---
title: "Commission settlement for tour operators: the month end in one report"
url: https://tourcockpit.com/commission-settlement
lang: en
description: "A tour or excursion company that sells through tour operators, hotel desks and agencies owes each of them a different commission on each booking. The commission settlement is the month-end reconciliation that says, per operator, what they sold, what the commission came to, and what is owed. TourCockpit builds it from the bookings the board already recorded."
---

# Commission settlement for tour operators: the month end in one report

A tour or excursion company that sells through tour operators, hotel desks and agencies owes each of them a different commission on each booking. The commission settlement is the month-end reconciliation that says, per operator, what they sold, what the commission came to, and what is owed. TourCockpit builds it from the bookings the board already recorded.

## What is a commission settlement?

Every reseller you work with has an agreed commission percentage. When they book seats on your tours, the guest pays the gross price and the reseller keeps its commission, so what you are owed is the net: the gross minus that operator's percentage. Across a month and a dozen operators, that is hundreds of bookings at several different percentages.

The settlement is the statement that closes the month: one row per operator, with their commission percentage, the bookings they placed on that month's tours, the gross those bookings sold for, and the net owed after commission. It is what you invoice from, and what the operator checks against its own records.

## Why is it the hardest part of the month?

Because it is usually done by hand, from a spreadsheet, once a month, by the one person who knows every operator's rate. Five operators means five logins to their own portals, five sets of numbers to reconcile and five conversations when a figure differs. A booking moved to another day, a cancellation, or a party that grew from four to six all have to be found and corrected before the statement is right.

Of the vendors we studied across seven European markets, almost every one stores a commission percentage on a booking. Almost none runs the settlement: the per-operator gross-versus-net reconciliation, the statement and the invoice. It is the least contested ground in the category, and the part of the month that costs an owner the most time.

## How does TourCockpit settle the month?

The settlement is a section of the Financials screen. Pick a month and it is already there: one row per operator, largest first, with the commission percentage, the number of bookings, the gross and the net. Nothing is typed in; every figure is computed from the board, so it is exactly what the board says.

- The commission is applied per booking and then summed, so the operator can verify the total line by line against its own records.
- A booking settles on the tour's date, whichever day it was sold: a booking taken in September for an October tour belongs to October.
- Direct bookings the office entered itself carry no commission and stay out of the settlement entirely.
- Each operator's percentage is set once, on their Reference Data record, by the Owner.
- The settlement is visible to Owners only. A manager sees the same screen without it, and the figures never leave the server.

## Questions

What is the difference between gross and net? Gross is what the guest paid for the booking. Net is the gross minus the operator's commission percentage: the amount the operator owes you.

Can two operators have different percentages? Yes. Each operator has its own percentage, and the settlement applies each one to that operator's bookings.

What if a booking was moved or cancelled during the month? The settlement is computed from the board at the moment you open it, so a moved booking settles on its new date and a cancelled one is not counted.

Do the operators see the settlement? No. The settlement is the office's statement; each operator sees its own bookings in the operator portal.