Is a GetYourGuide Booking Missing From Your Payout?

Start with the booking, not the grand total

There is a particular kind of payout mystery that is wonderfully specific.

The guest came. You ran the tour. Everyone survived. Perhaps somebody even left a nice review. Then you open the payout documents and one booking seems to have vanished.

At this point it is very tempting to compare the grand totals, sigh deeply, and begin a small personal feud with Excel.

Don't start with the grand total, friend. Start with the booking reference.

GetYourGuide's invoice spreadsheet has a Booking Reference field. Their current supplier documentation says this is a unique reference beginning with GYG followed by nine characters. That little reference is your breadcrumb trail. GetYourGuide explains the invoice columns here.

1. Has the tour actually reached the payment stage?

This sounds obvious, which is precisely why it is worth checking first.

GetYourGuide says payout processing depends on the date the tour was conducted and advises suppliers to make sure the travel date has passed before escalating a missing-payment problem. It also notes that cancellations or rescheduling can affect payment processing. Their missing-payment guidance is here.

So before we accuse a booking of escaping through a side door, check:

• The activity or tour date has passed.
• The booking is not still sitting in a future period.
• The booking was not cancelled or rescheduled.
• You are looking at the invoice period you actually expect it to appear in.

If the booking belongs to a later invoicing period, nothing is missing. It is simply early. Slightly disappointing as mysteries go, but excellent news for your blood pressure.

2. Search the invoice Excel file for the booking reference

Now open the GetYourGuide invoice Excel file and search for the exact GYG booking reference.

GetYourGuide says the invoice Excel file contains detailed booking-level information, including the booking reference, status, retail price, commission and other payment fields. Their documentation says a Normal status generally indicates a completed booking. There is one little wrinkle, because supplier cancellation compensation can sometimes also show as Normal, so it is worth reading the whole row rather than giving one cell too much power.

If the booking is there

Lovely. We have found our first breadcrumb.

Now note the invoice number, the booking's retail price, commission and the amount that contributes to your earnings. Then move to the payment confirmation.

If the booking is not there

Do not immediately conclude it was unpaid. First check the travel date, invoice period and booking status again. If everything says the booking should be in that invoice but it still isn't, make a note of the booking reference and the expected amount. That is useful evidence rather than a vague feeling that the total looks a bit lonely.

3. Search the payment confirmation Excel file

If the booking appears in the invoice, the next question is wonderfully simple:

Does the same booking reference appear in the payment confirmation?

GetYourGuide describes the payment confirmation as the document verifying a payment made during a particular payment run. Its Excel version contains the detailed list of bookings included in that payment. If the GPS- or GS- files are still a bit mysterious, our Payment confirmation explained guide walks through them without requiring ceremonial spreadsheet robes.

Search the payment confirmation Excel file for the exact same GYG reference.

If it is there, compare the amounts. If it is not there, we now know the booking made it into the invoice but has not been found in the payment confirmation you are checking. That is already a much better question than “where is my money?”

4. Make sure you are checking the right payment confirmation

This bit catches people because the paperwork does not always pair itself up into beautifully obedient little couples.

GetYourGuide says a single payment confirmation can cover the amounts of multiple invoices. So a booking that looks missing may simply be sitting inside a payment run that includes more than one invoice. That is confirmed in GetYourGuide's invoice and payment confirmation guide.

Check the invoice references listed on the payment confirmation and make sure you are comparing the complete set.

5. Check whether the booking was cancelled, reversed or changed

If a booking is not behaving the way you expected, have a look at its status and any related cancellation or adjustment rows.

GetYourGuide's invoice spreadsheet uses statuses such as Normal, Reversed and Reversal. A cancelled or corrected booking can therefore affect the payout in ways that are not immediately obvious if you only search for the original positive amount.

If cancellation rows are involved, our Cancellation deduction guide is the better rabbit hole. If a correction appears later, see Manual adjustments.

We are trying to trace the booking, not prove wrongdoing. Much less exciting, admittedly, but considerably more useful.

6. What if the booking is there, but the amount still looks wrong?

That is no longer really a “missing booking” problem. The booking has been found. Hurrah. It is simply wearing the wrong-looking amount.

At that point, check the booking's retail price, commission, any tax or modifiers, cancellation entries and adjustments. Our Payout lower than expected and Commission looks wrong guides are designed for exactly that next step.

This distinction matters because missing and paid differently than expected are two different mysteries. Mixing them together is how Saturday afternoons disappear.

7. If it still looks missing, gather these five things

If you have traced the booking and still cannot explain where it went, collect the evidence before contacting GetYourGuide Supplier Support:

• The exact GYG booking reference.
• The travel date.
• The invoice number you expected it to appear in.
• The GPS- or GS- payment confirmation number you checked.
• The amount you expected and what the documents actually show.

A message saying “Booking GYG123456789 appears on invoice GIS-XXXX for €120 net, but I cannot find that reference in payment confirmation GPS-XXXX” gives support somewhere useful to begin.

“My payout is wrong” is heartfelt. It is just less searchable.

This is one of the things OTA Ninja checks

I built OTA Ninja because doing this by hand is perfectly possible, right up until you have dozens or hundreds of booking rows and your eyes begin quietly negotiating their resignation.

OTA Ninja compares the booking references and amounts in your GetYourGuide invoice and payment confirmation files. If a booking appears in one but not the other, it can flag that for a closer look alongside commission differences, adjustments, cancellations and other payout oddities.

It does not declare GetYourGuide guilty of anything. That would be a rather excitable little spreadsheet tool. It shows you what differs, what might explain it and what evidence is worth taking to support.

The 60-second version

1. Copy the exact GYG booking reference.
2. Confirm the tour date has passed and the booking was not cancelled or rescheduled.
3. Search the invoice Excel file.
4. If it is there, search the corresponding payment confirmation Excel file.
5. Check whether the payment confirmation covers multiple invoices.
6. If it still cannot be traced, gather the reference numbers and amounts for Supplier Support.

One booking. One reference. Follow it through the documents.

Much friendlier than staring at a €7,000 grand total and hoping it confesses.