If you have a Shopify or a WooCommerce store, then Refersion has tools to help negate the affiliate's commission for cancelled orders. This way you are not paying affiliates a commission for orders that were cancelled by your customers. You can read more about configuring this tool for your Shopify store or your WooCommerce store

If you are not on Shopify or WooCommerce, then you can always issue a Manual Credit to adjust for the return.

You could also consider looping in your developer to utilize our Cancellation Conversion API Endpoint. You can send a cancellation conversion in for an entire order by order ID or cancel one SKU from many SKUs.

For all business owners, regardless of e-commerce platform, it's best to hold all affiliate payments until the end of your return period. This way you have time to review all commissions earned and then pay only the ones that are valid orders that have not been returned or canceled. Some common affiliate payment schedules are once a month or once every 45 days to accommodate a 30 day return period.