Simple 10 Step Process to Creating an Invoice

Author: Team Merang

Although our user guides provide details on creating invoices, we’ve found that many of our travel business users don’t have a lot of time to go through the guides, and need a quick short-cut way to create the invoices (especially when training new staff), to get them started quickly.

So here goes. We’ve put together a simple 10 step process to creating an invoice. We hope this will help you and your staff create invoices quickly:

1. Login to the invoicing module.
 
2. Click on the “Create a New Customer Invoice” button. This will open a blank invoice screen.
 
3. Enter the departure date and return date. Then, enter the customer details (first name, last name, address and phone number) and click on the “Create” button. This will save the customer profile into the customer database and you will get a confirmation window. Close it. (Note: If the customer is an existing customer, do a search to pull up the customer record)
 
4. Next, scroll to the bottom of the invoice and click on “Save Invoice”. This will generate a new invoice number and save all the details to the new invoice.
 
5. Click on “Add Travel Product” in the itinerary details section, and the Travel Products window opens. You must select the supplier here (and if it does not appear on the list, click on the + icon and add it; @agents: you may need to ask your manager to do this). Click on Save Product. Then complete the “Customer Fare” and “Supplier Net Cost” pages. (You must click on the “Calculate Totals” or “Calculate Net Cost” buttons respectively on these pages). Click on the save button in each page to save the information. Close the window when complete.
 
6. Complete the remainder of the information in this first page of the invoice and click on the “Save invoice” button.
 
7. Click on the “Customer Fare Received” tab on the top of the invoice to go to the second page. Click on “Add Payment” to record the customer payment received.
 
8. The “Supplier Net Cost” tab (third page of invoice) is for information purposes. Click on the “Supplier Payments” tab on the top of the invoice to go to the fourth page of the invoice. Click on “Add Payment” to record how you paid the supplier.
 
9. To e-mail the invoice, click on “E-mail – Customer”. A box opens and you can enter the customer’s e-mail, and your e-mail to get a copy. Click on the “E-mail Invoice” button to send the invoice. To print the invoice, click on “Print Invoice” which opens the invoice as a MS Word document.
 
10. Finally, click on the “Booking Details” tab to return to the first page of the invoice. Change the status to “Complete” and click on “Save Invoice” to save it.

Successful Launch of TravelOffice Version 4.0.

Author: Team Merang

You may have noticed something different with the TravelOffice system. Last week we successfully upgraded everyone to version 4.0. This upgrade was a significant enhancement in the evolution of the TravelOffice system, with the migration to a much more powerful database and the introduction of other design and feature enhancements. The following is a quick summary of what’s new or enhanced with the new version:

1.   Move to a more powerful database (MySQL): As part of our commitment to continuously improving our technology, we have successfully migrated all of our customers’ databases to a much more powerful and robust database (MySQL). This new database will enhance the TravelOffice system performance and help us plan for future expansions.

2.  Better Invoice Design and Options: You may have noticed some changes in the look-and-feel of the invoices. We’ve designed the new invoices with more consistent colours and fonts, and a cleaner more efficient design.

 

In addition, we have introduced a second more modern design layout. For customers that do not already have a customized invoice, you can view a sample of the two invoice designs and choose which design to use for your agency. You can also change and upload your own agency logo directly to the TravelOffice system, which will be reflected in the invoices and reports. To make either of these changes, here’s what you need to do:

• Login to the “Back-office Management” module.
• From the dashboard, click on “Manage Profiles” in the left-side menu.
• To change your invoice and report logos: Click on “Company Profile”, and click on “edit” besides the company location you wish to modify. In the “Company Profile” window that opens, select your logo file on your computer (by clicking on the “Browse…” button) and then click on the “Upload Logo” button.
• To change your invoice design: Click on the “Invoice Profile” option in the left side menu. For the company location you wish to modify, click on “Edit”. This will open up a new window with details of the invoice profile for that company location. In the “Invoice Profile” window, select an invoice theme, and click on the “Edit Profile” button to save the details. 

Over time, we hope to introduce other invoice designs for you to select from.

3.  Sales Report for Prior Years: You can now generate the “Monthly Sales Activity” report for prior years. Before, you could only generate the report for the previous year only (e.g. for 2007 only). Now, you can go further back in time.

 

4.  Second Billing Address for Suppliers: You now have the option of including a second address for suppliers, such as a billing address which may be different from the mailing address.

