Suppliers and organizations

Every booking names a supplier: an airline, a hotel group, a car rental company, a rail operator or an agency. The supplier register holds each one with a code, a contact person, an address and an eligibility note that states what may be booked with it, such as “preferred hotel partner, negotiated rate in New York and Chicago” or “economy fares only for flights under six hours”. Coordinators read the note before they quote; approvers read it before they decide.

Suppliers, bookings and team members belong to a travel organization. A company with separate travel programs for different regions, or a travel management company serving several clients, keeps each program as its own organization with its own time zone and base currency. Team members link a signed-in user to one organization and a role name.

• One register per organization. Each organization keeps its own approved suppliers and team members.
• Eligibility in writing. The eligibility note states the products, routes, cabins or rates agreed with the supplier.
• Team members carry scope. A coordinator or approver works only on their own organization’s trips.

Agree supplier codes and use them in your booking tool as well. Write eligibility notes in plain terms: the cabin class, hotel tier and negotiated rates your policy allows with each supplier. Decide who adds suppliers and who removes them; the Travel Manager owns this in the standard setup. Agree the role names for team members, such as Coordinator and Approver, and set each person’s time zone if they work across regions.

A company signs a negotiated rate with a hotel group for its Chicago office visits. The Travel Manager adds the hotel group with code HG-CHI, the account manager as contact and the eligibility note “negotiated rate 189 USD per night, Chicago downtown, up to four nights”. The next week a coordinator books a three-night stay for a sales engineer at that rate, and the approver checks the note before approving.

At the end of the year the agreement is not renewed. The manager updates the eligibility note to “agreement ended December 31; book only with approval”. Coordinators see the change before quoting, and past bookings keep their link to the supplier and the rate that applied.

• Approved Suppliers — Suppliers with contact, address and eligibility note, read before any fare is quoted.
• Booking Board — Open trips with traveler, supplier, quoted amount and owner.

• Request to approved fare: Quote and approve a fare with an agreed supplier.

Review the data model before loading suppliers.