Travel agency CRM: bookings, payments and invoices in one place

Context

A travel agency's work starts with an email or a phone call and ends when the client returns from holiday. In between there are many details: the quote, the contract, traveller data, the deposit and the balance, invoices, tour operator commissions and reminders before departure.

Previously all of this lived in email, spreadsheets and the agents' heads. When a colleague went on holiday, nobody knew exactly what had been promised to which client or who had already paid.

What needed solving

First, no enquiry should get lost. Enquiries arrive through the website form and by email, and are imported from other sources, so they needed one place and a clear flow.

Second, money. A trip is rarely paid in one go, and the manager needs to see who is late with a payment, how much has been earned and what commissions the tour operators still owe.

Third, time. Agents spent a lot of time writing the same emails and copying data from email into invoices.

How the system is organised

Booking board. Every booking moves through stages: enquiry, quote, call, payment and onwards. The card shows the destination, the amount, how much has been paid and the responsible agent. Overdue bookings turn red, and some stage transitions happen automatically.

Booking record. One place for everything related to the trip: tour operator, hotel, dates, travellers, service lines, costs, documents, notes and the full activity history. The client can be sent a link where they choose a payment method and pay via Paysera (a Lithuanian payment provider).

Email inside the system. The agency's Gmail inbox is connected to the system, so correspondence with a client appears next to their booking and replies can be sent without leaving the CRM.

Templates and reminders. Email and SMS templates are filled in with client and booking data. Payment reminders go out on their own, and after the trip the client receives an invitation to leave a review. Marketing emails are kept separate from essential ones and are sent only to those who have given consent.

Invoices and reports. VAT invoices and credit notes are generated from the booking with continuous numbering and a PDF. Reports show revenue by the categories of the AT01 declaration (the Lithuanian tour operator revenue declaration), debt ageing and profitability, and the data can be exported for the accountant and for i.SAF (the Lithuanian tax authority's VAT invoice register).

Commissions and suppliers. For resold trips, the system calculates tour operator commissions itself and shows which have already been paid.

Worth knowing

A system like this stores personal data, so from the start we built in two-factor login, an audit log that records every action, and the ability to export or delete a client's data under GDPR. This is not an add-on at the end but part of the foundation.