 

5.  Change Agent Status: Sometimes agents leave. In order to de-activate the agent, so that they cannot login to the system, edit the “Agent Profile” from the “Manage Profiles” section and change the agent’s status from “Active” to “De-Active (Closed)” status. If you need to re-activate the agent at a later date, simply change the status back to “Active”.

6.  Agent payroll where commissions not received: Some of our customers needed us to highlight agent commissions owing where the company had not yet received their commission from the supplier. Now, when you display the list of agent commissions owing from the “Payroll” section in the “Back-Office Management” module, invoices in the list for which the supplier commission has not yet been received will be highlighted in red.

7.  Insurance Product Net Cost: We have added two new fields in the Supplier Net Cost section when adding an Insurance Product. You can now enter the “Exchange Rate” and “Other Charges” when calculating the net cost of insurance products.

8.  Overall Design and Feel: We enhanced the design and colours of many pages, with a cleaner look and easy to understand input field labels.

 

Our design and development team and advisors have been working diligently through the past couple of months to bring these changes to you. We would also like to thank our numerous customers who brought us their ideas and requirements which were incorporated into this version. We’re excited with the new development and would love your feedback on the updates.

A Better Dashboard, a Better Search

Author: Team Merang

We just added a few more features to the Invoicing Module which, we hope, you will find useful. Here is a summary of them:

1. Agent Dashboard:

When you log in to the invoicing module, you will now notice 4 boxes; previously we only had 2 boxes (create new invoice, and search invoice).

• My Booking Activity: Provides a quick summary of the commission earned for the company (“Total Commission” ) and agents (“My Commission”). Based on the user’s role, they would see either the information for their own invoice, or can switch between their invoices or the company’s/office’s invoices. Please note that the booking activity only displays the commission information for invoices that are in the post-review status (i.e. that are “completed”, in “Accounting” or “Closed”). Also, the information displayed is for the previous month, current month, and year-to-date (YTD).
  
• Who Owes Me: This box provides a list of customers who still have an amount owing to your company. Based on the user’s role, they would see either the information for their own invoice, or can switch between their invoices or the company’s/office’s invoices. The information displayed is for invoices in all stages ( i.e. also includes those invoices in “Pending” or “Review” status). The list only displays the first 8, and if you need to see the complete listing, click on “Full Report”. Dates highlighted in red are past-due. If you click on the icon, a copy of the invoice opens so that you can obtain the customer’s contact information and you can view all details of their booking.

Please note for both new boxes: For users who have been assigned a role of “Inside” or “Outside” agent, they would see this information for their own invoices only . For users who have been assigned a role of “Manager” can switch between seeing information for their own invoices and all of the office invoices (for their branch). For users who have been assigned a role of “Administrator” or “Accountant” can switch between seeing information for their own invoices and all of the company’s invoices. 

2. A better Search:

We have improved the search invoices box so that you can now also search by booking date. Also, you can select a period of time to search by Booking Date or Departure Date. When the search results are displayed, we have also included the field for “Booking Date”.

Summary of Version 3.0 Release

Author: Team Merang

We successfully launched version 3.0 of the TravelOffice system in October. Since then, many of you asked us to summarize the changes/enhancements and highlight new features added. So here goes:

• Simplified Login Page:
  The login pages for both modules (invoice and back-office) has been simplified with a single login page. Also, we created a quick link to switch between the Invoice Module and Back-office Module quickly without logging out (for users assigned with Administrator, Accountant, or Manager roles).  
• Invoice Module Enhancements:
  We changed the layout of the customer invoices generated through the system. In addition, we added two more payment options under the customer and supplier payments sections:
   - Supplier Coupon: for customers that redeem supplier coupons
  - Cash (Non-Trust Account): For payments made to suppliers not through the Trust account.(Both of these also affect the Trust Account calculations and the Journal Entries, which have also been modified to accept these).
• Back-office Module Enhancements:
  Travel Document Requirements Profile: You can create ’standard travel document requirements’ profiles for various destinations. Then, on the invoice, simply select the ‘travel document requirements’ statement for the destination to display on the invoice (This is for your compliance to travel industry requirements in various jurisdictions).Invoice Profile: You can now customize the various “Payment Titles” – the standard are ‘Adult Price’, ‘Child Price’, ‘Single Supplement’, ‘Surcharge’,'Taxes’, and ‘Other’. You can now customize these to meet your company’s requirements.

  Marketing Reports: We have now added a customer profiles marketing report which lets you print a list of your customers contact information (e.g. address, phone, fax, e-mail address) which can be used to create labels, send e-newsletters or bulk marketing e-mails etc.

Our team is currently working on some more minor modifications, which we hope to release within the next few weeks (release 3.1).