Enhancing Consistency, Clarity, and Control
When designing and developing Tres, we gathered extensive feedback from clients and our support team to identify key areas for improvement. Below are several enhancements incorporated into the Tres General Ledger system compared to Trams Back Office:
📌 Entry Processing: From Batch to Per-Entry
Trams Back Office posts all reservation invoices in a single summary entry, dated collectively.
Tres, in contrast, posts individual reservations automatically at the time they are settled (when both client and supplier balances reach zero).
Key Benefits of Per-Entry Posting in Tres:
- One reservation = one journal entry
- Hotlinks allow users to click directly from journal entries to related reservations and vice versa
- Income Statements can be run for any date range—not just end-of-month
- Easy to correct: modify the source data (e.g., reservation) without voiding a batch and re-entering everything
🧾 No More Pseudo Post
In Trams, “pseudo post” was designed to allow journal entry data to appear in reports before being fully posted. However, in practice, virtually no users ever disabled this feature.
In Tres, journal entries appear in the General Ledger immediately upon creation. A “period lock” function ensures data integrity by locking journal entries through the selected cutoff date.
💳 Payment Tracking and Journal Entry Timing
For certain products (e.g., cruises, tours, ARC), agencies track client payments. For others (e.g., hotel or car rentals), payments are made directly between the client and supplier.
Tres tracks payments as needed but posts journal entries when reservations are settled, not when payments are made.
Benefits of Settlement-Based Posting:
- Eliminates need for a third invoice just to track commissions
- Produces accurate yield reporting (vs. splitting entries between months)
- Supports flexible management reporting (by booking date, departure date, expected commission date, etc.)
- Reflects actual income in the Income Statement only when commission is received
- Aligns tax liability with actual income received
- Avoids premature income recognition if a trip is canceled and commission is not paid
- Click HERE for an example that illustrates the differences between Trams Back Office and Tres posting.
🔄 Supplier and Client Cash Flows
In Tres, any funds entering or exiting the agency prior to settlement are posted to Supplier Balances. Once a reservation is fully settled, Tres creates the journal entry reflecting:
- Sales (income)
- Cost of sale
- Net cash impact to the agency
Direct payments between client and supplier are tracked in the management side of Tres only and do not affect the General Ledger, as they do not impact agency financials.
🧾 Flexible Account Naming and Categorization
Tres does not require General Ledger account numbers. Users can name accounts freely and assign them to categories such as:
- Assets
- Liabilities
- Capital
- Income
- Cost of Income
- Expenses
The order of accounts within each category is fully customizable.
🔁 Shared Features with Trams General Ledger
While Tres introduces several improvements, it retains core functionality users value from Trams, including:
- General Ledger Setup: Ability to create, name, and map accounts. Account numbers are optional.
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Journal Entry Types:
- Fully automated
- Prompted for review
- Manual (primarily for non-travel adjustments, such as depreciation)
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Standard Reports:
- Income Statement
- Balance Sheet
- Account History
- Trial Balance
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Year-End Closing: Moves balances from Income, Cost of Income, and Expenses into a Retained Earnings account.
Trams Back Office vs. Tres posting
After 39 years of supporting users on Bank Management and General Ledger in Trams Back Office, Tres has two different approaches which simplify and make Tres General Ledger better but different:
1. Trams Back Office posts sales to the General Ledger by invoice. Tres posts by “closed” reservation. (Closed defined as the client balance and supplier balance both go to zero.) In Trams Back Office if a deposit invoice is done in month 1, a final payment in month 2, and the commission received in month 3; there would be 3 separate invoices and 3 separate postings to the GL; one for each invoice. Sales / Cost of sales ratio would be off and the General Ledger confusing with revenue recognized is spurts and not necessarily in the same period. With Tres full management, tracking and reporting is completed for the deposit and final payment; with the entire reservation posted upon closing. One clean, easy to understand posting with the correct Sales / Cost of Sales ratio.
2. Trams Back Office posted client receipts or disbursements to a Client Balance account, and supplier receipts or disbursements to a Supplier Balance account. Tres posts all client and supplier receipts or disbursements to a Supplier Balance Account. In a sense, Tres is treating client payments as due to the supplier until that reservation is closed and the commission recognized.
An example illustrates the differences: Sale of $1,000, commission $100, $100 deposit in month 1, final pay in month 2, commission receive in month 3, all client payments processed by supplier.
In Trams Back Office, the following series of Journal Entries were created:
Month 1:
Deposit Invoice:
Account |
Debit | Credit |
| Client Balance | 100 | |
| Sale | 100 | |
| Cost of Sale | 100 | |
| Supplier Balance | 100 |
Deposit Payment by client processed by Supplier creates this entry:
Account |
Debit | Credit |
| Supplier Balance | 100 | |
| Client Balance | 100 |
Month 2:
Final payment invoice:
Account |
Debit | Credit |
| Client Balance | 900 | |
| Sale | 900 | |
| Cost of Sale | 800 | |
| Supplier Balance | 800 |
Final payment by client processed by the Supplier creates this entry:
Account |
Debit | Credit |
| Supplier Balance | 900 | |
| Client Balance | 900 |
Month 3:
Commission payment received from the Supplier creates this entry:
Account |
Debit | Credit |
| Cash | 100 | |
| Supplier Balance | 100 |
In TRES, the same example will be treated as:
Deposit and final payment invoices do not create journal entries.
Payments by client, processed by Supplier do not create journal entries.
When commission is received by the Supplier, the following journal entry is created:
Account |
Debit | Credit |
| Cash | 100 | |
| Supplier Balance | 100 |
Because the reservation is closed, the following journal entry is created:
Account |
Debit | Credit |
| Sale | 1000 | |
| Cost of Sale | 900 | |
| Supplier Balance | 100 |