eRES Accounting System Overview

The objective of eRES Accounting is to provide passenger airlines with a computerized solution to the needs of passenger revenue accounting departments.

eRES Accounting is fully integrated into the eRES passenger systems and FDM's general ledger program eLedger. A stand-alone version is available that will allow you to use eRES Accounting and eLedger in conjunction with your reservation system.

eRES Accouinting accepts payment for reservations from both the Internet and Interlining with other reservation systems.

Following is a brief description of the Internet connected sources:

Internet Source	Method of Payment Allowed
Passengers	Credit Card, Delayed Payment
Travel Agents	BSP, Credit Card, Invoice
Other Airlines	ACH, Credit Card, Invoice
Corporate Customers	Credit Card, Invoice

All of these reservations are booked directly on eRES and are considered paid for at the time of booking. The collection from ACH, BSP and invoices are tracked by the eRES accounting applications.

Delayed payment allows passengers to make a reservation via the Internet and then pay for the reservation at the airline's ticket offices or at travel agents. If the itinerary is not paid for with-in the set time limits it is deleted from the reservation system.

Following is a brief description of the Interlined connected sources:

Internet Source	Method of Payment Allowed
Travel Agents	BSP
Other Airlines	ACH

Only reservations that are paid for appear on the check-in passenger list. If the reservation is not on the list there is no possible way for the passenger to be boarded.

The revenue system for Interline sources is fully based upon IATA's BSP and ACH standards and supports a 100% match use design. Match use is the comparing of the interline BSP/ACH fare, the fare actually on the ticket and the fare master contain in eRES.

eRES generated pricing includes tariff master match for point-to-point and interline agreements, straight rate proration, and IATA standard proration.

Marketing and sales analysis reports fully complement the revenue accounting needs.

The revenue system is comprehensive in scope and detail, and at the same time, it is efficient and cost effective; it reduces the number of personnel needed for pricing, auditing, revenue recovery, and the various supportive functions of the revenue system. If your airline presently interlines passengers, your accounting staff will be reduced by more then one half the present number.

To eliminate data input, each reservation made on eRES generates the passenger's record automatically in the reservation system. Facilities to "down load" data from outside sources including credit card authorities, ACH and BSP.

eRES reservation system provides a processing module with the capability to capture all sales transactions, retain the transactions and transfer the sales data into the accounting system for input free processing. The accounting department is not required to input reservations or the payment data. This leaves accounting to do what they are trained to do.

An additional means to minimize data input is provided, as the initial reservation is automatically created, whether auditor or boarded passenger, the system creates a database file on the initial entry. When additional data are input, a search is initiated against the database. If a match is found all data previously input are displayed thereby eliminating redundant data input. The new data is made part of the original database file.

The passenger's records is verified when it is input for the first time. The following checks are automatically done:

• Does the flight exist and is there seats available?
• Is the payment being made correct?
• Is the passenger information available?
• Is the user who is making the reservation properly identified?

If all of the above is correct then the reservation is booked. If additional information is needed or some is incorrect a query is generated. When all things are correct then the reservation is booked otherwise it is rejected.

Each time the passenger's record is accessed the above checks are done again. This procedure insures that each reservation booked into the system is correct and paid for.

The revenue system provides following functions:

• Automate billings including ACH, BSP, invoices and credit cards.
• Revenue recovery of unreported sales.
• Variance processing with automatic creation of debit/credit and rejection memos.
• Extensive audit capabilities and trails are provided.
• Reduce itinerary pricing errors by system matching the tariff master and proration.
• Evaluate marketing and business strategy through yield and revenue analysis of the available data.
• Evaluate travel agency effectiveness through sales analysis reports.

The Revenue System is divided into the following areas:

• Passenger Identification Number Tracking
• Auditor's Accounting
• Boarding Pass Processing
• OAL Coupons
• Match-Use
• Travel Agency
• Memos

The modules have extensive interfacing capability to methodically track, maintain, control and monitor revenue system management by passenger identification number, location, status, agency pricing factors, and all clearing house functions.

All the methods and procedures required for a fully functional passenger revenue system department are incorporated into these modules.

In addition, full reporting capability assures clearing house compliance, accounting and budget projection accuracy, and marketing support.

Passenger Identification Number Tracking establishes inventory control to on-line sales and serves as the source for the reports of unreported sales, sold reservations open, and sold reservation tickets closed including variance capture, passenger credit and the earned/unearned revenue position.

For processing an itinerary's components, the auditor's record and the lifted boarded pass record, the following processing areas are provided.

