Setup Your Agents
Index
What Are Agents?
Agents are defined as any organisation that will make bookings with the company (Test Organisation). This will mean that every company that books with Test Organisation needs to be entered in as an Agent in ResPax. This tutorial will show how to create a typical Agent.
Creating An Agent
Before defining the agent specifics, we need to create a new blank Organisation. Go to the Edit/Add Organisations under the Maintenance tab.
Click on Add New and this will bring up an Organisations window that we will be filling out.
Fill in the code you will be designating this agent. Codes are not derived automatically and ResPax does not have a unique coding guideline to follow. Alphanumeric is the only requirements, you may already have pre-existing codes in that nature for agents. The agent we are creating now will be call Tutorial Agent with the code TUTAGE as it is the first three letters of each word and that has a good chance of being unique when entering large amounts of agents.
Once the details have been entered, you must now choose what the role of this organisation is. Being an agent who makes bookings, who does NOT operate tours and does NOT own the company. We will select only Agent.
When setting Commissions for an agent you have to be very careful that this is correct. Tutorial Company gives Tutorial Agent 15% commission on all its tours. This means I will set Commissions to 15.
Now looking at the Credit Status section, this section defines what this agent is able to do in regards to money. The different options are:
Full - The agent is able to take the full amount of the tour including any levies and taxes that are NON-COMMISSIONABLE.
Full Levy - The agent is able to take the full amount of the tour Excluding any levies and taxes that are NON-COMMISSIONABLE.
Deposit - The agent is only able to take a deposit, equal to his commission from the guest and the rest of the due amount needs to be paid on board.
Pob Only - The agent is authorised to make bookings but cannot handle any money what so ever. Full amounts including levies/taxes/etc. need to be collected On Board.
Stop - The agent does not have the authority to sell any more bookings but have not been disabled. This means that any previously booked tours are still booked to go but any new bookings will not be allowed into the system until the Stop Status has been changed.
Being that Tutorial Agent is able to take the full amount of the tour including any levies. I will set it to Full.
POP Messages are messages that show up when a reservationist goes to make a new booking with this agent in particular. These messages can be very specific to the agent or very generalised and default depending on the type of agent. Tutorial Company only would like to book Tutorial Agent with packages so we enter in the text box, Please use this Code for Packages only.
Addresses Tab - Enter the addresses of the agent in the specified fields.
This is a good time to save as we have entered quite a bit of information in the agent. Click Save and then once the Edit/Add Organisation appears again, click Refresh and click on Tutorial Agent.
Agent Spec Tab - There are a couple of drop down boxes in this section that might need to be updated on a later basis. A brief description follows below:
Parent Org ID - This links up one organisation to another already in the system that shows the Parent or owner of this company is listed as another Organisation. Note: If you have not entered the Parent Organisation first then it will not show in the Parent Org ID as a code until you have created the Organisation, and then restarted ResPax.
Sales Rep - This is the Sales Representative the financial entity and database owner have employed to handle this specific Agent.
Agent Type - This is a marketing lookup that you can individually categorise each Agent grouping by Type. You are, also, able to attach Commissions on to each individual Agent Type, so when you add an agent to this grouping, it picks up the Commissions attached.
Agent Category - This is also a marketing lookup that you can individually categorise each Agent grouping by Type. You are, also, able to attach Commissions on to each individual Agent Type, so when you add an agent to this grouping, it picks up the Commissions attached. The only difference between this and Agent Type is that if Commissions are set in both sections and the agent is attributed to both, Agent Category would take priority and set the Commissions accordingly.
Terms(Days) - This is a helpful little area where you can specify, if necessary, how long an agent would have to invoice which can be regularly checked upon in another section.
Handle(%) -
Check for duplicate vouchers - This is a handy feature that allows you to prevent agents from using the same voucher in different bookings.
Key Account - This is a marketing option. When enabled, the agent has a Key Account which allows certain reports to print these Key Account agents on top of all other agents.
Ticket Issuer - This option will allow the agent to have a Ticket Ref. (TRef) in each of the bookings that have been made by the agent. When enabled, it opens the Ticket Seq tab for setting ticket sequences and choosing TRef options.
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Group Org ID - This area is a free-type text box that is purely used to group together Agents for Marketing reports. Please Note: If you do not write the exact name of the group for all the desired agents, they will not group together.
Currencies Tab - This tab shows the different currencies that are available to be used and which are preferred to be used by this agent. Currently, we have no currency select as the preferred or default currency. To make a default currency, in this example AUD - Australian, click on the currency...
Unless the Ticket Issuer option is selected under the Agent Spec tab, Tutorial Agent is ready to be used to make bookings. Please Note: If you have selected Ticket Issuer, a specialised HowTo document has been created for Using Ticket Ref. (TREF).
Once all the details have been entered, click Save and ResPax will create the Agent, ready for making bookings...
