Agent Management

Want to get more business by partnering with concierges, information centers, local attractions, and other agents that will drive people your way? Xola's Agent Management feature will help you easily track reservations and partner commissions. Agent Management will also let you define each agent's commission level, discount applied for reservations they generate, communication and purchase preferences, and more.

What's covered in this article:

Setting Up an Agent

Organizing your Agents

Editing and Archiving an Agent

How to Add an Agent to a Purchase

How to Remove an Agent from a Purchase

Partner Commission Report

Agent FAQs

Setting Up an Agent

• Navigate to Distribution > Agents
• Click +Create Agent.

Agent Profile:

• • Parent Agent - If you have a partnership with an umbrella organization that has multiple individual agents, you will need to add a Parent Agent. This is only necessary when you need to track or reconcile with each individual and not the parent as a whole.  
    • You can also click the arrow next to Parent Agent and choose an existing Parent, and you can create a Child Agent under their umbrella. 
  • Name, Email, and Phone - Add the full name, email address, and phone of the Agent. While not required, adding the email address is best practice and will show on the invoice to your Agent. 
    • Allow login access toggle: You can grant your Agent, Parent and Child, back office access to your Xola account. To learn more about Agent User log-ins, click here. 
  • URL - Add the Agent website here. This will show on the invoice when printed. 
  • Address - When filled out, this field will appear on the invoice sent to your Agents.
  • Notes- This is for internal use to help you keep notes on the Agent. These notes will appear only on this page.
  • Code- Choose an easy-to-remember code for your Agent to use when reserving customers. It helps to have some sort of logic or system in place when choosing codes. For example, if I have an Agent named Eva Anderson, a good code would be EA. If there is a Parent Agent, the child will inherit the parent's code. 
  • Click Next. 

Commercial Terms: 

• Next, create or apply commercial terms to your Agent
• To learn more about term templates and how to create them, click here. 
• Create a new template:
  • Title:  Name your Term, so if you want to add to others you know which one to choose. 
  • Product: Choose which products you want to apply the discount and/or commission to. 
  • Basic: These terms will consist of discounts and/or commissions applied in dollar amounts per person/per booking or as a percentage of the reservation amount. 
    • Discount: You can set the discount as a dollar amount per person or a percentage of the reservation amount 
      • Applies To: You can select the demographics the discount applies to. 
    • Commission: You can set the commission as a dollar amount per person or a percentage of the reservation amount 
      • Applies To: You can select the demographics the commission applies to. 
    • Commercial Terms Exceptions: This allows you to configure a different discount and/or commission for specific demographics. 

• Advanced: These terms will consist of price adjustments and/or commission rules applied to specific demographics within the experiences selected. 
  
  • Adjustments:
    • Markup: a dollar amount or percentage to be applied on top of the price set for that demographic in that experience. 
    • Markdown: a dollar amount or percentage to be marked down from the price set for that demographic in that experience. This will reduce the ticket price of the demographic itself. 
    • Discount: a dollar amount or percentage to be deducted from the price set for that demographic in that experience. This will appear as a line item in the Purchase Summary.
    • Final Price: A specific amount that is set as the final ticket price. 
  • Commissions: You can set the commission per demographic as a dollar or percentage-based amount.

Purchase Settings: 

• Agent Permissions: This allows you to choose which products you want your Agent to have access to when they make reservations. 
• Communications: This allows you to specify where Xola purchase communications should go. You have the option to send the confirmation email to the Agent, the customer, or both.

Note: Keep in mind that the Agent's email should never be put in the customer email field at the time of purchase.

• Agent Deposit Rules:
  
  • Voucher: If your Agent issues vouchers and does not collect any money from the customer directly at the time of purchase then you can use the Voucher option. A voucher is an item, like a paper printout, that serves as payment to be collected at a later date. 
    • Prefill the deposit value with: When the Agent code is entered, the deposit amount will be prefilled with the value you set here:
      • Total Purchase Value: The purchase amount, making the purchase $0 after the Agent code is entered. 
      • Commission amount: The deposit will be the amount you set as the commission amount above. 
      • Custom Amount: Enter a custom amount to be filled as the deposit. 
    • Allow Agent to override deposit: You can have an Agent override the prefill you specified and put whatever amount they want as the deposit. 

Organizing your Agents

In Xola, Agents can be added with or without a hierarchical relationship. When there is a hierarchical relationship, we refer to these as Parent and Child Agents. A Parent Agent is the umbrella organization that hosts multiple individual Agents within it. This is important when you need to track or reconcile the Child Agent separately from its parent organization. Below are examples of both types of Agent structures.  

Parent Agent Structure: 

Individual Agent Without Parent Relationship:

Editing and Archiving an Agent

To Edit an Agent: 

• Distribution > Agents
• Click the icon under the Action column & edit away!

To Archive an Agent: 

• Distribution > Agents
• Click the icon under the Actions column to archive your Agent. This will not delete the Agent but simply remove them from the Active view. You can restore the Agent at any time by following the same steps in the All view by using the icon to restore them.  

How to Add an Agent to a Purchase

Back Office:

• First, begin the standard purchase process.
• In the payment details section of the purchase, click Code. This is where you will enter the Agent code. Xola will keep all of your Agent codes in the handy dropdown so you won't need to remember every single code. 
• Once you enter the Agent code in the purchase, a box called Agent Deposit Amount will appear, if you have this feature turned on. This refers to the amount of money the Agent has collected. It is very important to put the correct amount in this box for reconciliation purposes. 

 

Agent Deposit Amount Examples: 

Since this Purchase is made at back office checkout directly by the Agent, below are a few possible situations of how the Agent Deposit should be calculated. 

