Supplier request templates
Per-supplier templates, channels and languages, carrying your branding and the reference numbers their staff actually use.
Platform · Booking Flow
The booking desk, minus the chasing
Booking Flow sends supplier requests, reads every reply (API, email, PDF, or the fax-to-email that still arrives on Tuesdays), matches it to the contract, issues vouchers and reconciles payments. The routine goes straight through. The odd ones come to a person.
What it does
Ask an operations manager where the week went and the answer is rarely selling. It went on re-keying a confirmation into the reservation system, chasing a guide who said yes on the phone, noticing that a lodge quoted last year’s rate, and losing two days at month-end matching invoices to bookings that changed twice. We traced the anatomy of it in Where the hours go.
Booking Flow treats that work as a pipeline, with a person at every point where judgment is needed. It doesn’t ask suppliers to change how they work. It meets each one where they already are.
Timeline
One booking, traced
A seven-night family trip in northern New Mexico, accepted on a Tuesday morning. Six suppliers. Here is what Booking Flow did, and what it handed to a person.
- Tue 10:04
The traveler accepts
The approved proposal from Itinerary Studio becomes six booking lines, each tied to a contract and a cut-off time.
- Tue 10:05
Requests go out
API calls to two suppliers, templated emails to three, and a formatted fax-to-email to the family-run ranch that has confirmed that way for twenty years.
- Tue 10:41
The lodge confirms by API
Dates, room types, rate and cancellation terms all match the contract. Accepted automatically.
- Tue 15:20
The guide replies: “OK for 4, PDF to follow”
Parsed and held as provisional. When the PDF lands next morning, the meeting point is extracted and added to the family's documents.
- Wed 08:15
The balloon operator confirms, with a weather clause
The 6:40 AM launch is subject to wind. The clause is extracted and shared with Concierge, so the family hears about a scrub before they set an alarm.
- Wed 11:30
A price that doesn't match
The cooking school quotes above contract. Booking Flow sets it aside with the contract clause, the quote and a drafted reply. A person sends it in two minutes.
- Thu 09:00
Vouchers out, ledger reconciled
Vouchers and a day-by-day itinerary go to the family. Supplier payment schedules are reconciled against the deposit taken.
Exception handling
Lift the odd parcel aside, and hand it to a person
Automation that hides exceptions is worse than no automation. Booking Flow is built on the opposite instinct. Anything that doesn't match, doesn't parse cleanly or doesn't look like the last hundred replies from that supplier leaves the line and lands in a queue where someone with context can decide.
- What counts as odd. Price or terms that differ from contract, partial confirmations, changed times, unfamiliar clauses, low-confidence reads.
- What the person sees. The original message, the contract line, the difference highlighted, and a drafted reply.
- What it watches. Cut-off times and ageing, so an unanswered request escalates before it becomes a lost room.
- What it learns. Each resolution can tune the rules for that supplier, with your approval and never silently.
How it works
How it works
- 01
Request
Each supplier gets a request in its own channel and format, in the language it prefers, and the cut-off clock starts the moment it's sent.
- 02
Read
Replies arrive by API, email, PDF, portal export or scanned fax. Booking Flow extracts the fields that matter and scores its confidence in each one.
- 03
Match
Every reply is matched to its booking line and checked against the contract: dates, party, inclusions, price, cancellation terms. Matches above your thresholds are accepted; the rest are queued.
- 04
Close the loop
Vouchers and traveler documents are issued, your reservation system is updated, and supplier invoices and payments are reconciled line by line.
Capabilities
Confirmation parsing
Reads structured and unstructured replies, from emails and PDFs to scans and portal exports, and shows where each field came from.
Contract matching
Compares every confirmation with the rates, allotments and terms on file, and flags drift before it reaches the traveler.
Vouchers and documents
Issues supplier vouchers and traveler itineraries in your design, updated automatically when a booking changes.
Payment reconciliation
Matches deposits, supplier invoices and payouts to booking lines, and exports clean entries to your accounting system.
Audit trail
Every message, extraction, decision and override is logged with who or what made it. Useful at month-end, essential in a dispute.
Side by side
The desk, before and after
In our desert lodge pilot, 71% of package-component confirmations (guides, dinners, transfers) were completed without a staff touch, and the rest went to an exceptions queue. That's a pilot measurement, not a promise.
AspectInbox and spreadsheetWith Booking Flow
Sending requestsCopy, paste, adjust, send, one supplier at a timeGenerated from the booking and sent in each supplier's channel
Reading repliesSomeone opens every email and re-keys itExtracted, matched, and accepted when everything agrees
Price and termsChecked when someone remembers toChecked on every reply, against the contract on file
ChasingA sticky note and a good memoryCut-off timers and escalation before a hold expires
Month-endTwo days of matching invoices to bookings that changed twiceReconciled as payments land, with exceptions listed
Something oddFound by the traveler, at check-inSet aside for a person the moment it arrives
Our oldest supplier confirms by fax-to-email and always will. Booking Flow reads it, matches it, and nobody had to ask him to change a thing.
Questions
Frequently asked questions
What if a supplier has no API?
That's the normal case, not the edge case. Booking Flow works over email, PDF, portal exports, CSV files and fax-to-email as comfortably as over APIs. Suppliers don't need to install anything or change how they work.
What happens when it isn't sure what a reply says?
Each extracted field carries a confidence score. Below the threshold you set, the reply goes to a person with the uncertain fields highlighted. We'd rather ask than guess.
Can we control what gets accepted automatically?
Yes. You set auto-accept rules by supplier, product type and value. A common setup: accept exact matches from long-standing suppliers, and always review anything above a trip value or with changed cancellation terms.
Does Booking Flow handle payments?
It reconciles them. Money moves through your existing payment provider and bank; Booking Flow matches deposits, invoices and payouts to booking lines and flags the gaps. It never holds funds.
Will it replace our reservation system?
No. It updates the system you have, through APIs, webhooks or file exchange. Getting supplier data clean enough to match against is often the first job, and it's what our data engineering team does. Categories we connect are on integrations.
Related
Keep exploring
- ServicesTravel Data Engineering & IntegrationContent mapping, deduplication, supplier truth and data contracts that unify reservation, PMS, CRM and supplier data into one travel-shaped warehouse.
- SolutionsTour Operators & DMCsAI for tour operators and DMCs: proposals drafted from your supplier library, confirmations that chase themselves, and re-planning when the road closes.
- Field Notes · Operations & AutomationWhere the Hours Go: An Anatomy of Booking OperationsA two-week time study of a booking desk: where 360 hours went, why touches per confirmed service matter, and how to sort tasks into automate, assist or keep.
- Field Notes · Data & AnalyticsSupplier Truth: Content Mapping, Deduplication and the Data Behind PersonalizationPersonalization fails on a messy catalog. A practical guide to content mapping, match scoring, field-level authority and freshness for travel suppliers.
- ResourcesROI calculatorEstimate the hours and cost your travel team could get back when proposals, supplier confirmations and disruptions are partly automated. Conservative by design.
Find out where your desk's hours go
Bring a week of supplier email. We'll show you which replies Booking Flow would have accepted, which it would have set aside, and why.