Using Refer to automate B2B partner onboarding and referral management

B2B partnerships are supposed to make life easier—and drive more business. But if you’ve ever tried to wrangle spreadsheets, emails, and half-baked onboarding docs for partners, you know it’s a mess. If your team is tired of chasing down partner info, tracking referrals by hand, or dealing with awkward onboarding calls, this guide is for you.

Let’s walk through automating partner onboarding and referral management using Refer. I’ll show you what’s actually worth setting up, what you can skip, and how to avoid common headaches.

Why Automate B2B Partner Onboarding and Referrals?

Here’s the honest truth: manual onboarding and tracking is slow, full of errors, and annoys both your team and your partners. Automation isn’t magic, but it does:

Cut down on back-and-forth emails (“Hey, did you get my logo?”)
Reduce missed or lost referrals
Give you a single source of truth for who’s doing what
Free up your team for actual relationship-building, not admin

But don’t fall for the pitch that everything should be automated. Some parts (like building trust) still need a human touch. The trick is to automate the repetitive stuff and keep your focus on the relationships.

Step 1: Map Your Current Partner Workflow (Don’t Skip This)

Before you jump into tools, get clear on how you actually onboard partners and manage referrals today. This is the step most teams skip—and regret later.

Ask yourself: - How do partners first sign up or get invited? - What info do you need from them (legal, billing, branding)? - Who approves new partners? - How do partners submit referrals to you? - How do you track the referral status and payouts? - What gets dropped or causes confusion?

Pro tip: Write this on a whiteboard or in a doc. Don’t overthink it—just be honest about where things break down. This will make setting up Refer way smoother.

Step 2: Set Up Refer for Partner Onboarding

Once you know your process, it’s time to set up Refer. Refer’s whole point is to cut out the manual headaches of onboarding and tracking, but you need to configure it to fit your reality—not someone else’s.

Create Your Partner Onboarding Flow

Decide how partners get invited.
Do you want a public signup link, or will you invite partners directly?
If you don’t want random companies applying, stick with direct invites.
Customize the onboarding form.
Only ask for info you’ll actually use.
Typical fields: company name, contact details, logo, tax info.
Skip anything you can collect later—long forms kill momentum.
Set up automated emails.
Welcome emails should be simple, clear, and tell partners what to expect next.
Don’t overload them with docs or jargon.
Approval process.
If you want to manually approve new partners, turn on the approval step.
If you trust your invite list, you can auto-approve to save time.

What works: Keeping the onboarding as short and clear as possible. Partners don’t want to fill out a 20-field form just to get started.

What doesn’t: Overengineering. You don’t need three rounds of approval unless you’re a bank.

Step 3: Automate Referral Submission and Tracking

Referrals are the whole point, so make it painless for partners to send leads your way—and easy for your team to track what’s going on.

Set Up Referral Submission

Decide how partners submit referrals.
Directly in Refer’s partner portal (the best option).
Via a simple referral link you can embed in your site or emails.
Customize required fields.
Ask for just enough info to qualify a lead, but not so much that it scares people off.
Usually: name, company, contact, maybe a note.
Set up notification rules.
Who on your team should get pinged for new referrals?
Does the partner get notified when their referral progresses?

Pro tip: Test the flow yourself, or better yet, have a partner try it and give feedback. Clunky forms are referral killers.

Tracking and Reporting

Use Refer’s dashboard to see all referrals and their status.
You can tag, filter, and export data if you want to keep your own records.
Set up regular reports (weekly or monthly) so you don’t have to remember to check.

What works: Letting partners see the status of their referrals—this cuts down on “Any update?” emails.

What doesn’t: Forcing partners to email spreadsheets or PDFs. That’s the old way, and it just creates more work for everyone.

Step 4: Automate Partner Payments (or Rewards)

If you offer commissions, bonuses, or other rewards, Refer can automate a lot of the tracking and (sometimes) the payouts. Just be careful here: money is where things get messy.

Configure Your Rewards

Set clear rules.
When is a referral considered “won” and eligible for payout?
How much is paid, and when?
Spell it out in plain English, and put it in your partner terms.
Automate status updates.
Use Refer to update referral status (qualified, won, paid, etc.).
Partners should see this, so there are no surprises.
Set up payout integrations (optional).
Refer can connect to some payment systems—check what’s supported.
If not, you can still export a payout report and run payments manually.
Don’t automate payments unless you trust your data 100%. Mistakes here get expensive and erode trust fast.

What works: Transparency and regular updates. Partners will stick around if they trust your process.

What doesn’t: Vague rules about rewards, or making people wait months to get paid.

Step 5: Keep Partners Engaged (But Don’t Spam Them)

Automating onboarding and referrals is great, but you still need to (occasionally) remind partners you exist and show them you value their referrals.

Use Refer to send periodic performance reports or “leaderboards” if you want to gamify things.
Share updates when you launch new products, promos, or features that could help partners sell.
Avoid monthly “check-in” emails with no real news. Partners are busy too.

Pro tip: A personal note or call every quarter works better than a dozen automated emails.

Step 6: Iterate and Simplify

No matter how sleek your setup is, you’ll find things partners don’t understand or features your team never uses. That’s normal.

Every quarter, review your partner feedback and referral data.
Kill steps or fields that no one cares about.
If something always breaks, fix the process—not just the tool.

What works: Keeping things as simple as possible, even as you grow.

What doesn’t: Chasing every new “automation” feature just because it’s in the release notes.

What to Ignore (For Now)

Custom partner portals with dozens of pages: Most partners just want to send referrals and get paid. Keep it simple.
Heavy integrations: Unless you have a big ops team, integrating every CRM and marketing tool is a headache. Start light.
Overcomplicated reward tiers: Unless you’re running a giant affiliate program, basic rules will do.

Wrapping Up: Don’t Overthink It

Automating B2B partner onboarding and referral management with Refer isn’t rocket science, but it does take some up-front work. Map your real process, keep things clear, and build automation that helps people—not just adds steps. Start simple, get feedback, and improve as you go. Most importantly, don’t forget the human side: a good partnership still depends on trust, not just workflows.

Now go fix what’s broken, automate the rest, and spend more time building real partner relationships.