Running a travel agency involves juggling a number of different tasks – from designing itineraries and researching destinations, to negotiating with suppliers and closing sales with customers. You’re also likely to be involved with the administrative and financial side of managing your business, which often means that you'll need to issue invoices.
But rather than creating and sending invoices manually, you can make invoicing easier by choosing the right invoicing software for your travel agency. In this blog post, we look at some essential features of invoicing software for travel agents.
Invoice template basics
Whichever industry you work in, every invoice you issue should contain some basic information, including:
- Details about you and your client, including your business names, addresses, and contact details
- Details about the invoice, including the word ‘invoice’, a unique invoice number, an issue date, and a due date
- Details about the goods or services provided, including the price per unit, the quantity, and a brief description of each product
- Details about VAT, including the total amount of sales tax due (if you’re VAT-registered)
- The total amount due.
The easiest way to make sure that your invoices contain all of the necessary information is to choose invoicing software that comes with pre-built, tax-compliant invoice templates. Simply fill in the empty fields, add your customer’s email address, and click send!
Multi-language invoicing software
When you run a travel agency, it’s likely that you’ll have a rather international client base, and being able to issue quotes and invoices in your clients’ own languages can make it easier to communicate and close a sale.
Using invoicing software that’s available in multiple languages makes invoicing in a foreign language quick and simple. With Debitoor, you can translate your invoices into a number of different languages just by selecting the language from our drop-down list, so there’s no need to waste time with dictionaries or translation websites.
Multi-currency invoicing software
Just as you’ll come across customers who want their invoices to be issued in their own languages, you’ll often encounter customers who want to pay in their own currency.
Issuing an invoice in another currency can get complicated if you do it manually, as you’ll need to spend time looking up current exchange rates, adjusting your invoice template, and finding a way to account for exchange gains and losses.
With multi-currency invoicing software like Debitoor, invoicing in different currencies is made much more straight-forward. You can choose from an extensive list of currencies and will be shown the most up-to-date exchange rate. Your invoice template will automatically change to the new currency, and all you need to do is adjust your prices to match the exchange rate.
Proforma invoices
When you’re organising a holiday, there are a number of different things that can change. For example, your flight time might get moved forwards or backwards, or you might need to make some additional stops between your hotel and the airport.
It’s not always possible to give the exact details of a trip until a few weeks before, even if everything was booked in advance. As you should only ever issue an invoice when the final details of a sale can be confirmed, it’s important that your travel agency uses invoicing software that makes it easy to send proforma invoices, which are essentially draft invoices that allow you to document a sale before you're able to issue a final invoice.
Accounting, banking, and financial reporting
Invoicing is an important part of managing a travel agency’s finances (after all, invoices help you get paid), but there are a number of different important tasks that you’ll also need to take charge of.
When choosing invoicing software for travel agents, it’s important that you also consider how each option can help you keep you on track with your accounting and bookkeeping. One application that incorporates both accounting and invoicing features means that you don’t need to spend time transferring data between programs and that all of your financial information will be easily accessible in one place.
Debitoor invoicing software is designed to be easy and intuitive, making it easier to track your business expenses, reconcile your invoices and bank statements, and create financial reports – even if you don’t have a background in bookkeeping and accounting.