• Agent collects the entire amount: It's common for hotels to collect the entire amount from the customer, or charge the guest to their room. If our Agent Astrid collects the entire amount from a hotel customer, then she will put the total amount in the Agent Deposit box. That will later show up in Xola as a balance to be reconciled by collecting money from the agent. 
• Agent collects no money: If Astrid the Agent does not collect any money from the customer, that means that the Agent Deposit amount in this situation will be $0. This means two things: The customer is paying the provider directly through Xola checkout. Two, assuming there is a commission structure in place for the Agent, this will later show up in Xola as a commission that the providers need to pay the Agent.
• Agent collects only their commission amount: Lastly, if the Agent collects their commission fee in a separate payment system and charges the customer in Xola for only the amount the provider is due, then they should put the total minus their commission since it has been withheld.  

Checkout:

• From your website, the Agent will book a tour. 
• In the purchase, the Agent will enter the customer's information. 
• The Agent will click Have a Code? on the second purchase screen, insert their issued code.
• Once the Agent enters their code in the purchase, a box called Deposit Amount will appear. This refers to the amount of money the Agent has collected. It is very important to put the correct amount in this box for reconciliation purposes. 

 

Personalized Checkout Link: 

You can give your Agent their own checkout link to use, that will already have their code applied.  

• Go to Settings>Button Codes
• Under Step 4, click on the 'Multiple Item Checkout' tab
• Create a new button by clicking on the blue  +Create New Button
• Name the button
• Toggle on Automatically Apply Code. Then, put the exact Agent Code in the box that appears.
• You can add all the products you want the Agent to make purchases for by dragging them from the left side to the right. 
• Click Save. 
• Once this is complete, click on the icon and view the checkout. You can send this Agent the URL to use, or if they would like to install the button, refer to this article.

 

How to Remove an Agent from a Purchase

When canceling a purchase with an Agent code associated, you will be given the option to remove the Agent (including any associated discount, deposit, and commission) from the purchase record. 

If you choose to remove the Agent

• Your reporting will no longer show that the Agent was associated with the purchase.
• Any discount applied to the purchase via the Agent code will be removed. 
• If an Agent deposit was collected, this amount will no longer be reflected in Xola.
  • Note: In this case, you can only refund the amount that your customer paid you, not the full amount of the transaction, including the Agent deposit.
• If a commission is owed to the Agent, according to the Agent code's settings, this amount won't appear in your reporting. 
• The Purchases Timeline will reflect that the Agent code has been removed.

If you choose to keep the Agent

• Your reporting will show the Agent associated with the Purchase
• Any discount applied to the purchase via the Agent code will remain.
• If an Agent deposit was collected, this amount will remain on the purchase record. You will be able to refund the amount your customer paid you and the amount collected as an Agent deposit. 
• If a commission is owed to the Agent, per the Agent code's settings, this amount will no longer appear in your reporting (Partner commissions are reflected as owed when a purchase has been served).

Partner Commission Report

You can see the general state of affairs with your agents.

• Go to Reports > Distribution Partners
• You can toggle into the Pending view to see where you need to collect or pay Agents
  
• Collecting a Balance: Xola doesn't keep track of that transfer of money (we can't record when that PayPal payment, wire transfer, or handover of cash occurs), but once that has happened, you can go in and click the Collect button. Then you will fill out the information in the next window so that this collection of cash registers in Xola reporting.
• Paying Commissions: You can see if you owe commission money to any Agent. You can send them money (in any way you would like), and once it's processed, you will go into Xola, click Pay, and fill out the information in the next window so that this registers in Xola reporting.
• Reconcile individual Payments: Click on the Agent, and this will bring up their transactions.
  • After you have your chosen date range, you can click on the transactions.
  • This will highlight them in blue
  • Next, hit the Reconcile button at the bottom of the page. 
  • Then you will fill out the information in the next window so that this collection of cash registers in Xola reporting.

Note: Xola does not transfer any money in or out of your account for Agents.

• If you would like to know how much money your Agents have been collecting in deposits, you can go to Reports > Earnings Report > and land in the Cash Flow view. Set the date range and you can see how much has been taken in as an Agent Deposit. You can easily click on Realized Earnings for a similar breakdown.
  
  
  
• If you would like to export all of your purchases and see the Agent listed, you can go to Reports > Analytics > set the date range > Export Events. The CSV or Excel sheet will show the Agent's Name and commission on that particular transaction.

Agent FAQs

1. Should I give my Agent access to my Xola account?
• While that is certainly a possibility depending on your specific circumstance, the Agent module is intended to allow your Agents to book from your website using their code without a need to log into your account. If you want to give them access, learn more here. 
2. How do I get an archived Agent back?
• Agents are never deleted in Xola. To restore an archived agent, simply click Marketing> Agents > All. From there, you can make an archived Agent active again by clicking on the icon. 
3. Can I set the commission on a per-experience basis?
• Yes! Please take a look at the Setting Up an Agent section of this article to get started. 
4. Can I upload voucher codes? 
• Xola does not validate the voucher codes that come through. At the time of purchase, the Agent will have a box in which they can insert the voucher number. There is no way to pre-populate voucher codes or numbers at this time.
5. Can I download some sort of invoice for reconciliation purposes? 
• There is no way to download an exportable CSV file from Xola. Many people reconcile it and send a screenshot or PDF of the transactions to the Agent. To send an invoice, Marketing> Agents> click on the agent, and this will bring up their transactions. After you have your chosen date range, right-click and hit print. This will bring up an invoice you can print or save as a PDF and send to your agent. 
6. I know there are Parent and Child Agents, can you have a grandchild or grandparent Agent?
• No, at the moment, there are only Parent and Child Agent relationships.