Reconciling B2B travel billing records on ledgers
Sector: Tertiary sector · Industry: Tour operators and travel agencies · Organisation: Applied Blockchain, Travel Ledger Ltd · Maturity level: Pilot
Travel Ledger Ltd collaborated with technology firm Applied Blockchain to build a decentralized settlement platform for the travel industry. The system records billing and payment data between travel buyers and sellers on a shared, tamper-evident ledger. The project aims to eliminate manual reconciliation efforts and lower transactional overhead across commercial travel distribution networks.
Documentation status
- Project status: Pilot (as of 12 February 2018) — Travel Ledger was introduced and tested in the trade press as a blockchain billing platform for travel agencies and tour operators.
- Evidence: Evidence medium
- Editorial review: pending
Description
The solution, designed by Travel Ledger Ltd and Applied Blockchain, targets tour operators, hotels and travel agencies to simplify their B2B payment flows. Previous reconciliation processes often require lengthy manual comparisons of invoices and booking lists across different systems. Through a shared, decentralised ledger, booking and billing information is synchronised and tamper-proof stored, so all trading partners always use the same information.
In tourism sales, travel agencies, consolidators and service providers face the challenge of efficiently settling thousands of individual transactions with each other. Conventional processes regularly produce discrepancies due to cancellations, rebookings or partial services, requiring time-consuming corrections. The Travel Ledger platform addresses this problem with a distributed ledger architecture that serves as a shared source of truth for transaction data. Applied Blockchain implemented a consortium model where authorised participants can exchange data and document payment approvals transparently. This minimises clearing costs, accelerates cash flow and reduces fraud risk in B2B travel trade.
Perspectives
B2B — organisations perspective
The solution enables business partners in travel distribution to exchange invoice and payment data directly and reliably without costly intermediaries. Discrepancies are transparently revealed before payment deadlines and can be resolved without invoice cancellations.
Employees perspective
Employees in tourism accounting benefit from a significant reduction in manual reconciliation lists. Routine checks are largely eliminated as data sets are automatically validated against the shared ledger entries.
Benefits
General
- Reduction of invoice discrepancies between business partners
- Shortening of billing and payment deadlines
- Increased traceability of all transaction steps
B2B — organisations
- Reduction of transaction and clearing costs
- Minimisation of manual clarification cases for cancellations and rebookings
Employees
- Less time-consuming manual invoice checks
- Automated data reconciliations facilitate month-end closings
Challenges
General
- Need for broad industry acceptance to achieve network effects
- Harmonisation of proprietary data formats from various booking systems
B2B — organisations
- Concerns regarding the protection of confidential conditions and margins
- Effort required for integration into established back-office solutions
Employees
- Familiarisation with new decentralised approval and reconciliation workflows
Technology foundation
Distributed ledger technology in a consortium or private network format for immutable storage and shared reconciliation of billing data records.
Implementation examples
Travel Ledger billing platform
Manual reconciliation errors and lengthy clearing processes between travel agencies and service providers cause high process costs and delay liquidity flows.
Travel Ledger Ltd has developed a decentralised booking and billing system for travel agencies and travel providers with the partner Applied Blockchain.
Travel Ledger Ltd initiated the project to reduce the high reconciliation costs in the billing of package tours and travel components. Together with the development service provider Applied Blockchain, a distributed ledger was built on which buyers and sellers can authentically store billing data. The platform allows transparent documentation and accelerated release of payments via standardised interfaces.
Elimination of asynchronous accounting records, avoidance of time-consuming complaint loops, and ensuring data protection between competing travel intermediaries.
Tags
Billing, Settlement, Tourism, Consortium, Invoice reconciliation