KDS Debuts Lodge Card Reconciliation Tool

The booking and expense management tool provider KDS last week launched an "enhanced billing module," which it claimed automatically reconciles lodge card and invoice data with bookings by individual travelers for the first time.

Reconciliation of booking data with payments through individual payment cards is straightforward because the traveler can be identified through their unique card number. However, lodge cards and invoices detail bookings by numerous travelers, and time-consuming manual analysis is therefore required to match the names on the data.

Paris-based KDS at last week's Business Travel & Meetings Show in London claimed that its enhanced billing module is the first to automate this cross-checking process. The module has been trialed with select clients for the past year but was launched as a service to all customers at the show.

"Most expense management tools don't really process lodge card data," claimed KDS director of pre-sales Dominic O'Regan. "They don't identify individual travelers or trips. Our module matches the data first against the traveler and then against the trip."

Regan said the automated matching process will still leave some anomalies, but he added, "customers will be doing exception reconciliation rather than the whole list."