# DMC rate sheets: keep contract rates so quotations price themselves

> A rate sheet earns its keep when a quotation prices itself from it. What each kind of supplier rate has to hold, seasons set once, validity and renewals, the supplier's paper on the rate, spreadsheets per kind, and a three-night quotation priced from three rate rows.

*Source: https://itravel.cloud/blog/dmc-rate-sheets-contract-rates · published Nov 1, 2026 · topic: Quoting & CRM*

A DMC rate sheet is the one place your supplier contract rates live, in the shape each supplier sells: hotels by room, meal plan and season, transfers by vehicle, tours per person or per group, and guides, meals, extras and cruises in their own units. Keep each rate net, in the supplier's currency, with its dates and the paper it came from, and a quotation can price itself.

## What a rate sheet has to hold, kind by kind

One spreadsheet with a column per season works until the first quotation needs a child on an extra bed, a van instead of a sedan, or a guide who speaks Spanish. Each kind of supplier sells by a different unit, so each needs its own rate shape.

| Kind | What the supplier sells | What changes the cost | What to check when you quote |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hotel | A room type on a meal plan, per room by occupancy or per person sharing | Season, occupancy, dated supplements | Minimum stay, closed nights, the hotel's child ages, compulsory supplements |
| Transfer | A route, as a private vehicle (seats, bags) or a shared seat | Season; per vehicle or per seat | The cheapest set of vehicles that seats the party |
| Tour or ticket | A variant, per person by your own age bands or per group up to a size | Season; adult, child, infant or senior cost, or one group price | A day it does not run, a child older than the band |
| Guide | A full day, half day or airport meet, in a language, for a group size | Season; one fee per guide | The client's language, a party outside the group size |
| Meal | A restaurant's package: the meal, the days served, the covers | Season; adult, child and infant cost | A dinner the stay's half board already includes |
| Extra | Insurance, a SIM, porterage: per person or per booking, for a trip length | Season; trip length | A trip longer or shorter than the rate covers |
| Cruise | A sailing and a cabin category, by berth | Fares by berth, plus port charges, taxes and gratuities | The fewest cabins that sleep the party |

The same shapes matter when you [load contracted hotels, tours and transfers](/blog/loading-contracted-travel-inventory) into a booking portal; here they feed a proposal instead.

## Seasons: define them once, use them on every rate

Most rate-sheet errors are season errors: Peak typed one way on the hotel tab and another way on the transfer tab, or a festive week nobody added to the tours.

- **Define each season once for the account**, as named date windows, each with the weekdays it applies to. A weekend price is a season that runs on Friday and Saturday only.
- **When two windows hold the same day, the narrower one prices it.** "Festive week" inside "Peak" takes the festive price, which is how a contract reads.
- **A rate with no season is the all-year price**, used on any day no season holds.
- **A stay that crosses a season change is priced night by night** and written as one line per season, never averaged.

In the [iTravel travel CRM](/travel-crm-software), every rate card of every kind uses the same seasons, so extending one is one change, not seven.

## Net, in the supplier's currency, with no sell price on the rate

- **Type the cost the way the supplier invoices it**, in the supplier's currency. Each rate card says which currency its costs are in.
- **The quotation is priced in the client's currency** at the day's market rate, plus any exchange safety margin you set, and the rate used stays with the quotation.
- **There is no sell price on a rate.** The client's price is the quotation's markup, which you set; the vocabulary is in [net rates, markup and agent tiers](/blog/net-rates-markup-and-agent-tiers).
- **Costs are for the people who should see them.** Only a role allowed to see costs sees a rate, and only a role allowed to change costs can edit one.

## A worked example: three nights priced from three rate rows

Say a family of two adults and a child aged 7 asks for three nights from 18 December, with airport transfers both ways and a half-day city tour. All figures are illustrative net costs in one currency, and the example leaves out tax.

