Pre-departure checks and supplier commissions
What the Travel pack checks before a client departs, what follows the trip, and how it makes sure the commissions suppliers owe are invoiced.
By Achekam · · 4 min read · For Travel businesses in South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya
Launching soon. The Industry CRM add-on described in this article is launching soon. This article describes it as it will work at launch.
Two moments in a booking's life are easy to neglect. The first is the week before departure, when the trip has been paid for and ticketed and everyone assumes it is done. The second is the week after the client comes home, when the consultant has already moved on to the next enquiry.
Both cost money when they are skipped. A transfer nobody reconfirmed leaves a family stranded at the airport and turns a happy client into a refund request. And a hotel or tour operator that owes your agency commission on the booking will rarely remind you; if you do not invoice it, it simply never arrives.
The Travel pack in Achekam's Industry CRM wraps a workflow around each of those moments. Here is what each one does and how to get the most from it.
Two workflows on either side of the trip
The Travel pack runs a pre-departure checklist and a post-trip follow-up. The post-trip follow-up includes invoicing the commissions suppliers owe on the booking.
A booking in the pack moves from Enquiry to Quoted, Booked, Ticketed and Travelled, or ends as Cancelled or lost. In practice the pre-departure checklist falls between ticketing and departure, and the follow-up comes once the client is home.
The pre-departure checklist
The pack runs a pre-departure checklist as part of the booking. Whatever its exact items, these are the checks most agencies want done before a client leaves, and they are worth comparing with it:
- every flight, transfer and hotel still confirmed with the supplier, since schedules change after ticketing
- names on tickets matching names on passports, exactly
- passports valid for the trip, with any visas in hand
- travel insurance in place, if the client took it
- the final balance received
- tickets, vouchers and a written itinerary sent to the client, with emergency contact numbers
- any special requests passed to the supplier and acknowledged
The reconfirmation is the item that matters most, and the one the pack cannot do for you. It has no live flight or booking-system feed: statuses are entered by staff from the supplier. A flight time that changed after ticketing appears in the pack only when a consultant checks with the airline or the supplier and records it.
Breaking checks into tasks
A workflow in the Industry CRM creates its tasks stage by stage, and tasks can have subtasks up to three levels deep. For a complex trip that is the difference between a checklist and a useful one.
A multi-country tour might carry one task for reconfirmations, with a subtask for each leg, and under a leg with several services, a subtask for each service. A simple weekend away needs only a handful of checks. Because each subtask is ticked off separately, anyone covering for the consultant can see exactly which suppliers have been contacted and which have not.
After the trip: the follow-up
When the client comes home, the post-trip follow-up begins. Most of it is good practice:
- a call or message asking how the trip went, from the consultant who booked it
- anything that went wrong, written down and raised with the supplier while it is fresh
- the client's preferences updated in their traveller profile, so the next booking starts from what you learnt on this one
The traveller profile is the place for those preferences. The pack keeps passport details and preferences there with the traveller's consent, so ask before you add anything new.
Invoicing the commissions suppliers owe
The step that pays for the whole follow-up is the commission invoice. Many suppliers, hotels, lodges and tour operators among them, pay agencies a commission on bookings made through them, and many pay only when invoiced.
The post-trip follow-up includes invoicing the commissions suppliers owe on the booking. Note who the customer is on that invoice: not the traveller, but the supplier. Before you raise it, check:
- the commission rate or amount agreed with that supplier, in writing
- what the supplier finally charged, after any changes to the booking
- whether the commission is calculated on the price including or excluding taxes, as your agreement says
- the supplier's own reference for the booking, so their accounts team can match your invoice
Raise the invoice promptly after travel, while the booking is fresh in the supplier's records. Commission invoiced months later is harder to collect.
It helps to keep one short register of the suppliers who pay you commission: the agreed rate or amount, who in their accounts team receives invoices, and how they prefer to be invoiced. Consultants come and go, and the knowledge that a particular lodge pays commission only on request tends to leave with them. A register kept with the office, not in one person's head, means the post-trip step is quick for whoever runs it.
Closing the booking
Once the client has travelled, the booking belongs in Travelled. That stage, together with Cancelled or lost, is where finished bookings sit, which leaves the earlier stages showing only trips still to happen.
Before you consider a booking finished, check that the follow-up is done, any complaint has an answer, and every supplier commission has been invoiced. A booking can be in Travelled and still have money owed to you. Commission that has been earned but not yet invoiced is what accountants call accrued revenue; AccountingTools explains the accruals concept, including accrued revenue.
Starting with the next departure
Take the next booking due to depart and run its checklist properly, reconfirming every leg. When that client returns, run the follow-up and raise the supplier commission invoices the same week. For why reconfirmation can only be done by people, see prices and statuses typed in from suppliers; for how a booking reaches Ticketed in the first place, from trip questions to tickets and vouchers.
General guidance only, not advice on your own circumstances. Tax and payroll rules change: check the current position with the authority or your adviser.
