At JTB credit notes are identified by a five-digit number commencing with '1', invoices with numbers beginning with the digits '5' to '9'. Each invoice or credit note has an issue date and a departure date. The latter will relate to the departure of the flight, train etc. to which the invoice refers. If the invoice is for, say, a car hire administration fee or hotel booking charge, the departure date will be the date of departure for the whole journey and not necessarily the date of the hotel stay or car hire.
          Each invoice is part of a trip that will be allocated a booking number. Often, only one invoice will be found under a booking number. However, it is common for a number of invoices to be grouped under a single booking if they relate to a single trip. These numbers are allocated automatically in a sequential manner. If you are looking for an invoice or credit note with a number higher than the maximum found in the database the reason is probably that the latest data still has to be uploaded to our server.
          The notes column often shows how credit notes and invoices are related. You might find an entry saying a credit note is against invoice number xxxxx. This helps to interpret the figures if refunds are made for cancelled bookings, etc. The notes column is often blank.

At JTB an invoice will have a 'lead passenger'. In the case of multiple tickets or hotel room bookings, the lead passenger will be the person so designated when the booking was made. The lead passenger data are used in the creation of the passenger drop-down list on the left of the screen. This shows the different lead passengers in the chosen database (usually only those who have travelled in the past 12 months). If, for example, a member of your staff has travelled frequently but always with another member of staff, he or she may not appear in the drop-down list or in the data table if they have not been designated the lead passenger.
          The 'total for services' entry is the figure on the invoice or credit note for all chargeable items. It will be the total owing. Note that if, for example, a hotel reservation has been made and is 'payable locally', this item may appear on the invoice but does not enter the 'total for services' figure.
          If you use cost centres and have supplied this information to JTB these can be found here. If not, this column in the table will be blank.

The air ticket costs are the total air ticket costs for the invoice excluding taxes and handling charges. Airport taxes are the total of the airport tax entries on an invoice and JTB handling charges include handling charges for air tickets, rail and Eurostar tickets and hotel handling costs.

For the purposes of management reporting JTB allocates each invoice to a given region, country and city. Note that all invoices in the same booking will have the same allocation. A nine-region breakdown of the world is used. The regions are

  1) United Kingdom
  2) Europe (not UK)
  3) Middle East
  4) North America
  5) South America
  6) Africa
  7) Japan
  8) Asia (not Japan)
  9) Australasia

          In the case of a simple trip the allocation is straightforward. A ticket from London to New York and back would be allocated to North America, USA, New York. However, for more complex journeys the allocation is more difficult. For example, a business trip taking in Tokyo and Beijing could be allocated to Japan or Asia (not Japan). A trip to Frankfurt and then Stockholm and then back to London could be allocated to either Germany or Sweden. In these cases the usual rule of allocation is to pick the most distant region from the list above or the destination where most time is spent. For a full explanation of the allocation methods, see the handbook.
         This allocation should be borne in mind when looking at total expenditure to a specific location.

In simple trips with one airline, the allocation of an airline to the invoice data is straightforward. But for a trip that uses a number of airlines the decision of which airline to allocate to the invoice is made as follows. If a passenger flies BA from London to Frankfurt and there boards a JAL flight to Tokyo two airlines and classes have been involved in the trip. The method of allocation is determined by the radio buttons on the left. The default is 'First international sector'. In this case airline and class is that for the first sector that terminates outside the UK, BA in the example here. If the radio-button has been set to 'start time' the airline allocated will be BA, the airline with the earliest start time in the itinerary. If the radio button 'flight duration' is set, the invoice is allocated to JAL as this airline has the longer flight time.
        Note that there is no way to break down the costs of a ticket to allow cost allocation to be made to the two airlines. The allocation of costs is either all to one airline or the other.
       If this part of the table is empty it means that the invoice probably refers to a rail ticket, hotel booking or some other non-air expenditure.
       The total flight time is found by adding the scheduled times of all of the flights that were used. A flight time shown as 9.50 means 9 hours and 50 minutes. Note some flights might not have been used, if a cancellation occurs or two reservations have been made to make a return schedule more flexible. These would not be included in the total.