How to Reconcile a GetYourGuide Payout From Invoice to Bank

First, what does “payout reconciliation” actually mean?

Reconciliation is a wonderfully serious word for “make sure the numbers tell the same story”.

That is really all we are doing here. We take what GetYourGuide says you earned, compare it with what GetYourGuide says it paid, then compare that with what actually arrived in your bank.

No green accountant’s visor required. No ceremonial opening of Excel. And, unless you enjoy this sort of thing far more than I do, no need to turn yourself into a finance department just because you happen to run tours.

The useful trick is to find the first place where the number changes. Once you know that, the mystery becomes much smaller.

What do I need before I start?

For a proper booking-level reconciliation, I would gather:

• the relevant GetYourGuide invoice Excel file, starting GIS-
• the corresponding payment confirmation Excel file, starting GPS- or GS-
• the amount that actually reached your bank
• the invoice or payment confirmation PDFs if you want the handy summary view

One important little wrinkle: GetYourGuide says one payment confirmation can cover more than one invoice. So if the payment seems mysteriously larger or smaller than one invoice, check which invoice references are actually included before declaring arithmetic emergency number one.

If you are still before the invoice stage and trying to understand the Supplier Portal estimate, our Next Payout and Your Balance guide explains those numbers first.

GetYourGuide explains the difference between invoice and payment confirmation, their reference numbers, timing and multi-invoice payments in its Supplier Portal payment-document guide.

Stage 1: understand the invoice

The invoice is your starting point. GetYourGuide describes it as the document detailing the bookings and amount due to you for the invoicing period.

The PDF is the summary. The Excel file is where the interesting little creatures live: individual bookings, retail price, commission, cancellations or reversals, manual adjustments and other row-level information.

If you are reconciling manually, I would begin by asking:

• Are all the bookings I expected actually present?
• Does the commission look sensible for those bookings?
• Are there manual adjustments?
• Are there cancellations, reversals or compensation entries?
• Does the invoice total now make sense from the rows underneath it?

You are not trying to prove anybody wrong at this point. You are simply establishing your starting number and what built it.

This is the stage where I personally have to resist the urge to stare at the grand total and hope it reveals its secrets through prolonged eye contact. Sadly, totals are stubborn little things.

Stage 2: compare the invoice with the payment confirmation

Now bring in the payment confirmation.

GetYourGuide says the payment confirmation verifies the payment made to you in a particular payment run. It may match the invoice for the same period, but it may also differ because a payment confirmation can cover multiple invoices.

For suppliers using Payment by Checkout date, GetYourGuide also says the two documents will most likely show different amounts because the invoice is based on travel date while the payment confirmation is based on checkout date.

Once the documents line up, compare the booking references and amounts. You are looking for things such as:

• a booking on the invoice but not in the payment confirmation
• a booking in the payment confirmation that belongs to another invoice
• the same booking reference with a different amount
• an adjustment or reversal explaining part of the difference
• a commission amount that looks different from what you expected

If this is the bit that has brought you here because the two headline totals are glaring at one another from opposite sides of your screen, our invoice vs payment mismatch guide goes deeper into that particular problem.

Stage 3: compare the payment confirmation with the bank

Let us say the invoice and payment confirmation now reconcile beautifully. Lovely. Tiny celebration.

Then you look at the bank and discover a different amount.

That tells us something useful: the remaining difference is probably at the payment-to-bank stage, not hidden in the booking rows you have just checked.

GetYourGuide says international payouts can be affected by currency conversion, receiving-bank charges, intermediary-bank fees and SWIFT or wire-transfer fees. It says GetYourGuide covers the fees for issuing the transaction, while processing or receiving fees may still apply to the supplier side.

If that sounds suspiciously like your problem, see our friendly guide to GetYourGuide bank transfer fees before reopening the invoice and blaming an innocent kayak tour from three Tuesdays ago.

A simple reconciliation example

Imagine this:

There are two different gaps here.

First, €500 disappears between the invoice and payment confirmation. That is where I would investigate bookings, commission, adjustments, cancellations, reversals, invoice coverage and timing.

Then another €35 disappears between the payment confirmation and bank. That belongs in a separate little box labelled “bank stage”, where receiving fees, intermediary charges or currency conversion become more likely explanations.