Auditor's Accounting (sales) is used to process the entry, validation, pricing and reporting of all itinerary sales. This includes passenger, baggage, upgrades or any other sales transaction.

Sales processing provides the source for the air traffic liability (unearned revenue).

The boarding pass processing system is the source for both earned income and interline receivables.

When the aircraft takes-off the following actions take place:

• Accounting records are restricted from changes by all personnel except accounting. Other areas can still view the records but are not allowed to change them.
• Accounting now focuses on specific flights rather than considering the airline's total financial picture.

The next step in the processing procedure is to input any corrections and/or price individual tickets either manually or by access to proration processing

A specific flight selected by an auditor is checked to insure that the flight information is correct, that all payments have been received and that any payments due have been moved to the correct processing queue.

If errors are found, the problems are in most cases automatically resolved by the system. In the case where an auditor must make changes the area in error is displayed and high lighted. Once the auditor corrects any errors the flight is re-submitted for testing by the system.

Once a batch passes the testing the flight data is transfer from current work to being in the past, as a detailed record but still provide a variety of invoice and month-to-date reports. The data in the past is available for all accounting reports and activities, but the orginal data cannot be changed. Any changes to the past accounting records is accomplihed on the day and time of the change with reference back to the orgial record. This eliinates the possibiity of existing accounting reports being altered by changes.

This eliminates the extensive personnel requirements of manual proration. Applicable factors, provisos, and percentiles are retrieved from the user's data, and calculations performed within seconds.

This method offers increased accuracy over manual calculations. The factors and provisos are automatically download from either OAG or BSP master files. This automatic retrieval eliminates the "misreading" of factor or provisos data from the manual. Calculations by this method eliminate the occasional keying error. With this option the PTM manual is replaced with the new version.

The Proration module is fully integrated and incorporated into the normal work flow of The Revenue System. No additional keying, re-keying, batching, or redundant processing of any kind occurs. Indeed, the proration capability is complemented by the other pricing functions available within The Revenue System. This capabilities include tariff master pricing for the majority of sales not requiring MPA proration, on-line point-to-points, on-line through fares, and interline agreements.

Automatic Data

Currency of data and initial loading of data is an automated process. Carriers receive the city pair factors and provisos from either OAG or IATA. A module is provided that automatically loads this data into the system. In addition, users have access to add or change this data manually as required.

MPA Proration

Processing of documents requiring MPA Proration is accomplished in the normal flow of processing auditor and lifting boarding passes for passenger identification number accordance. Since a common database and identical programs are used, consistency of data is complete.

The efficiency of on-line retrieval and proration calculations performed in seconds provides a significant personnel savings and ensures timeliness in billings.

Yield Analysis

In addition to the pure revenue system functions of prorating auditors (sales), boarded passengers, and interline billings the proration application is used by the marketing department for modeling activities, such as "What if we expand to Singapore and we establish an interline with....for the Sydney market how much revenue will we gain?

Earnings/Receivables/ Refunds

The boarding pass (earnings/receivables/refunds) module is used to process all boarding passes lifted for travel accepted for refund or in the form of payment (reissue), PTA telexes (on-line or off-line), etc. Boarding passes are input in batch by airline and source code. The lifted boarding pass work process is identical to the auditors work in process up to and including the price/audit procedure, except that the lifted boarding pass module requires pricing of the individual usage value of the specific lift; however, the user has the ability to price all subsequent boarding passengers and the audit as well. Clearinghouse invoicing documents are generated by the application including the form 1's and direct bills. Extensive marketing reports are available (not just segment data) including yield analysis, connections inbound and outbound, etc.

Interline Accounts Payable

OAL Accounting (Interline accounts payable) is identical to the work flow of the lifted boarding passes to and including the Price/Audit procedure. With the matching facility within the module, virtually all OALs should match against a previously processed auditor. Therefore, the user simply needs to input the passenger identification number, billed fare, billed tax and commission percentage. The pre-priced itinerary value is retrieved and compared to the billed amounts. Over billings are recognized and rejection memos automatically printed.

Sold Open/Close Reservations

The application provides the user with earned and unearned income

The IATA proration module provides an easy to use, accurate and full function method to distribute international through fares and MCO fees in the appropriate data is automatically built by the system the batches are then automatically processed.

The system satisfies the requirements of those carriers participating in a Multilateral Proration Agreement (MPA).

Reports

A reporting module provides several supportive items to the essential revenue system functions including the ability to create, print, and control the included settlement, debit/credit memos commission.