In this video, we will explain to you how to set up net rates.
Transcript
Today, we're going to look at how to set up net rates on Tour CMS. Net rates are a feature that enables you to work with travel agents and other distributors in a different way than with travel agent commission. Net rates are a fairly advanced concept, and therefore we suggest using travel agent commission first, and then if commercial circumstances require it, to move to using net rate for some or for all of the agents you are distributing through.
An example of travel agent commission: If you have a tour that's at 100 US dollars and you give 10% travel agent commission, the travel agent will pay a net balance of 90 US dollars. With net rates, what you will do is to distribute the tour at 90 US dollars, and the booking will come through into Tour CMS at zero per cent commission. Net rates can work either as a percentage of the sale price, for example, 20%, or you can hard-set a net rate.
We're going to look at what the initial setup is.
Step 1: Enable Net Rates Master Switch
The first step would be to go to Home Page > Configuration and Setup, and then choose Agent General Settings. From here, when you scroll down, you will find the section that's called Netrates Master Switch. The default would be for the commission to be on and the net rate off. If you would like to use the net rates on, you can choose between one of the two options, depending on what works best for your distribution. In this particular case, we will choose Commission On and Net Rates On as well. Scroll down to the bottom and make sure to Save Your Changes.
Step 2: Grant User Permissions
The next step would be to go into Configuration and Setup and Users, so that you can give permission rights for each user you want to be able to edit or create a net rate. In this particular case, we will choose the "Net Rates Tester," which is a username created for the purposes of this exercise. We would go to Permissions and Main Setup. Again, scroll down below until we locate the Product and Services section, right here, where you can tick or untick (well, in this case it's already ticked, but we want to tick) View and Edit Net Rates, which would allow that particular user to be able to do just that: view and edit net rates. Make sure to make our changes below.
Step 3: Create Net Rate Tiers
The next step would be to go back to Configuration > System and Setup. This time, we will go directly into the Net Rates under your travel products. For the purposes of this exercise today, we will create two types of net rates:
One called "Regular," which is at their default percentage, 10%. You can see it straight away.
And the other one we will call it "Top Level," and we will leave that at 20%.
Now we have two active net rate tiers.
Step 4: Set Default Net Rate Tier for Agents
The next step would be to go back to Configuration > System and Setup. This time, we would go to Agent General Settings. Now we will choose our Default Netrate Tier, which would be applied to any new travel agents connected to your Tour CMS account. We will choose "Regular" on this occasion, and scroll down below and make sure to Save Changes.
What tiers do is they basically enable you to group travel agents into different levels. You can have unlimited tiers. However, we suggest, at least initially, to keep the number of tiers to a minimum.
Step 5: Assign Net Rate Tier to Specific Agents
In Travel Agent Manager > Marketplace Agent, you can now go to your connected or non-connected travel agents. When you go to the connected travel agent, just choose the first one we see at the top. If you go straight into Configure Agent here and scroll down below, you will see a section that's called Netrate Tier. Here we can choose whether to assign a "Regular" or a "Top Level" net rate tier to this specific agent. We will choose the "Regular" and Save All Changes.