ARLINGTON, Va. -- The Airlines Reporting Corp. said small and
medium-size travel agencies are "beating a path" to sign up for
electronic sales reporting.
A total of 4,315 locations have climbed on board to report sales
electronically since the option became available in January 1997,
said Allan Muten, ARC corporate communications director, in an
address to ASTA's Metropolitan Washington subchapter.
"It gives you a much better window into your business," Muten
said. He ticked off several benefits of electronic reporting: It's
free, provides accurate sales data, reduces debit memos, eliminates
auditor's coupons, curtails internal ticketing fraud and simplifies
refunds and post-report reconciliation.
Three ASTA agents who are reporting their sales electronically
agreed with his claims. "It's been a blessing," said one agency
owner. "An important management tool," said another, "and you can
void right up to the time [Tuesday midnight] you submit your sales
report."
Said the third, "A great time saver."
With electronic reporting, ARC takes the tapes it gets every
night from computerized reservations system vendors, runs them
through various edits and sends the data back to the agency's CRS
the next day. The owner, manager or designated staffers can pull up
the data every day and make changes as often as desired.
By Tuesday midnight, a designated person must authorize a
settlement amount and hit a button to transmit the finished report
to ARC. The screen flashes a confirmation number as proof of
transmittal. The remitting date -- 10 days after the end of a sales
period -- remains the same.
At the outset of the program, ARC phased in agencies slowly
until it felt comfortable that bugs were ironed out. Since then,
the growth has escalated dramatically. The dollar volume of
electronically reported transactions topped $100 million for the
sales week ending Jan. 11, leading ARC to pronounce that its
systems passed the hurdle "with flying colors."
Muten said the growth has been fueled by small and medium-size
firms because mega-agencies are waiting until refund and exchange
notices and agent automated deductions are incorporated. At
present, agents mail a separate weekly paper report containing
their RENs and AADs, and ARC pays the postage for these
reports.
Muten revealed that ARC "is looking at June" to start tests with
agents who volunteer to report RENs and AADs electronically, along
with their other transactions. He estimated the tests would take
"at most eight weeks" but would not be pinned down on a completion
date.
RENs and AADs account for only about 5% of all transactions but,
for the megas, the actual number can be huge, so they are biding
their time. By contrast, one owner at the ASTA meeting said, "Our
REN report is only eight to 10 items a week, so it's no big
deal."
Another agent said a nice bonus of electronic reporting is that
"we never get surprises like unaccepted or invalid credit
cards."
The elimination of auditor's coupons was a benefit for another
owner, but for security reasons he does not throw his auditor's
coupons in the trash because crooks have been known to go "dumpster
diving." "So we went out and bought a shredder for our auditor's
coupons," said the agent, prompting Muten to suggest that he might
wish to see if his CRS can suppress the printing of auditor's
coupons.
The only drawback to electronic reporting cited at the ASTA
meeting was from an agent who said "a couple of airlines" have sent
debit memos for AD-75 tickets because the paper documentation is
not submitted. The agent said he had to locate the supporting
documentation and "work with the airlines" to resolve the debit
memos.