purchased?
Answer: See the manual entry here.
Question: Why do I get a "Domain not configured for Shopping Cart functionality" error?
Answer: Two possibilities:
- Domain name is not set up correctly in Configuration>>Company Details section. Add your actual URL there and it should work correctly.
- You may be trying to access the system from behind a proxy server. This will rewrite URLS for high security environments causing our security to fight with theirs, rendering the cart inaccessible. Hospitals and high security Military operations are common places that may use proxy servers which could cause problems with this.
More information here.
Question: Why do points vanish?
Answer: Binary point flushing is done automatically if members do not have volume for the current commission period. see Binary Point Flushing.
Question: Why can't I delete the default text in the shop product descriptions?
Answer: The system requires some kind of text to update the field, it won't accept nil entry. Enter a blank space and save, this will show no text.
Question: How do I message a group of members?
Answer: See the Member's Lounge messages tutorial.
Question: How do I change the logo on customer invoices?
Answer: See the Editing Invoices tutorial.
Question: The authorize.net statement said we took in $1000 but the dashboard said we were negative ($-500) for the day.
Answer: This is likely due to Order Date entered when some orders were processed. Authorize.net statements would be based on the processed date but most INS system reports are based on Order Date (which could be different to the processed date).
Question: Distributors have been automatically changed to "Manager" in the back office, why does this happen?
Answer: On comm run, titles for all distributors update based on qualifications. This can result in the promotion of some distributors.
Question: 1099 Tax report: Does the system handle these?
Answer: We have the 1099 Report under the Reporting>>1099 section for Admin.
Question: Order refunds: what happens to commission and volume on refund? Are they reversed? Will this affect sponsor's commission?
Answer: Direct provision commission will be reversed for refunds. The system will create a refund order when you process a refund for an existing order.
Then on comm run, the system will generate negative direct provision commission for sponsors and negative volume will be added as well, based on those refund orders.
Question: Emails are not showing up in the 'email downline approval' area for Admin to authorise. Why is this?
Answer: Check that the emails are sent downline. Only downline emails will be queued for approval.
Question: Handling charges: some orders are not being charged for handling. Why is this happening?
Answer: The members may have their state set as "other" which has no handling charges associated. Check the state setting for any members who do not get charged handling.
Question: The Shopping cart is not showing as secure (no lock showing at bottom of page, no http(s) showing in the URL at top). Is this a problem?
Answer: The purchase transactions (credit card etc) are secure, the display of cart items does not require security. When you go to purchase an item, the site becomes secure for the transactional pages.
Question: 'Maint' column in 'Summary of Downline Orders by Commission Period': what does the N or Y mean?
Answer: The column heading denotes maintained or not maintained. So NO means not maintained (no valid order to allow them to earn on file at the moment).
Question: February only has 28 days, how do I process the orders for the end of the month?
Answer: It works best if you run the 27th to 31st all on the last working day of the month.
Question: How do I only allow withdrawals over $50/$100/$500?
Answer: In System Prefs go to Internal Money Transfer Minimum and External Money Transfer Minimum. Internal Money Transfer Minimum is the minimum amount that can be sent within your system to other members, External Money Transfer Minimum is the minimum amount that can be sent outside your system to banks or by using International Money transfers.
Question: How do I charge members a fee for depositing funds into their nominated bank account?
Answer: In System Prefs go to External Money Transfer Fee and change that number to whatever you wish the fee to be. Don't use currency signs, just the number.
Question: How do I set the minimum amount for checks?
Answer: In System Prefs go to Autopay Default Threshold and change that number to whatever you wish the minimum amount to be. Don't use currency signs, just the number.
Question: When I send out emails (i.e an Email Blast) will all members receive it?
Answer: Emails are only sent to people with Active, In-Active and Customer statuses. People under Suspended/Terminated do not receive emails.
Question: Which email is the one that sends out Shipping Tracking Numbers?
Answer: The email is Members - Auto Tracking Number.
Question: What Happens if someone enters only 2 or 3 pages of info during signup but decides not to complete it.
Answer: That users information will be put into your system, but because it was an incomplete signup, the system will automatically delete it when its daily housekeeping is run.
Question: Taxes are being calculated on shipping but I have configured the system and they are still being calculated plus shipping.
Answer: There is an Interface you can turn this on/off.
