The statement arrives, and it gets paid
At the start of the month, the Booking.com invoice and the Expedia statement arrive. Each lists reservations and the commission due on them. The front office manager glances at the total, it looks about right, and it gets paid. Checking line by line would mean opening each reservation in the PMS and comparing arrival, nights and value, and there are a lot of lines.
Somewhere in there is the guest who did not turn up and was never marked as a no-show in the extranet. The family who booked five nights, left after three, and settled at the desk. The business traveller who moved his dates by phone rather than through the OTA. The booking that was cancelled within the free period but not processed on the OTA side. Each one is small. Together, every month, they are not.
Why the statement and reality drift apart
OTAs calculate commission from the reservation as they hold it. Most expect the hotel to report changes, such as no-shows, early departures or changed dates, through their extranet within a set period. In a busy independent hotel, that reporting depends on whoever is on shift remembering to do it.
- No-shows are dealt with in the PMS at night audit but not always reported in the extranet.
- Early departures and date changes agreed at the desk do not flow back to the OTA.
- Stays are sometimes modified in the channel manager and the PMS differently.
- Each OTA has its own statement layout and its own deadline for disputes.
- Nobody is assigned to reconcile, so it is done occasionally or not at all.
What unchecked statements cost
You pay commission on revenue you never received. Individually the amounts are small enough to ignore, which is exactly why they are never raised. Over a year they add up to money you would rather have kept, and past a certain point the OTA's deadline for disputes closes.
There is a less obvious cost too. If no-shows and early departures are not reported, the OTA's view of your hotel's reliability and your own reports on channel performance are both slightly wrong, which feeds into decisions about which channels to push.
How we build a commission statement check
- The statement from each OTA is taken in as the file or export the OTA provides.
- Each line is matched to the reservation in your PMS by OTA reference number, with name and date matching as a fallback.
- For each match, the tool compares arrival date, nights stayed, room revenue and status (stayed, no-show, cancelled).
- Differences are listed by type: no-show charged, shorter stay, different value, cancelled booking, and lines that cannot be matched at all.
- The list is presented in a form that makes it easy to raise each item through the OTA's own process before its deadline.
- Night audit gets a daily prompt listing that day's no-shows and early departures from OTA bookings, so they are reported at the source and the statement is right in the first place.
| Statement line | PMS shows | Flag |
|---|---|---|
| 3 nights, full value | Guest left after 1 night | Shorter stay, commission on 2 nights to query |
| 2 nights, full value | No-show, card declined | No-show not reported |
| 1 night | Cancelled within free period | Cancelled booking charged |
| 4 nights | 4 nights, higher value (upgrade paid at desk) | No action, check policy |
The tool does not dispute anything on its own. It gives the person responsible a clear list with the evidence from your PMS alongside each item.
A monthly routine that takes minutes to review
When the statement arrives, it goes into the check. The front office manager opens a list of items to query rather than a list of every booking. She raises them through the extranet, and the tool keeps a record of which were accepted.
More importantly, the daily prompt at night audit means fewer items reach the statement at all. The monthly check becomes a confirmation rather than a hunt.
Is your hotel paying commission blind?
- OTA statements are paid on the total without line-by-line checking.
- No-shows are handled in the PMS but not always reported to the OTA.
- Guests change their stay at the desk and the OTA is not told.
- You sell through more than one OTA with different statement formats.
- You have never counted what disputed items would have been worth.