In the same way that a connection to the GDS and a good CRM Organiser will be of benefit to our affiliates so would a dedicated finance programme.

If its going to fall apart 9 out of 10 times is due to poor financial management and controls. I have given this much thought over the last 10 years the accountants kept saying use Pastel..use Pastel, so after many years of trying in 2010 I bit the bullet and spent ¼ of my turnover, $150,000 implementing pastel accounting, once complete it was of no use and the staff needed to run it a wasted expense.

I know what I wanted, baseline monthly costs and expenses and more importantly a standstill of my net worth if all debts were paid and all credits accrued. Pastel and SA 5th biggest accounting company given an unlimited budget could not provide the latter.

Fortunately to programme software specific to the travel industry that can provide these statistics track bookings and payments and create management reports is pretty easy if you give the users the ability to load all their day to day expenses alongside their booking information we create a complete accounting tool. Other time consuming and labour intensive tasks such as calculating salaries, PAYE , VAT and yearend tax returns are easy to include.

As the financial modal is directly linked to the Consumer Relationship Management software accuracy is assured. The sales person inputs the request, makes the booking, the client checks it and then it goes seamlessly into the financial application for payment or process. No need for any administrative or financial staff and no errors.

So like the CRM the Sienna financial offering will increase our partner’s efficiency submerging them deeper into Sienna’s care.

And again like the CRM we can customise its use to other industries and the public will find it most useful, especially if we can integrate in to a bank or banks.

I don’t expect this to be in place before beta launch in 11 months but direct bank integration would make this system universally popular.

FNB (First National Bank, South Africa) approached me a few years back with their beta version of software that could directly link there bank to reservation software, I’m not sure what happened there but it obviously can be done, linking a bank to financial software is brilliant, no mistakes, no fraud, no data captures, I’m sure virgin money would do well by making this connection or “switch” as I believe it is known.

At a later stage and I suppose the end game of Sienna Finance is to be trusted to submit audited financial accounts for PTY companies and have complete export function to down load to Pastel and other accounting software.

Again like the CRM, this functionality will be of use in other industries and to the public.