1. Login as Admin
2. Go to Tax Tables under the Configuration Menu
3. Set Shipping?1 or Shipping?2
Question: There are inconsistencies between my signup report and my distributor list, is this correct?
Answer: Yes, that is correct, the signup report shows all signups including failed or aborted signups, until the nightly housekeeping routine purges them. The signup report will often show more signups at times than the distributor maintenance report shows.
Question: How do I set up an item that a portion of the volume will go through in this month, and a portion of the item is prepaid Autoship that I wish the points to be spread out over a period of time?
Answer: Set the forward autoship component up as an item not visible anywhere with the flag set to the period of time you want it spread out for volume months. Then add this to the package area in the main item which had the amount of points set for initial sale.
Question: I've uploaded a picture/photo/image and I still can't see it.
Answer: It is good practice to keep filenames to alphanumeric characters only. If a filename has special characters for example (%, &, $) etc it could cause the upload to function incorrectly and a failed upload.
Question: I tried to buy a Gift Certificate, but the system tells me I have no funds in my account. I can not find a means of either putting funds in my account, or paying for the Gift Certificate directly by VISA or M/C. How do I pay for the Gift Certificate
Answer: The only way a member can use a gift certificate is if they earn money. If you allow them to fund their accounts, you will contravene your visa policy and lose your visa merchant account. The purpose of gift certificates is to let a member use his/her earnings to enroll another member.
Question: Can I use my email instead of username to login to the members lounge?
Answer: Yes, you can use either your chosen username or email to successfully login to the members lounge.
Question: I've uploaded the images of my products and they are all blurry. How do I fix this?
Answer: For best results try to keep the images square because the thumbnail that is generated from the image you upload resolution maximum is 120x120
Question: I'm looking for some photos for my site, where would I find some?
Answer: If you go to our tutorial on Stock Photo Sites you will find where you can get some.
Question: When I go to the corp site and click on shop, why am I allowed to go to the shopping cart and order instead of being shown the signup page??
Answer: You will be shown the signup page when going to checkout in the shopping cart screen. Signup occurs at a different point via this chain.
Question: What information is contained in the Bar Code on the invoice?
Answer: The barcode contains the invoice number only.
Question: Strange characters have appeared on my web page. What do I do?
Answer: This can occasionally occur when copy pasting your information from an external source like MS Word or HTML from an existing website. This behavior usually occurs when pasting from something like Word because they use a different charset.
If this becomes a problem for you, then you should replace the text or the characters that are displaying improperly after you paste the content in the webeditor. It's best to type in the information yourself rather than copying and pasting it from other locations.
Question: Can I create a Test Distributor or a Fake Distributor for testing purposes?
Answer: Yes, you can create a distributor by signing them up under testbase, this will not affect any downlines. They will be active, but you can delete them once you are finished. We recommend always following a naming convention so you never make a mistake on a real distributor accidentally placed or moved under testbase. We recommend using test99 as the first part of the name followed by the initials of the person who did the test signup, then the day, then the month (or reverse if you prefer!) then the number of the test signup for the day. So if it was the first test signup done by Fred Nurk on December 25, you would have a username of test99fn25121 we also recommend using the same password for ALL your test signups as it will make it much easier to access the member for whatever reason you were doing the test for in the first place.
Question: Does the System generate Return Authorization Numbers (RTN) for returns?
Answer: We do not have any such Return Authorization number functionality in the system. Our experience with them is they significantly build distrust in members organizations so they are to be avoided.
Even monster companies like Melaleuca do not use them, as the do not want to be perceived as forcing a member to go through hoops in order to return items. That being said should you wish to have such a functionality we could work up a quote for the customization to your spec.
Question: Are there any email limitations on the server?
Answer: Yes there are limitations for emails. There is no limit per email address you send to however there is a 12000 email per hour limiter on the server for all emails combined.
Question: Can I add a camtasia of a Powerpoint presentation or instructional Videos to the site?
Answer: Yes you can add Camtasia slideshows on your system however they must be hosted externally on a server like youtube. Simply upload the video to youtube, then use webeditor to reference the Embedded code you get from youtube to display the video on the appropriate page.
Question: A new member claims that they did not get an aurtoresponder welcome letter. How could that happen & can we send her a new one??
Answer: INS can always check its logs and confirm that an email has been sent out to the email address the member complains of not receiving it to. When we do, invariably our system shows it being sent. It is very possible in today's environment this email has been sent to the members junk or trash folter automatically. They will need to check to see if they have received the email. If you wish to resend, you could make a template email with the welcome email contents then trigger that from distributor maintenance.
