Every confirmed hotel or cruise booking creates an expected commission line. Each week, bank payments and supplier statements are matched against those lines, the owner gets a report of open commissions by supplier, and claims go out on anything overdue past 60 days.
Typical results
≈5 hrs/wk
Owner and bookkeeper time on matching saved
60 days
Overdue before a claim email goes to the supplier
Weekly
Report of open commissions by supplier
Figures reflect typical results for this kind of automation.
The challenge
Hotels and cruise lines pay commission weeks or months after travel, often in batches with several bookings per transfer and no clear reference. The agency tracks expected amounts in a spreadsheet when someone remembers, so short payments and missing commissions go unnoticed. By the time anyone checks, many claims are past the supplier's window and the money is lost.
Before and after
Commission lines overdue 60+ days
−60%Hours per week on commission matching
−83%Days to spot a short payment
−84%The automation
Each confirmed hotel or cruise booking creates an expected commission line with the rate, amount and expected payment date. Every week, bank payments and supplier statements are matched to open lines by booking reference, amount and supplier. Lines are set to paid, short-paid or overdue, and the owner receives a report of open commissions by supplier. Anything overdue by more than 60 days triggers a claim email to the supplier with the booking reference and travel dates.
How it works
- 01
Booking creates a commission line
Each confirmed hotel or cruise booking adds an expected line with the rate, amount and the date it should be paid after travel.
- 02
Weekly matching
Every week, bank payments and supplier statements are matched to open lines by booking reference, amount and supplier.
- 03
Paid, short-paid or overdue
Each line is set to paid, short-paid or overdue, and the missing amount is recorded on short payments.
- 04
Report to the owner
The owner gets a weekly report of open commissions by supplier, with totals and the oldest items first.
- 05
Claims after 60 days
Lines overdue by more than 60 days generate a claim email to the supplier with the booking reference and travel dates.
Starts from
- Confirmed bookings
- Bank payments
- Supplier statements
Delivers
- Lines marked paid or short
- Weekly open commissions
- Claim email after 60 days
The impact
Commission lines overdue more than 60 days fall by about 60%, from around 50 to 20, because missing payments are claimed while the supplier still accepts them. The owner and bookkeeper save about 5 hours a week on matching, and short payments surface within a week instead of about six.
Questions about this automation
How are batch payments covering several bookings matched?
Supplier statements usually list the bookings behind each transfer, so the automation splits the payment across those lines. When there is no statement, it matches by amount and supplier against open lines and sends unclear cases to the bookkeeper to confirm. Confirmed matches are saved as rules for that supplier's reference format.
Which systems does it read from?
Bookings come from the agency's booking system or CRM, bank payments from a bank feed or a CSV export, and supplier statements from email attachments read with an AI extraction step. Results live in Google Sheets or in the accounting system, such as QuickBooks or Xero, where the bookkeeper already works.
Can the claim emails be reviewed before they go out?
Yes. Claims can be sent automatically or held for the owner to approve in one batch each week, with the booking reference, travel dates and expected amount already filled in. This is a multi-step build, usually rolled out in stages, starting with the commission lines and the weekly report.