This guide explains how to check the commission an Online Travel Agent (OTA) has invoiced against the reservations in RMS, and record the payment.

Overview

The Travel Agent Commissions utility is where you check, record and pay the commission your property owes each Travel Agent, including every OTA you are connected to. When an OTA sends you its monthly commission invoice, you reconcile it here. Every channel in RMS is also a Travel Agent, so an OTA's commission is recorded in the same place as any other agent's, and you work through it the same way.

Go to Accounting > Travel Agent Commissions. The utility lists one row per reservation, showing the rate, the commission percentage and the amount owing, and lets you match those rows to the invoice, record what you pay and set a status for anything you are not paying yet.

Please Note! RMS is highly configurable. Some Terminology, User Access & Permissions, Images, Labels, and Functions used in these articles may differ from your setup. CLICK HERE to find out more.

What appears on this screen

The Travel Agent Commissions utility lists the commission your property owes. A reservation appears when both of the following are true, and the second is the one that surprises people most often.

The Rate Type then decides the rate. An agent's commission is held per Rate Type, so the same agent can charge 10% on one Rate Type and nothing on another, and the reservation uses whichever Rate Type it was booked on. A reservation booked on a Rate Type that carries no commission still appears, listed at 0.00% with nothing owing.

Tip! If you want to know which Collect Type a channel uses, open it at Setup > Online Bookings > Channel Management and look at Travel Agent Information > Agent Commission Setup. See Channel Agent Commission Setup on a Channel Management Connection.

Reconcile and pay a commission

Work through the Travel Agent Commissions utility in the order below, using the OTA's invoice alongside it.

1. In the side menu of RMS, go to Accounting > Travel Agent Commissions.
2. Select the Property at the top of the screen. On a multi-property database this defaults to the Enterprise record, which holds no reservations, so change it to the property the bookings belong to.
3. Set the Date Filter and choose the date it applies to: Arrival Between, Departure Between or Status Updated Between. Departure Between is selected by default and covers the previous twelve months, so widen it to reach older stays.
4. Under Options, leave None, On Hold, Paid and Do Not Pay ticked to see everything, or untick a status to hide it.
5. Select the Search icon to list the commissions. The Filters panel on the left then shows each agent with the total owing, so you can select one agent and compare that total with the invoice.
6. Check each row against the invoice. The grid shows the Guest Name, Res No, Arrival and Departure, the Rate Type and Rate the commission is calculated on, the Comm % and the Amt Owing.
7. Tick the rows you are paying. The Total Commission Selected figure at the bottom of the screen adds them up, which is the number to agree with the invoice before you pay anything.
8. Record the agent's invoice number against those rows using the External Invoice Number icon, so you can trace the payment back to the invoice later. See Record an external invoice number for a Travel Agent commission.
9. Record the payment using the Apply Payment icon. See Record a Travel Agent commission payment.
10. Set a Status on anything you are not paying in this run. The available statuses are On Hold, Paid and Do Not Pay. Setting a status is useful when an amount is in dispute. See Set a Travel Agent commission status.

Tip! If you pay an agent in regular runs, group the rows first using Batches, then use the Print icon to produce a statement of what the batch contains.

Why a commission is not listed

A reservation you expected to see on the Travel Agent Commissions utility is usually missing for one of three reasons. Work down this list before concluding the commission was not set up.

• The reservation has not departed. Check the reservation's status. Commission is listed only once the stay is complete.
• The agent collects the commission. A Collect Type of Agent never appears here, because the agent has already deducted its commission from the amount it paid you.
• The filters exclude it. Check the Property, the Date Filter and which date it applies to. A commission whose status has never been set does not appear under Status Updated Between, so use Departure Between to find it.

A commission that is listed but shows 0.00% and nothing owing is a different problem. The Rate Type the reservation was booked on carries no commission. Open the reservation and note its Rate Type, then open the agent at Setup > Travel Agent and check that Rate Type's row on the Commission tab. The reservation's own Commission field shows what was resolved, for example Travel Agent 0%.

Important! Changing a commission on a Travel Agent record also changes reservations that already exist, as long as they have not yet departed. Once a reservation has departed, RMS has already created its commission on the Travel Agent Commission Account, so the change does not reach that reservation. To correct a departed reservation, set its status back to Unconfirmed or Confirmed, change the commission, then move it to Departed again. See Travel Agent Commission Hierarchy.

Related Articles

Travel Agent Commission Hierarchy

Channel Agent Commission Setup on a Channel Management Connection

OTA Commission with a NET Multiplier

Travel Agent Commission report

Reservation Travel Agent Commission Override