The richest-looking month can be the poorest
Between January and March, deposits pour in for trips departing all year, and the bank balance swells. Almost none of that swell is yours: it is trust money owed onward to suppliers or back to clients, with your commission arriving only when each file departs. An agency that reads the January balance as strength hires, spends and discovers the truth in the May trough.
The first thing we build is the honest cash number: operating cash net of client funds, computed weekly, with a 13-week forecast that excludes trust money entirely. TICO's minimum working capital gets treated like a bank covenant — measured monthly with headroom targets — instead of a surprise at the annual filing. That discipline sits on top of clean books; where those don't exist yet, End-to-End Accounting comes first.
The departure book is the forecast
Most small businesses forecast from history. An agency does not have to: every booked file already carries a departure date and an expected commission, which makes the booking ledger a forward order book. Laid out by departure month, it shows earned-but-unpaid commissions, revenue already locked for the next two quarters, and the exact months where the book runs thin.
That changes the timing of decisions. Hiring ahead of wave season, marketing spend aimed at the thin months, a service-fee increase tested when the book is strong — each lands on evidence instead of instinct. We add conversion and cancellation rates so the forecast is probabilistic where it should be, not a wish list.
Reserves for the risks travel actually has
Two exposures deserve their own lines on the balance sheet review. Chargebacks: when the agency is merchant of record, every card-paid trip sold but not yet delivered is a potential reversal of the full trip price, not just the commission. Supplier failure: an airline or tour operator collapse recalls commissions, triggers rebooking costs and burns unbillable staff time — and the Compensation Fund exists to make consumers whole, not the agency.
So we size a reserve against booked-undeparted card volume, watch supplier concentration — the share of commissions riding on your top few suppliers — and review both quarterly. Agencies that shift more revenue to service fees also shift revenue quality: a fee is yours at invoice, while a commission waits for a departure that can cancel. Pricing strategy and risk policy turn out to be the same conversation.
The dashboard we run
| Line on the dashboard | The question it answers |
|---|---|
| Operating cash net of client trust funds | How much of the balance can we actually spend? |
| Trust position — client funds held vs owed | Are we compliant today, not just at year-end? |
| Commission book by departure month | What is already earned but unpaid, and what is locked in ahead? |
| Chargeback exposure on booked, undeparted card sales | What could reverse tomorrow morning? |
| Revenue per file, by trip type and advisor | Which work is worth chasing more of? |
| Working capital vs the TICO minimum | How much headroom sits above the regulatory floor? |
Every line comes straight from the booking system and the monthly close — nothing is estimated twice or typed into a spreadsheet by hand. Reviewed monthly, the dashboard turns the annual TICO filing from an exam into a printout of numbers you have been watching all year.
Growth decisions with a banker's eye
Growth in this industry is mostly a people-and-book question. Independent advisors on splits scale without payroll but cap your margin per file; employed counsellors invert that. We model the crossover with your real numbers before you sign either kind of contract. When a retiring owner's client book comes up for sale, we value it on commission history and repeat rates, then structure the financing — Walla's background in banking and corporate finance, through Business Financing Advisory, is built for exactly that negotiation.
The cadence is monthly: dashboard, variance against the departure-book forecast, and one decision teed up with numbers each session, delivered as part of our Fractional CFO service. No agency this size needs a full-time CFO; most benefit from a few disciplined hours a month. We work with agencies across Mississauga and the GTA, and scope is quoted in writing after a free 15-minute discovery call.
