Supplier not paying commission: how to check and chase it

Commission goes missing in three ways, and they need three different responses. It is paid short, because the supplier applied a different rate, a currency, or a deduction you did not expect. It is paid late or never, because nothing in the supplier's process reminds them and nothing in yours reminds you. Or it is paid against the wrong reference and sits unmatched in a statement you never fully read.

Agents who track this carefully recover money every month. Agents who do not usually have no idea what they are missing, because the only time a shortfall is visible is when someone compares what arrived with what was promised, line by line. This guide is how to do that by hand, and what to automate once you are sick of doing it by hand.

Know what you were promised

The confirmation is the contract. The moment a booking confirms, record four things from it: the commission rate or amount, the currency, the amount it is calculated on, and when it is due. Suppliers vary on all four.

• Rate. Ten per cent of what, exactly. Many hotels and villa operators pay on the accommodation only, excluding extras, transfers, taxes and sometimes the service charge. Tour operators pay on the package price, usually excluding insurance and sometimes excluding flight supplements.
• Currency. A euro commission paid into a sterling account arrives at whatever rate the supplier's bank chose that day. Record the commission in the currency of the booking, so you can tell a rate difference from a shortfall.
• Due timing. Some pay on receipt of the balance, some after the client travels, some at month end after travel. Write the due date down. A commission with no due date is one that can be late forever without anyone noticing.
• Reference. Theirs, not yours. The remittance will carry their booking reference, and if yours is the only one on your record you will spend ten minutes matching every line.

If you use a host agency, the host receives the commission and passes on your share. Everything in this guide still applies, except that you now have two statements to reconcile: the supplier's to the host, and the host's to you. Check your host agreement for what the split is calculated on, because hosts differ on whether fees and extras are included.

Read the remittance like an auditor

A remittance advice is a list of bookings and amounts, often as a PDF attached to an email with no body text. The temptation is to glance at the total, see that money arrived, and move on. Do not.

For each line, match the supplier's reference to your record and compare the amount paid with the amount promised. The lines to look at twice:

• A rate that is not your rate. A supplier paying 8 per cent on a booking agreed at 10 is the most common shortfall and the easiest to recover, because the confirmation says 10.
• A base that is smaller than the booking. Commission on 2,400 when the booking was 3,000 usually means something was excluded. Sometimes that is correct. Sometimes the exclusion is a transfer they said was commissionable.
• Deductions with no explanation. "Adjustment", "amendment fee", "chargeback". Each one is a question.
• Bookings missing from the statement entirely. A statement can be correct for every line it contains and still be short, because a booking that travelled last month is not on it. You only catch that with a list of what was due.
• Credit notes and clawbacks. A cancellation after commission was paid comes back as a negative line, sometimes months later, sometimes against a different booking than the one cancelled.

Keep a log of every statement: date received, period covered, total, and which of your expected commissions it settled. When a supplier's accounts department asks "which statement are you referring to", the answer should take you ten seconds.

When it is short

Write the same day, to the supplier's accounts contact rather than the reservations desk, and include everything they need to act without replying first:

Your booking reference and ours. The travel dates. The commission agreed, with a quote from the confirmation and its date. The amount received, the statement it appeared on and its date. The difference. One sentence asking for the shortfall to be paid on the next run, or for an explanation of the deduction.

No tone, no history, no "I'm sure it's an oversight". A query that is complete gets paid. A query that needs a reply to clarify something gets parked.

If the answer is "that extra is not commissionable", check the confirmation and the supplier's agent terms. If they are right, correct your record so the next booking is calculated the same way. If they are wrong, reply with the sentence from the confirmation that says otherwise, and copy the person who issued it.

When it never arrives

Late commission is more expensive than short commission, because it is invisible. The fix is a due date on every expected commission and a diary rule you keep to.

• At the due date plus fourteen days, a polite query: travelled on these dates, commission of this amount expected on this basis, has it been scheduled.
• At thirty days, the same query with the first one attached, to the accounts contact and the person who confirmed the booking.
• At sixty days, a statement of account listing every outstanding commission with that supplier, and a request for a payment date. Suppliers with several overdue lines usually pay the lot when they see the list.
• Beyond that, consider whether you want to keep sending them clients. Commission you cannot collect is a discount you did not agree to.

Keep every chase on the booking's record, with its date. If the supplier later disputes the history, the record is the history.

When the supplier fails

If a tour operator or hotel goes into administration, your clients are protected by ATOL, ABTA bonding or a trust account, depending on how the booking was made. Your commission is not. Unpaid commission is an ordinary unsecured debt of the failed company, and in most administrations unsecured creditors receive little or nothing. Register the claim with the administrator anyway, with the confirmations attached, and move on. Client-side protection covers the client's money and their holiday, never the agent's commission, whichever scheme applies.

The practical lesson is to chase promptly. Commission that is two months late at a supplier who is struggling is commission you are unlikely to see.

Why the spreadsheet fails

Nearly every agent who tracks commission does it in a spreadsheet, and nearly every spreadsheet fails in the same four places. It has no due dates, so late never becomes visible. It is updated when there is time, which is after the statement arrived, so the matching is from memory. It does not read PDFs, so every remittance is typed in by hand or not at all. And it does not chase, so a line that says "overdue" in red stays red.

None of that is the agent's fault. It is a job that needs doing every week, in the gaps between clients, and the gaps are where the spreadsheet loses.

How Holidr does it

Holidr reads the inbox you already work from. When a confirmation arrives, the promised commission is noted on the trip with its rate, basis and due date. When a remittance arrives, even as a PDF, every line is checked against what the booking promised, to the penny. A short payment is flagged with a query already drafted, the figures and references filled in, for you to approve. A commission that passes its due date with nothing received is flagged the same way, with the chase written and waiting.

Nothing goes out without your approval, and everything that goes out carries your name. How it works shows the commission screen with real statements. The 90 days are free, and the first thing most agents find is a shortfall they did not know about.