Software for managing travel agent commissions in group travel
When you sell group tours through agents, one of the bottlenecks comes at settlement time: working out by hand how much commission each agent is owed on each booking — bearing in mind that not all products commission the same way and each agent has its own agreement — is a constant source of errors and disputes. And a commission error isn’t just any error: it’s money, and it’s the trust of your sales network. Automating the commission calculation means that, when a booking comes in, you already know exactly what the agent is owed, without recalculating anything.
TourKnife is the group travel software that calculates each booking’s commission automatically, cross-referencing the product’s commission category with each agent’s commission scheme.
And if you’ve already sorted out commissions but you have other needs — selling online, coordinating suppliers or generating travel documentation — remember that TourKnife does everything a group travel operator needs. Discover all the features.
The commission calculates itself when the booking comes in
The commission is what you pay the agent for selling your trips, and in TourKnife it’s the result of cross-referencing two things: the commission category the product carries and the agent’s commission scheme. The product says “I belong to this category”; the agent’s scheme says “for products in this category I give this much commission”. That cross-reference produces the commission on each line of the booking, automatically, without your team entering or calculating anything per booking.
Different commissions per product line, without duplicating agents
Not all your products need to commission the same way: a full tour and a standalone ticket can carry very different commissions. TourKnife models this with commission categories: you create one category per way of commissioning, and each agent’s scheme says how much applies to each. A single agent can earn 10% on tours and nothing on standalone tickets, with a single scheme. You don’t need — and shouldn’t — create a separate agent for each way of commissioning: all the logic lives in the categories and the scheme.
Commissions per agent group, defined once
Agents that share terms are grouped, and the commission scheme is defined on the group. Each agent in the group inherits that commission unless you give it its own. The advantage is direct: if you renegotiate the commission for a whole network, you change the group’s scheme once and all its agents move to the new terms, without touching them one by one. And when a specific agent has a special agreement, you assign it its own scheme without affecting the rest.
The commission is locked into the booking
When a booking comes in, the calculated commission is saved on that booking. If you later change the scheme, existing bookings are not recalculated: they keep the commission they came in with. This avoids the classic problem of a rate change reopening settlements already closed: what was agreed at booking is what gets settled, and future changes only affect future bookings.
Commissions, payment and invoicing connected
The commission doesn’t live in isolation: it’s part of the same booking that brings together the payments, the payment schedule and the invoicing. You see each booking’s margin with the commission already deducted, and administration works over real data, not parallel calculations in a separate sheet. Settling with the agent stops being a manual end-of-month exercise and becomes a figure the system has already calculated from the moment of sale.
Frequently asked questions
How does TourKnife calculate each agent’s commission?
By cross-referencing the product’s commission category with the agent’s commission scheme (or its group’s). The scheme defines, for each category and price component, what commission applies, and the calculation is done automatically when the booking comes in.
Can I have different commissions depending on the product type?
Yes, with commission categories: you create one per way of commissioning, and the agent’s scheme says how much applies to each — all with a single scheme per agent.
If I change an agent’s commission, are old bookings recalculated?
No. The commission is locked into the booking when it comes in and isn’t recalculated afterwards. Scheme changes only affect new bookings.
Can I define the commission for a whole network of agents at once?
Yes. The commission scheme is defined on the agent group, and each agent inherits it unless it has its own. Changing the group’s scheme updates all those that inherit it.