Commission Matching

Every commission payment that comes in has one job: find the booking it paid for, so the advisor gets paid and the money lands in the right year. Most of the time JourneyFuse does that on its own. This article explains what it is looking at when it matches, the daily routine agency owners use to keep everything moving, and what to check on the rare payment that says no match when you know the booking is in your account.

The goal is always the same: move everything to Payouts. Imports and the Inbox are where the work happens. Payouts is where it ends.

The daily routine

Start at Imports, every time. That is where anything you send or upload lands first, and it is the screen that does the most matching for you.

1. Bring the statement in

Three ways, best first:

• Forward the supplier's email to your workspace's commissions address (shown with a Copy button on the Inbox and Imports tabs). Every line on the statement is read automatically.
• Upload the file — click Import statement (AI) and drop in a PDF, spreadsheet, or a screenshot. A screenshot works well for a payment advice you only have on screen. You review what was read, then confirm.
• Record payment by hand — for a check or ACH that never came with a statement. Pick the payer, the amount, the date, and the reference. See Which number goes in Reference below, because this is where most hand-recorded payments go wrong.

2. Read the match detail

Open Match detail on the statement. For each line you see what the supplier said next to what your advisor entered on the booking, with a dot for each thing that agrees:

• Reservation number — the strongest signal by far
• Guest name
• Advisor
• Amount — a match within a few percent still counts, so a $252.05 payment on a $252.00 expectation shows green
• Dates — travel and booking dates

All green means the advisor's booking and the supplier's statement agree. That is the ideal case, and it needs nothing from you.

3. Process

Click Process. Each line goes one of three places:

4. Work the Inbox

The Inbox is where you make decisions. Every morning, open it and clear the buckets:

• Unmatched payments — click Review. Search by the booking number or the traveler's last name. When the right booking appears, review the match and confirm. If the advisor booked it outside JourneyFuse, use Advisor booked this directly to create the commission and link the payment in one step.
• Variance flags — resolve the difference. Most are advisor typos on the expected amount; the rest are real short-pays you follow up with the supplier.
• Awaiting supplier — expected money that hasn't arrived. The Suppliers tab shows each supplier's typical pay lag, so you can see who is late and chase from there.

5. Payouts

Once a payment is matched and the hold period has passed (for most agencies, when the trip ends), it appears in Payouts grouped by advisor. Pay through DOTS, or export a file for your bank. The Forecast view shows what is coming due by month.

Optional: Deposits

Some agencies want to confirm the money actually hit the bank before paying advisors, not just that the statement arrived. The Deposits tab groups payments by the check or deposit they arrived on so you can tick them off against your bank feed, and it can sync with QuickBooks. It is entirely optional.

What a booking needs to be matchable

A payment can only match a booking that JourneyFuse can see. Three things have to be true:

1. The booking exists in JourneyFuse, on a trip, with the advisor assigned.
2. The booking carries the supplier's reservation number — exactly as it appears on the supplier's statement. Not the invoice number, not the client's trip name.
3. There is a commission to match against — either a commission amount on the booking, or a commission the advisor submitted.

If any of these is missing, the payment will show no match even though "the booking is right there." Fixing the booking fixes the match.

Which number goes in Reference

When you record a payment by hand, the Reference field is what the matcher compares against your bookings. Put the supplier's reservation or booking number for that line — the same one your advisor typed on the booking.

Do not put the check number, the document number, or the statement number there. On a payment advice those are usually at the top of the page and they identify the payment, not the booking. A reference filled with a document number will never match anything, and it is the single most common reason a hand-recorded payment sits in Unmatched.

If one check covers several bookings, record one line per booking, each with its own reservation number.

Why didn't my payment match?

Work down this list. Almost every unmatched payment is one of these.

The reservation number differs. Compare the number on the statement with the number on the booking, character for character. Suppliers sometimes print a shortened or differently formatted version. If the booking has the wrong number, fix it on the booking, then open the payment and search for it.

The reference on the payment is the check or document number. Open the payment, click Edit, and replace it with the reservation number. Then review again.

The advisor hasn't entered the booking yet. Nothing to match against. Send them the payment details from the Inbox, or wait for their submission. If your agency uses Unclaimed commissions, the payment appears there and the advisor can claim it themselves.

The booking is there but has no commission on it. Open the payment, search for the booking number. It will appear marked No commission recorded yet. Click Record & match to create the commission from the payment amount and link them in one step.

The supplier's payer name doesn't match the booking's supplier. A parent company pays for several brands (ALG pays for Funjet and Apple Vacations; Disney pays for its parks and cruise line). Searching by reservation number finds the booking regardless of the brand name. If it keeps happening for one supplier, add the brand under the payer in Suppliers.

Amounts differ. That is a variance, not a failed match. Resolve it in the Variance flags bucket.

One check arrived as several lines. That is expected: each line matches its own booking. If a line is unmatched, review that line alone. The Deposits tab shows the whole check together.

After a migration

If your bookings came over from another system, the reservation numbers and commission amounts came with them, but the history of what you were already paid usually did not. For the first few months, expect some statements to pay commissions the old system already recorded as received. Match them anyway; the ledger stays accurate, and the payout hold keeps anything from going out twice.

Related

• How Commissions Get Paid (Agency Owner)
• Commission Reconciliation
• Remittance Email Import
• Catch Up Commissions
• Unclaimed Commissions