Understanding Your Financials
CentralCommand goes beyond simple accounting (accounts receivable, accounts payable and posting to the general ledger). It provides a complete view of how a travel management company’s financial resources are used at any point in time.
CentralCommand provides the information that executives need to make good strategic decisions. The tight integration between travel, financial, and operational information allows for more sophisticated enquiries and can expose business situations that need attention For example, CentralCommand can provide a consolidated P&L view and allow management to drill down and view performance by branch (and drill further yet to learn why one branch may have dropped in profitability). It makes it easier to accurately connect revenue with expenditures so agencies can plan better, staff branches appropriately, etc.
The information CentralCommand provides is available at the click of a mouse. It does not require days of compiling data from disparate spreadsheets and because the underlying data is reliably accurate, the resulting reports are too.
The Business Case for Fully-Integrated Travel Industry Software
Understanding the real value that CentralCommand travel agency software offers is easier when actual dollar amounts are assigned to the inefficient processes, the errors and the cost of recovering commissions via a third party. These costs can often be overlooked, or simply accepted as a fact of life; however, they do add up and can significantly impact the business.
Below are some estimates that show the impact CentralCommand can have on your business and the savings that are possible:
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Revenue Opportunities and Efficiency Savings |
Achieved By |
Example |
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Increase Revenue by Eliminating Commission Tracking Services |
Elimination of third-party commission tracking; TMCs report an ability to increase commission tracking by 100 percent. |
Cost of a commission tracking system, tracking and reconciliation can be $4,000/month Two staff each researching, correcting and preparing third-party commission tracking handoff and bank deposits for seven hours/week (at an estimated $20/hour) costs $280/week. |
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An integrated system could save |
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Efficiency-Saving Through Error Reductions/Data Cleansing |
Identifying missing information before it hits the database and automatically correcting the data by sending it back to the point-of-sale |
Two staff each correcting errors for three hours/day (at $20/hour) costs $120/day. Identifying errors during the interface and pushing them back to operations for correction reduces the burden on the accounting staff by 60 percent. |
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An integrated system could save |
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Reduction of Errors in Debit Memo Handling |
Querying the database to quickly research and resolve debit memos |
One staff spending eight hours/week (at $20/hour) to open, print and code debit memos as they arrive at the agency costs $120/week. Identifying errors at the time of processing can decrease debit memos by as much as 30 percent. |
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An integrated system could save |
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GDS Reconciliation and Integration |
Automating the GDS feed, making it available for all modules |
One staff spending four hours/day (at $20/hour) transmitting GDS messages in real time, watching the interface process and correcting any errors that might stop the process, costs $1,700 per month. Real-time interface to the GDS allows accounting staff to simply flag and correct errors without stopping and restarting the interface. |
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An integrated system could save |
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Automated Bank Reconciliation |
Connecting with the bank electronically to improve cash flow |
One staff spending three hours/day (at $20/hour) reconciling the agency bank statements costs $60/day. Automating bank reconciliation processes can reduce errors by 50 percent. Jobs that once took days now take hours. |
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An integrated system could save |