What Is a GetYourGuide Payment Confirmation?

The plain-English version first

A GetYourGuide payment confirmation is basically the document that says, “This is the payment we made in this payment run.” It is not the same thing as your invoice, and it is not the same thing as the money appearing in your bank account.

That sounds obvious when written down. In real life, of course, you have an invoice, a payment confirmation, perhaps two spreadsheets, a PDF, a bank transaction and seventeen browser tabs open, so the obvious can become surprisingly shy.

Those three stages are related, but they are not interchangeable. Once you keep them separate, the whole payout starts behaving itself a little better.

Where do I find the payment confirmation?

In the GetYourGuide Supplier Portal, go to Finance and then choose Payment Confirmations. GetYourGuide says payment-confirmation reference numbers begin with GPS- or GS-.

Want to use that payment confirmation in the full process? See our GetYourGuide payout reconciliation guide.

Official guidance: GetYourGuide, Navigating Invoice and Payment Confirmation in Supplier Portal.

If you see a file called something beginning with GPS- or GS-, congratulations. You have found the right family of document. Tiny victory, but we shall take it.

What does a payment confirmation actually prove?

This is the important bit. GetYourGuide says the payment confirmation only becomes available in the Supplier Portal after it receives a successful response from PayPal or its bank confirming the validity of the transfer.

So a payment confirmation is a much stronger milestone than merely seeing an invoice marked for payment. GetYourGuide's separate status guidance also says a payment confirmation has only one status: Paid.

Official guidance: GetYourGuide, Understanding Invoice and Payment Confirmation Statuses.

That does not mean the money must already be sitting happily in your bank account. Banks, bless them, sometimes require a little travelling time.

Invoice versus payment confirmation

This is where quite a few payout mysteries begin, so here is the simple distinction I wish somebody had tattooed onto the Supplier Portal in very large friendly letters.

GetYourGuide says an invoice is based on the bookings and amount due in an invoicing period. The payment confirmation verifies the payment made in a particular payment run.

Most of the time the totals may line up nicely. When they do, splendid. We can all go outside.

But GetYourGuide also says the amounts can differ because one payment confirmation may cover multiple invoices. That little sentence explains an impressive amount of spreadsheet confusion.

Can one payment confirmation cover several invoices?

Yes. Very much yes.

Suppose one invoice says €2,400, but the payment confirmation says €3,050. It is tempting to stare at the €650 difference until it confesses.

Before doing that, check which invoice references are actually included in the payment confirmation. GetYourGuide explicitly says one payment confirmation can include the amounts of multiple invoices.

This is not glamorous advice. It is, however, the sort that can save forty minutes and one unnecessarily dramatic email to support.

Payment confirmation PDF versus Excel

GetYourGuide currently provides the payment confirmation in two useful forms, and they do different jobs.

If you just want to see which invoices were grouped into the payment, the PDF is handy. If you are trying to reconcile individual bookings, amounts or references, the Excel file is the interesting one.

It is also the file OTA Ninja uses for the detailed payout check. More on that in a minute, but I promise not to leap out from behind every paragraph waving a checkout button.

Why can the invoice and payment confirmation still differ?

Multiple invoices are one reason. There is another one worth knowing if your supplier account uses Payment by Checkout date.

GetYourGuide says that in this setup, an invoice and payment confirmation covering the same general period will most likely show different amounts because the invoice is based on booking travel date while the payment confirmation is based on booking checkout date.

So if you are paid on checkout date, a mismatch is not automatically evidence that anything has gone wrong. It may simply be the two documents grouping bookings by different dates.

This is why I am rather fond of the phrase “find where the numbers changed” instead of “find who made a mistake.” The first one gets us somewhere. The second one mostly raises the blood pressure.

When should the payment confirmation appear?

GetYourGuide's current guidance says payments are issued by the 5th business day for monthly payouts, and for bi-weekly payouts by the 5th and 20th, or the next business day where applicable.

After the payment is issued, GetYourGuide says the payment confirmation can take up to another 3 business days to appear in the Supplier Portal. The bank transfer itself can take longer to arrive.

If the payment confirmation has not appeared after the normal timeframe, GetYourGuide says that can indicate a failed transfer or no response from the bank, and recommends contacting Supplier Support.

So if you are checking three hours after the payment run, friend, I would put the detective hat down for the afternoon. Sometimes the answer genuinely is “give it a little time,” which is deeply unsatisfying but occasionally correct.

I have a payment confirmation, but no money is in the bank

This is where the document becomes especially useful. If the payment confirmation exists, you now have a reference showing GetYourGuide says the transfer reached the confirmed payment stage.

GetYourGuide says that after payment is issued, a bank transfer can take up to another 7 business days to arrive in the supplier's bank account. So first check whether you are still inside that window.

If you are outside it, keep the GPS- or GS- reference handy when speaking to your bank or GetYourGuide Supplier Support. Specific references are wonderful little things. They make support conversations much less philosophical.

If the money arrived but the bank amount is lower than the payment confirmation, use our bank transfer fees guide. If no money arrived at all, use the payment not received guide.

Which payment confirmation file does OTA Ninja need?

For a full GetYourGuide payout check, OTA Ninja uses the Payment Confirmation Excel file (.xlsx or .xls). Look for the GPS- or GS- reference or filename.

The Excel file matters because it contains the booking-level detail. OTA Ninja can compare those paid bookings with the booking rows in your GetYourGuide invoice file and show where the two sets stop agreeing.

The Payment Confirmation PDF is optional. It can be used as an extra cross-check for the payment-confirmation reference and the invoice or invoices included.

My simple payment-confirmation checklist

1. Find the payment confirmation under Finance → Payment Confirmations.
2. Check that the reference starts with GPS- or GS-.
3. Open the PDF if you want to see which invoice or invoices are included.
4. Open the Excel file if you need the detailed list of paid bookings.
5. Do not assume one payment confirmation equals one invoice.
6. If you are paid by checkout date, remember that invoice and payment confirmation can group bookings differently.
7. If the confirmation has not appeared yet, check whether you are still inside the normal processing window.
8. If the confirmation exists but the bank has no money, check the bank-arrival window next.
9. If the confirmation amount and bank amount differ, investigate the bank stage.
10. If the invoice and payment confirmation differ, reconcile the booking rows and invoice coverage.

That is really the whole game. Identify what each document is telling you, then compare like with like.

Much easier than staring sternly at three totals and hoping one gets nervous.