What Is a GetYourGuide Manual Adjustment?

The plain-English version

GetYourGuide describes Manual Adjustments as corrections made for missing payments or other issues. That is the official description, and it is wonderfully broad in the way financial descriptions sometimes are.

In practical terms, it means GetYourGuide has added a correction to the invoice data rather than simply letting the normal booking price and commission calculation do all the work.

If you have ever received a correction months after the thing being corrected and then spent twenty minutes trying to remember what happened in the first place, congratulations. You are already emotionally prepared for this section of the spreadsheet.

Where do I find a manual adjustment?

Look in the detailed GetYourGuide invoice Excel file. There is a column literally called Manual Adjustments. Nice of them, really. At least this particular mystery is wearing a name badge.

GetYourGuide also includes an Additional Information column. According to its supplier documentation, this can contain comments from GetYourGuide employees about the booking’s payment and may provide extra detail about what the payment is for.

So when you spot an adjustment, do not stare only at the number. Read across the whole row:

• Booking Reference
• Status
• Retail Price
• Commission Amount
• Manual Adjustments
• Retail Price Minus Commission
• Additional Information

That surrounding information is often where the adjustment stops looking like a random number and starts behaving like an explanation.

Why might GetYourGuide add one?

The official wording gives us two useful categories: missing payments and other issues. So the adjustment may be there to correct something that was not paid correctly before, or to deal with another account or booking issue that needed a manual correction.

I would resist the temptation to invent a very elaborate story before checking the row itself. I am excellent at this personally. Give me an unexplained €74.20 and five minutes and I can construct a small international thriller around it.

Instead, start with the evidence that is actually in front of you. Does the row have a booking reference? Is there a comment in Additional Information? Does the adjustment make the earnings for that row higher or lower? Does that new amount then appear sensibly in the invoice total?

How does a manual adjustment affect the invoice total?

This is where the adjustment becomes more than a curious spreadsheet decoration.

GetYourGuide says the Retail Price Minus Commission figure represents the earnings from each individual booking and includes adjustments. Its invoice PDF guidance also says Total Bookings includes the month’s retail booking total plus any manual adjustment payouts.

So yes, a manual adjustment can be part of the reason your expected payout and actual invoice amount differ.

That does not mean the adjustment is wrong. It means it belongs in the reconciliation. Ignoring it while comparing the totals is a bit like adding up the restaurant bill but politely pretending the dessert never happened. Admirable optimism. Slight problem with the arithmetic.

A simple example

Imagine a booking row where the normal earnings after commission would have been €80, but there is also a €20 manual adjustment.

Depending on the sign and purpose of the adjustment in your actual file, the amount associated with that row changes accordingly. The key thing is that the adjustment becomes part of the earnings calculation rather than sitting harmlessly off to the side.

That sounds terribly sensible, I realise. I apologise. We will return to mild nonsense shortly.

Is a manual adjustment the same as a cancellation or reversal?

No. GetYourGuide lists manual adjustments separately from booking statuses such as Reversed and Reversal.

A cancelled booking can create its own negative or reversing entries, and supplier cancellation compensation can also affect the invoice. If the suspicious amount seems cancellation-related, our GetYourGuide cancellation deduction guide is the better rabbit hole to disappear down.

The useful habit here is to avoid calling every strange line an “adjustment”. Find out which column actually contains the amount. Spreadsheet labels may not be glamorous, but occasionally they are trying to help us.

When should I question a manual adjustment?

I would look more closely when one of these is true:

• you cannot connect the adjustment to a booking or previous payment issue
• the Additional Information does not explain it
• the amount appears to make your payout unexpectedly lower
• the same-looking correction seems to appear more than once
• the adjustment does not reconcile sensibly with the payment confirmation
• you understand the reason for the correction but the amount itself still looks wrong

Notice the wording there: look more closely, not “GetYourGuide has definitely nicked twenty quid.” A strange number is evidence that we should investigate. It is not yet evidence of a crime worthy of a tiny spreadsheet tribunal.

What should I send GetYourGuide support?

If the adjustment still does not make sense, make the question as specific as possible.

Rather than:

Try to provide the invoice reference, booking reference, adjustment amount, what the Additional Information says, and the amount you expected instead.

Something like:

Now everybody is looking at the same row, the same amount and the same question. Much nicer than sending support on a treasure hunt with only the clue “money seems funny”.

Where OTA Ninja fits

Manual adjustments are one of the things OTA Ninja checks when it goes through a GetYourGuide payout.

I built it because doing this by hand is perfectly possible, right up until you have a decent-sized invoice, several corrections, a cancellation or two, a payment confirmation and a bank amount all waving at you from different files. At that point the human brain starts suggesting excellent alternative careers.

OTA Ninja reads the invoice and payment data, flags manual adjustments and other unusual entries, and helps show how they fit into the overall payout. It does not magically know why a GetYourGuide employee made an undocumented correction, because sadly the little ninja has not developed telepathy. But it can make the suspicious row very easy to find and give you the evidence you need to ask a sensible question.

My quick manual-adjustment checklist

1. Find the row in the invoice Excel file.
2. Note the booking reference.
3. Read the Manual Adjustments amount carefully, including the sign.
4. Check the Additional Information column.
5. Look at Retail Price Minus Commission to see the resulting earnings.
6. Check whether the invoice total now makes sense.
7. Compare the final invoice with the relevant payment confirmation.
8. If it still looks odd, ask GetYourGuide about the exact row and amount.

That is it. No cape required. Although if you already own one, I am certainly not here to discourage you.

Frequently asked questions

For the full invoice-to-bank workflow, see our GetYourGuide payout reconciliation guide.