ARC, Speed Process Via Card Data Pass-Through Field

<B> ARC, Speed Process Via Card Data Pass-Through Field</B>

By Norman Wilson

In many ways the Airlines Reporting Corp. resembles the old AT&T. AT&T was not the long distance carrier of choice, it was the only carrier. ARC now stands as a parallel with regard to the settlement process for airline tickets. In no way do I propose that the travel industry would benefit from the breakup of ARC. ARC does its job well and continues to respond to the pressures for change that it senses from its owners and first line customers, the travel agents. ARC has not, however, well understood that it has obligations to customers that it serves only indirectly. Ironically, those are its largest customers: the businesses, the non-profits, and the federal, state and local governments that pay for the tickets of their employees to travel.

To pay for others to travel on business changes the equation from providing the paying traveler with a ticket to providing a ticket to a traveler whose fare is paid by his or her employer. While we all understand this difference as travel managers and as workers within the travel industry, the model that seems to dominate ARC leaves the paying organization outside the equation and outside receiving full service. What is needed is a closing of the loop between the paying organization and ARC.

The paying organization needs the support of ARC to close this loop. Large organizations, even modest-size enterprises, need ways to reduce the time of business processing. Travel takes far too much time to process. We invest far too much energy in accounting for relatively small transactions. The investment in time results from internal and external pressures that still allow travel to be viewed as part perquisite and part performance on the job. Nonetheless, travel managers need systems that support them more completely.

ARC could introduce a change that would significantly streamline the business processing of travel. ARC should allow a pass-through field in its automated settlement process with travel card payment suppliers. This pass-through field could carry travel authorization numbers in the public arena. In the private sector, perhaps it might carry account numbers or client identifiers. Such a pass-through field would allow for the paying organization that uses centrally billed payment vehicles to generate data from its own system that would code the transaction from authorization to reimbursement, from the initiation of the ticketing through the reconciliation of the charges and posting to internal accounts or ledgers.

This change would support large centers of travel by allowing for the management of data sets rather than the recreation of data. Often, the data stream coming back from a travel card supplier yields little more than the stage for reconciliation between the travel agency or agencies and the travel card vendor so as to pay the bill. A large organization can decrease travel processing time if each record could carry a travel authorization number or other indicative data that ties the record to internal accounting and that comes back through ARC by way of the travel card supplier's statement. The travel agent typically enters these data now.

ARC stands in the way of the data returning because the record layout and processing that ARC uses does not permit such a user-defined field to pass through. This change, by the way, need have no impact on ARC ticket stock, authorization numbers need not appear on a ticket. It is electronic information that is needed from beginning to end.

With an open field passing through ARC, suddenly the processing of travel takes on a friendly face:

* A law firm could code a ticket through its agent as a charge for a particular client.

* A university could show an authorization number for travel that encodes a fund number for the particular ticket.

* A business could track whether a ticket was for sales, marketing, research, production or for some other purpose.

* A corporate travel agency could offer a host of supportive services to its clients.

* In the public sector, it is the authorization number and any fund number generated by the governmental agency and passed on to the travel agency that is needed.

It would be wrong to minimize the work this might entail for ARC. The work would involve less by far, however, than the changes required for electronic ticketing. Still, when programmers change a record layout form with many users, mistakes happen. Nonetheless, ARC could take its standard deliberate approach to inform and train travel agencies of this change in the submission of their data. Its use would be entirely optional. When travel agencies began to understand the advantages of having such a field available, however, I believe the change would happen smoothly and that all ARC customers would welcome the change.

Other players in the industry stand ready. Every major travel card supplier is ready to accommodate this change. Every major travel buyer is currently working around this omission in service by ARC. Major airlines are coming to see that this change would make travel processing faster, more accurate, more efficient, and it would reduce disputed charges. It is true that there are ways around this problem in ARC processing, but none is as efficient as ARC making this change.

<B>The Time For Change Is Now</B>

We are told that ARC has this change on its agenda. This is a change the paying customer can quickly use to reduce current demands placed on travel agencies. It is a change that the State of Colorado's statewide travel management program has requested for six years directly with ARC and at Education Conferences sponsored by the Society of Travel Agents in Government. The change is especially needed by higher education throughout the country. Let's ask that ARC set a date and get it done. After all, passing through an open field is a small change, but it was not making a small change on behalf of its customers that led to the breakup of AT&T. In this instance, let's go for the small change that can make a big difference to those who actually pay the bill in travel.

<I>Norman Wilson is the state travel manager in the Division of Central Services, General Support Services/Department of Personnel of the State of Colorado.