How are merchants paid? At the time of sale? Only when vouchers are redeemed?
Is there a back end system for the merchant to check in redeemed deals ( and coupons too )?

Points: When someone earns "referral" points does the merchant get paid for those points? Meaning who pays who? Is it part of the system the merchant agrees to? OR do I (website owner) pay for the points to the merchant?

Hi,

There is an area for merchant to check redeemed coupons in front-end.

Merchant doesn't receive any payment or point. If you want to pay merchant, you need to manually do it. How much do you pay, how do you pay... depending the contract between you and your merchant.

Regards,
Hung Tran

So there's no means to electronically pay the merchants? PayPal has a mass pay system. Is that utilized?
The second part was for the point system. If a customer gets three friends to buy and he gets a FREE deal then who pays for that? Someone has to. how is the system set up for that?

Not all payment gateways provide mass or split payment. We only support what is common between payment gateways.

CMGroupBuying doesn't not provide any point system. We have integrate with AlphaUserPoint and JomSocial, if you want to use these point systems, you need to have in your mind what points are for, how your users receive point, how they use their points, etc... Eg, you want to allow your users exchange 1 point for 1 US dollar, or let them buy 10 points with 5 dollars... so you need to setup those features in your point system, not in CMGroupBuying.

Regards,
Hung

I understand all of that. I understand that you use a plug in for a point system. I understand you use different payment gateways. They do integrate with your group buying component. I understand and did understand all of it.
My question is HOW is it supported and that's been the question all along. How are points redeemed within the system.and is the merchant supposed to "eat" the points (regardless of the cash equivalent) OR is the website owner (me) responsible for paying the points on behalf of the customer to the merchant.

Second.. I haven't been into the system to know how payments to merchants are made whether its automated or has the ability to be automated. ( so I can use a service like mass pay ) Does the system show who gets paid and how much? Does the merchant get paid based on the vouchers redeemed?

I do need to know how the accounting is handled in group buy regarding these questions.. That is both points ( regardless of what system generates them ) and how people get paid and how it is tracked.
If the information is there and can be used, I may have a developer work on that even though your ad says "free payment gateway" development. I would like the ability to pay people ( mass pay) and track who is paid and document who was paid via voucher redemption.