Source codes that quietly move revenue between channels
Front-office habits that mark OTA stays as direct — and how that confuses remittance matching.
Night audit packs often show a tidy split between direct and OTA production. Remittance files tell a different story when reception rebooks a guest or adjusts a reservation and leaves the source code on “direct.”
A concrete example
A guest arrives with an OTA confirmation. The room type is wrong, so the agent creates a new reservation in the PMS and cancels the original. If the new reservation inherits a walk-in or direct source, the OTA remittance still arrives — but the folio no longer points at that channel. Matching then requires the cancelled reservation trail.
What we ask properties to keep
- Cancellation logs for the review window
- Original confirmation numbers in folio notes where possible
- A weekly spot-check of high-value OTA arrivals against source codes
During our reviews
Channel analytics reviews flag improbable direct spikes beside flat OTA remittances. Full booking revenue audits then chase the cancelled originals. Fixing the habit matters more than any single recovered ringgit amount: contracting decisions rest on source mix that must be honest.