A Supplier Invoice is a track-only invoice — Trips records what the client owes a tour operator, cruise line, hotel, or other supplier, but the money is paid directly to that supplier, not through Trips. The other kind, Direct Invoice, is for billing your own planning fees on a card.
What a Supplier Invoice is for
Use one any time the client is buying from a third party — a cruise, a tour, a hotel, a rail pass. You're the agent of record; the supplier is the merchant. Trips holds the schedule, the line items, the commission math, and a clean document the client can save or print. Your own planning or change fees go on Direct Invoices instead.
Supplier Invoice
Client owes a supplier
Payment outside Trips
Tracks deposit + final
Commission per line
Posts to Books when received
Direct Invoice
Client owes your agency
Paid inside the portal on a card
Funds settle to your Stripe
No commission tracking
Requires Stripe Connect
Creating one
From any trip detail page, click + Create → Invoice. A modal opens asking which kind. Pick the Supplier Invoice tile and you land on the builder — a Draft with the trip name as title, the primary traveler pre-filled in Bill to, a sequential invoice number (INV-000123), and today's issue date.
Adding line items per supplier
Each row is one bookable thing — a cruise, a flight, a hotel, a tour package, a transfer. You can mix any number of suppliers on one invoice; many trips are a cruise plus a pre-cruise hotel plus airport transfers.
Click Add line item and pick a type (cruise, flight, hotel, rail, rental car, transfer, tour package, activity, meal, other). The type drives a few type-specific fields.
Type the supplier name — the combobox pulls from your shared suppliers list. Type a new name to add one on the fly.
Enter quantity, unit price, and (if applicable) tax rate. The line total fills in automatically.
Fill in commission — gross commission as a dollar amount or as a percentage of the subtotal, plus your agency share if it differs from your org default.
Commission fields are internal — they don't show on the client's copy.
Setting the payment schedule
Travel agencies don't bill net-30; they bill a deposit now and the final closer to departure. Trips supports three modes: Due on receipt (one balance), Deposit and final (a deposit amount and date plus a final balance date — both milestones show on the client's copy), and Custom schedule (three or more milestones). See the payment schedule article for the editor in depth.
Sharing with the client
Click Share to mint a tokenized link on your branded portal — your custom domain if you have one, otherwise your-agency.urtravelpro.com. Copy and text it, or use Send to email it from your connected Gmail. The client sees the invoice rendered with your logo and brand color: bill-to, line items by supplier, totals, schedule, terms and conditions, and a Print / Save as PDF option. There's no Pay button — Supplier Invoices are read-only from the client's side.
Commission received → posts to Books
Suppliers usually remit commission weeks or months after the client travels. When the check or ACH lands, open the invoice (or Commission Manager for a bulk view) and set the line's Commission received date. If your agency uses the Books connection, the line auto-posts to Books as a commission income transaction tagged with the trip, the client, and the supplier; the post timestamp is recorded so a re-post can't double-book. Without the Books connection, marking received still drives Trips' reporting. See the Books integration article for details.
Status flow
Supplier Invoices move through Draft → Sent → Viewed → Paid (or Partially paid, or Canceled). Trips reconciles status automatically when you log payments or edit line items — a back-dated payment covering the full balance flips it to Paid; an edit that pushes the total above paid drops it back.
Frequently asked
Can the client pay a Supplier Invoice through Trips?
Not today. Supplier Invoices are track-only. The "Secure credit card authorization coming soon" badge points to a future capability for forwarding a card on file to the supplier; it is on the roadmap, not live yet. Use a Direct Invoice for your own fees — but not for the price of the cruise.
How do I record that the client paid their deposit to the cruise line?
Open the invoice, find Payments, and add a payment against the deposit milestone — amount, date, method. Record-only; the status updates to Partially paid.
Can one invoice have line items from multiple suppliers?
Yes. Mix as many as you want — each line carries its own supplier and commission, and the client sees one tidy document.
The supplier short-paid the commission. How do I record that?
Mark the line's commission received with the partial amount you actually got. Commission Manager surfaces lines where received differs from expected. See the commission article.