Charging service fees on air tickets
How a travel agency should charge and invoice its own service fee on airline tickets, show it apart from the fare, and where IATA's TASF service fits in.
By Achekam · · 5 min read · For Travel businesses in South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya
Selling an air ticket takes real work: searching fares, holding seats, handling changes, chasing refunds, answering the call when a flight is cancelled at midnight. Where airline commission does not cover that work, an agency charges the traveller a service fee. The question is how to charge it so that travellers accept it, the books show it properly, and nobody confuses it with the fare.
This article explains why the fee should be kept apart from the fare, where IATA's Travel Agent Service Fees service fits for agencies that settle through the BSP, and how to invoice and collect the fee in Achekam.
The fare is not yours; the fee is
When an agency sells a ticket, most of the money it collects is the airline's: the fare and the taxes and charges that go with it. The agency is collecting that money to pass on. The service fee is different. It is the agency's own income, for the agency's own work.
Keeping the two apart matters for three reasons:
- The traveller sees what they are paying you for. A separate fee is easier to explain and defend than a fare that looks higher than the airline's website.
- Your books show what you actually earn. Fees and commission are your revenue; fares passed on are not. Mixing them makes turnover look large and margins look thin.
- Refunds are cleaner. When a ticket is refunded, the fare goes back under the airline's rules, while your fee is governed by your own terms. Two lines make that easy to apply.
How to keep supplier money apart from income in the ledger generally is set out in keeping supplier money apart from your commission.
Where IATA's TASF fits
IATA lists Travel Agent Service Fees (TASF) among the services of its Billing and Settlement Plan, for collecting and settling service fees. It sits alongside BSPLink for billing and reporting, IATA EASY PAY for ticket settlement, and BSP data and reports. IATA's Billing and Settlement Plan page describes these services, and it is where an agency should look for how TASF works in its market.
TASF is part of the BSP, and IATA says only agents holding IATA accreditation can access the BSP. Under it, each agent makes one sales report and one remittance per period, and each airline receives one consolidated settlement, with refunds, commissions and memos managed in BSPLink. An agency outside the BSP, or one that prefers not to use TASF, collects its fee directly from the traveller, which is what the rest of this article covers. IATA describes the benefits of accreditation on its own pages, noting that it simplifies an agency's relationship with participating airlines from sale to settlement.
Showing the fee as its own line
In Achekam, a business creates customer invoices as drafts it can change or delete, and issuing one takes the next number in its sequence and posts it to the ledger as debtors, sales and output VAT. Put the service fee on its own line, described plainly: "Service fee: flight booking, Johannesburg to Nairobi" tells the traveller exactly what it is for.
VAT on the fee depends on your country and on the kind of travel, so confirm the treatment with your tax adviser, then set it line by line:
- South Africa: each invoice line's VAT is set to 15% or 0%. The invoice screen does not tell zero-rated and exempt apart, so record which one applies in your own notes.
- Nigeria and Kenya: each line takes a tax code (standard, zero-rated, exempt, out of scope or reverse charge), and only standard lines carry VAT, at the approved rate for the country. This applies once the country pack is activated under Settings, and on the invoice form under Accounting; the New invoice form under Billing & Finance offers only 15% or 0% VAT and shows rand.
One limit to plan around: all invoice revenue in Achekam posts to a single sales account, and an invoice line cannot name another one. If the same invoice carries the fare as well as the fee, your accountant will move the fare portion out of sales with a journal, so that only the fee and any commission remain as income.
Fees on changes and cancellations
Charge separately for later work, such as a date change or a refund request, rather than folding it into the original fee. A new invoice for the change fee keeps the original invoice intact and makes it clear what each charge was for. How to handle a booking that changes after it has been invoiced is covered in booking changes after invoicing.
Collecting the fee
Once the invoice is issued, it can be downloaded as a PDF on the business's letterhead and e-mailed from the invoice, with or without a pay link, and a failed send is reported as not sent. With a pay link, the traveller pays on a public page that shows your business's name and branding. A link lasts 14 days by default, and an open link for the same amount is reused rather than duplicated. There is no link for draft or voided invoices, so issue the invoice before sending it.
A practical habit is to collect the fee before ticketing, together with the fare or on its own. A traveller who has paid the fee has committed to the booking, and your work is paid for even if they later cancel.
Telling travellers before they book
A fee that appears for the first time on the invoice feels like a surprise charge, however fair it is. Say what you charge, and for what, before the traveller commits:
- on your website and in your booking terms;
- in the first quote, as a separate line from the fare;
- in any e-mail confirming a booking.
Keep a short fee schedule that covers new bookings, changes, refunds and after-hours assistance, and review it once a year. A fee that is published, explained and shown separately is far less likely to be disputed than one that is buried in a fare.
General guidance only, not advice on your own circumstances. Tax and payroll rules change: check the current position with the authority or your adviser.