Numbers are much less frightening when you make them stand in separate corners.

Same total difference. Much better question.

The most common things worth checking

If your payout does not reconcile, these are the areas I would work through before composing a strongly worded email while emotionally attached to the Caps Lock key:

• Multiple invoices in one payment, which GetYourGuide explicitly says can happen
• Payment by Checkout date, where invoice and payment-confirmation timing may legitimately differ
• Commission and payment modifiers, including the extra commission associated with bi-weekly payouts where applicable
• Manual adjustments, which can correct missing payments or other issues
• Cancellations and reversals, which can create negative or offsetting entries
• Missing or extra bookings between the invoice and payment confirmation
• Payment status or timing, especially if the confirmation has not appeared yet
• Bank or currency fees after the GetYourGuide payment stage

If one of those jumps off the screen and waves, excellent. We have somewhere sensible to look next.

What if I do not have a payment confirmation yet?

Then I would not pretend you can complete a full reconciliation. You are missing the middle stage.

GetYourGuide says the payment confirmation becomes available only after a successful response from PayPal or its bank confirming the transfer. After payment is issued, the confirmation can take up to 3 business days to appear, and the bank payment itself can take up to another 7 business days to arrive.

If the invoice still says Payment in Progress, start with our Payment in Progress guide. If the expected payment has simply not arrived, use the payment not received guide.

This is one of those occasions where the boring answer may genuinely be “it is still processing”. I know. Very unsatisfactory. We all wanted a dramatic spreadsheet reveal.

Can I reconcile a payout manually?

Absolutely.

If you have a handful of bookings, one invoice, one payment confirmation and the totals more or less behave themselves, a careful manual check may be all you need.

I have no desire to convince you that every payment requires software, smoke machines and a command centre.

Where it gets tuff is when you have multiple invoices, lots of booking references, cancellations, adjustments, different amounts and a bank deposit that has decided to contribute its own opinion. This is the bit where spreadsheets begin breeding when your back is turned.

If you are doing it manually, the process is:

1. establish the invoice total and booking rows
2. confirm which invoice or invoices the payment confirmation covers
3. match booking references between the files
4. compare the amounts for matched bookings
5. identify missing or extra rows
6. account for commission, adjustments, reversals and cancellations
7. compare the confirmed payment with the bank amount
8. separate explained differences from the bits that remain unexplained

Perfectly doable. Also not perhaps how you imagined spending Thursday evening.

Where OTA Ninja fits

This full invoice-to-bank reconciliation is basically why I built OTA Ninja.

I work in the tour world too, and I would rather be doing the actual work than slowly becoming the sort of person who recognises booking-reference patterns in his sleep.

You upload the relevant GetYourGuide invoice Excel file or files and the payment confirmation Excel file, then enter the amount that reached your bank. OTA Ninja checks the three stages together and flags things such as missing or extra bookings, amount mismatches, commission issues, manual adjustments, cancellations, duplicate references and unexplained bank differences.

It then gives you a report showing what deserves attention, likely causes, suggested next steps and a copy-ready message for GetYourGuide support where appropriate.

It does not declare that GetYourGuide has made a mistake just because two numbers differ. Sometimes there is a perfectly good explanation. The useful bit is getting from “this looks wrong” to “this exact amount changes here, and this is what I need to ask about.”

If something is still unexplained, make support's life easy

Once you have reconciled as far as you can, do not send GetYourGuide support a novel entitled My Money Is Weird.

Give them the exact references and the exact gap.

That is a question somebody can investigate. Much kinder to them, and much more likely to get you a useful answer.

My quick payout-reconciliation checklist

1. Download the relevant invoice Excel file or files.
2. Download the corresponding GPS-/GS- payment confirmation Excel file.
3. Confirm which invoice references the payment covers.
4. Check invoice bookings, commission, adjustments and cancellations.
5. Match booking references between invoice and payment confirmation.
6. Investigate missing, extra or changed booking amounts.
7. Compare the payment-confirmation total with what reached the bank.
8. Separate known bank or currency fees from unexplained differences.
9. Write down the exact remaining gap and the booking references involved.
10. Then either question the specific issue or enjoy the rare and beautiful sight of all the numbers agreeing.

If all three stages match, take the win, friend. Close the spreadsheet. Go outside. You have earned it.

Frequently asked questions