Partner Management

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

What's covered in this article:

Setting Up a Partner

Organizing your Partners

Editing and Archiving a Partner

How to Add a Partner to a purchase

How to Remove a Partner from a purchase

Partner Commission Report

Partner FAQs

Setting Up a Partner

1. Navigate to Marketing > Partners
2. Click +Create Partner.

Partner Profile:

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

Commercial Terms: 

1. Next, create or apply commercial terms to your Partner
2. 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. 
   • Terms: Most importantly, you will need to set the parameters of your partnership.
     • Basic Terms:
       
       • Discount Only: If your relationship only extends a discount to the customer, then you will fill in only the Discount field. For example, let's say our partner Eva Anderson receives no commission, but she uses her code for guests at the Hilton to drum up business for local Xola providers and give Hilton's guests something special. In this case, we'd just fill out the Discount field with the discount the customer will receive.
       • Commission Only: If your customer never sees a discount but your partner receives money depending on how much business they refer, then you will use only the Commission field. In this case, Eva Anderson is incentivized to refer business in order to receive her agreed-upon commission amount which will be reconciled
       • Discount & Commission: If your customer receives a special discount and the partner receives a commission, you will use both fields and specify the amount. 
       • None: If you have no financial relationship with your partner but they book on behalf of other customers then you can leave both Discount & Commission fields blank. 
       • Applies To: Select the demographics to which these terms apply. 
     • Advance Terms:
       • Edit Demographic Terms:
       • Markup, Markdown, Final Price: If your relationship only extends a discount to the customer, then you will fill in only the Adjustment field. For example, let's say our partner Eva Anderson receives no commission, but she uses her code for guests at the Hilton to drum up business for local Xola providers and give Hilton's guests something special. In this case, we'd just fill out the Adjustment field with the discount the customer will receive.
         Commission Only: If your customer never sees a discount but your partner receives money depending on how much business they refer, then you will use only the Commission field. In this case, Eva Anderson is incentivized to refer business to receive her agreed-upon commission amount which will be reconciled
         Discount & Commission: If your customer receives a special discount and the partner receives a commission, you will use both fields and specify the amount. 

Purchase Settings: 

1. 1. Partner Communications: This allows you to specify where Xola purchase communications should go. You have the option to send the confirmation email to the Partner, the customer, or both.
      • Note: Keep in mind that the Partner's email should never be put in the customer email field at the time of purchase.
   2. Partner Deposit Rules:
      
      • Voucher: If your Partner 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 Partner 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 Partner 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 Partner to override deposit: You can have Partner override the prefill you specified and put whatever amount they would like as the deposit. 

Organizing your Partners

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

Parent Partner Structure: 

Individual Partner Without Parent Relationship:

Editing and Archiving a Partner

To Edit a Partner: 

1. Marketing > Partners
2. Click the pencil icon under the Action column & edit away!

To Archive a Partner: 

1. Marketing > Partners
2. Click the down arrow icon under the Action column to archive your Partner. This will not delete the Partner but simply remove them from the Active view. You can restore the Partner at any time by following the same steps in the All view by using the round arrow icon to restore them.  

How to Add a Partner to a Purchase

Back Office:

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

 

Partner Deposit Amount Examples: 

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

• Partner 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 Partner Astrid collects the entire amount from a hotel customer, then she will put the total amount in the Partner Deposit box. That will later show up in Xola as a balance to be reconciled by collecting money from the partner. 
• Partner collects no money: If Astrid the Partner does not collect any money from the customer, that means that the Partner 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 Partner, this will later show up in Xola as a commission that the providers need to pay the Partner.
• Partner collects only their commission amount: Lastly, if the Partner 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:

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

 

 

How to Remove a Partner from a Purchase

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

If you choose to remove the Partner

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

If you choose to keep the Partner

• Your reporting will show the Partner associated with the Purchase
• Any discount applied to the purchase via the Partner code will remain.
• If a Partner 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 a Partner deposit. 
• If a commission is owed to the partner, per the Partner 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 what the general state of affairs is with your Partners - Who is selling the most of your tours? Do you need to touch base with any Partners for cash they owe? Are you behind in payouts to your Partners?

• Go to Reports > Partner Commissions.
• You can toggle into the Pending view to just see where you need to collect or pay Partners
  
• Collecting a Balance: Xola doesn't keep track of that transfer of money (we can't record when that PayPal payment or 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 Partner. 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.
• NOTE: Xola does not transfer any money in or out of your account for Partner.
  
• If you would like to know how much money your Partners 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 a Partner 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 Partner listed, you can go to Reports > Analytics > set the date range > Export Events. The CSV or Excel sheet will show the Partner Name and commission,  on that particular transaction.

Partner FAQs

1. Should I give my Partner access to my Xola account?
• While that is certainly a possibility depending on your specific circumstance, the Partner module is intended to allow your partners to book from your website using their code without a need to log into your account. 
2. How do I get an archived Partner back?
• Partners are never deleted in Xola, to get back a Partner that you archived, simply click Partner Settings > All. From there you can make an archived Partner active again. 
3. Can I set the commission on a per-experience basis?
• Yes! See the Setting Up a Partner 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, a voucher Partner 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 Partner. 
6. I know there are Parent and Child Partners, can you have a grandchild or grandparent Partner?
• No, at the moment there are only Parent and Child Partner relationships.