Question: Can we use paypal to receive payments and pay members in the system?
Answer: Though the system is integrated to Paypal, we do not recommend anybody with a commission plan fancier than a 2 level affiliate program using paypal for either incoming payments OR payments to members. Paypal is EXTREMELY anti MLM and we have had NUMEROUS clients turned off after not heeding our warning. Their funds were frozen for 6 months and after the wait they had HUGE withholding fees retained before the balance was returned. This has happend to clients who ONLY pay OUT by Paypal, as well as clients that take Incoming payments. CAUTION!!!
Question: How do I use webmail with my domain and system?
Answer: As webmail in our Plesk interface is not used that often by clients we do not turn it on by default. Please submit a Mantis bug to ask for it to be enabled for you at no charge.
Question: Our system has suddenly turned into showing only the under construction page and now I can not log in to Admin, what do I do?
Answer: Someone your team has set the Company Details System Preference for Under Construction to YES. As a result your "Real" domain name now shows under construction. To change this systm preference, log into admin using your bankend http://xxxx.sysaps.com/admin url, substituting your unique client ID, and you can continue to access Admin until you are ready to set the Under Construction preference back to NO.
Question: Can we make CVV for Credit Cart NOT Mandatory?
Answer: Technically this is easy, however there is lots of risk with this. If you make cvv not needed for admin (if your gateway is ok with it, some need it with first transaction on a card) you are immediately out of PCI compliance which can really come back to hurt you. Visa can cut off your merchant account should they become aware of the practice so please make sure in your merchant account fine print this is OK to do.
If you do wish to go ahead with doing this, just submit a bug asking for the request. We will then make CVV NOT MANDATORY, and you can do a test transaction to see if it works with your chosen gateway or not.
Question: Why doesn't the system notify me if a member doesn't have an email on file when I try to send him a quicksend email?
Answer: The System does not check on if an email exists or not as email address is a mandatory field for member or customer signup, so there is no way other than an import OR an admin signup for it to not exist in a member record. The system assumption is it exists.
Question: I would like to change some of the wording I see in the members lounge but it is on pages that I didn't create, can I do this?
Answer: The System does allow you to change any words you see on system pages from the translation interface, simply translate them from english to english to update them! You can make the systm fit your corporate culture like a glove with the translation interface used in this creative way.
Question: I am showing a PDF in an iframe in my page, however when I view it in Google Chrome browser, it shrinks the page so that it is unreadable. Is there something wrong with my code?
Answer: No there is nothing wrong with your code, this is a known bug in Google Chrome that renders PDF's within IFrames differently. To fix this issue, simply type in "about:plugins" into the address bar (without the quotes) and hit enter. Click on details near the top right. You need to disable Chrome PDF Viewer and ensure that the Adobe one is enabled.
Question: On the Tournament Style Binary Viewer the leg counts appear wrong, how do I fix this?
Answer: The number should be correct but if admin changed placement for any distributors then it won't be correct until the Upline table is re-populated. The upline table is re-populated every morning during housekeeping, if necessary.
Question: How can I gift a distributor or member a rank? We need to be able to change a distributor to a higher rank immediatly from the day of their sign-up. Is this possible?
Answer: this is possible within the flag interface that will be available to you once all your commissions pogramming/testing is complete. Click Here to go to the Tutorial on how to use this.
Question: How can I Delete a Member? For example, if we have distributor A who enrolled distributor B, now distributor A decidede he wants out of the company... how do we do that so distributor B stays and perhaps takes A's spot and it doesn't affect anyone's down line?
Answer: You first must decide if you are talking about a "compression" scenario as described above, OR just wanting to actually delete a member due to a data entry mistake. Read More...
Question: How to Move a Member For example, if we have distributor A who enrolled under distributor B, but it was in error and we wish to help the member by fixing the problem what do we do?
Answer: Moving members within your structure is very simple to do in the INS MLM Software System. That being said, it is not easy as you have to be extremely careful while doing it. Read More...
Question:How do distributors track website hits from prospects?
Answer: In order for the system to track a website hit the prospect must visit http://www.yoursystem.com/[username] and then click the login link to log in. Although , if they go directly to http://www.yoursystem.com/members/ which is the member login page, then it wont be counted as a hit for the member.