Your seasons are **Peak**, 1 December to 15 January, and **Festive week**, 20 to 31 December. Three rate rows do the work:

| Rate row | Peak | Festive week | All year |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hotel: Deluxe room, bed and breakfast, per room | Double 130, child with a bed 30 | Double 160, child with a bed 40 | |
| Transfer: airport and city hotels, either way, private sedan, 3 seats | | | 40 per vehicle |
| Tour: half-day city tour, shared, per person | | | Adult 35, child 20 |

The quotation prices itself from them:

| Day | Line | Priced as | Net cost |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Arrival transfer | One sedan seats all three | 40 |
| 1 | Hotel, nights of 18 and 19 December | Peak: (130 + 30) × 2 nights | 320 |
| 2 | City tour | 2 adults × 35 + 1 child × 20 | 90 |
| 3 | Hotel, night of 20 December | Festive week: 160 + 40 | 200 |
| 4 | Departure transfer | One sedan | 40 |
| | **Total** | | **690** |

The night of 20 December sits in both seasons. Festive week is the narrower window, so it prices that night, and the stay becomes two lines, which is how the hotel will invoice it. A dearer six-seat van on the same card would not be chosen: the cheapest set of vehicles that seats the party wins.

Add your markup, say 20% of cost, and the party pays 828; the 138 of margin appears nowhere on the client's paper. Each line keeps the cost it was priced at, and a sent quotation changes only by a new version, so editing a rate next week never moves a price the client holds. The rest of the paper is in [how to build a day-by-day travel quotation](/blog/day-by-day-travel-quotation), and what happens once the client accepts is in [the sales-to-operations handover](/blog/sales-to-operations-handover).

**Now change one thing.** The hotel's card is valid to 31 December, and the client moves to three nights from 30 December. The night of 1 January falls after the card ends. The quotation still prices it, from Peak, and says on that line that the rates have ended. It also joins your list of live quotations that use a service past its card's end, until you renew the rate or change the stay. Whether it goes out like that is your call.

## Validity, renewals and the paper behind each rate

- **Dates on every card.** A night before a card's start or after its end is flagged on the line that uses it.
- **Rates to renew.** One list shows cards ending in the next 30, 60, 90 or 180 days, cards that have ended, and the live quotations (drafts, sent, and accepted ones whose trip is still to come) that use a service on a day after its rates end. A stay's last night counts.
- **The supplier's paper on the rate.** Keep the contract, the rate email or a screenshot (PDF, JPG or PNG) on the card, for your team only, behind the same cost rights, never on a quotation.
- **Confirmed with the supplier.** Record the day the rates were last confirmed; the card shows who did it, so a seller can see how fresh a rate is.

Choose the renewal window from how far ahead your clients book: if quotations go out four months before travel, a 30-day warning comes too late.

## Rate sheets as spreadsheets, one shape per kind

A spreadsheet is faster than forty form fields, as long as nothing changes before you have seen what will change.

- **Download a card as a CSV.** Each kind has its own sheet: one row per rate and season (a hotel also per meal plan), and for a cruise one row per sailing and cabin.
- **Type it the trade's way.** Amounts as your spreadsheet writes them, dates day/month or month/day, weekdays like Mon Wed Fri, and meal plans as RO, BB, HB, FB or EP, CP, MAP, AP.
- **Seasons are named, never invented**, and an empty season cell is the all-year price.
- **Upload, then read before you import.** Errors come first, with the line number and what to do, then every change shown before and after, then what is new. New rates always come in; changes to rates already on the card only while "also make the changes" stays ticked.
- **A rate the card does not have is added**, so a new hotel contract can be typed into the sheet from scratch.
- **Undo for 24 hours.** What the import added goes, and what it changed gets its earlier costs back, except a rate somebody has edited since.

## No rate yet? Start from what you have already quoted

Many DMCs have years of prices in old quotations and no rate sheet. The library remembers what each sent quotation priced a service at, for the month the service ran. For a service with no rates yet, it proposes a first rate from that history:

- the months quoted at the same cost become one price;
- the price quoted for the most months becomes the all-year price;
- every other price becomes a season: one of yours when it covers exactly those months, otherwise a new one named by its months, which you rename or leave out.

Each price lists the quotations it came from, and nothing is saved until you add the rate. It works for tours, meals, extras and guides; a quoted stay, transfer or cruise is the whole party's figure, not a rate by room, vehicle or berth, so those are not offered.

## If you also run the booking portal

A hotel, tour or transfer you already sell on your portal should not be typed twice. Link the library service to its portal product once and quotations price it from the portal, where you contract it (see [hotel contracting software](/hotel-contracting-software)).

- Linking archives the card's own rates of that kind; they stay on the card and come back if you stop pricing from the portal.
- The library marks those services "From Portal", and the renewal list leaves them out.
- A product taken off sale on the portal is said in the builder, never priced silently.
- A line added from your portal products teaches its library service which product it is, when nothing says otherwise.

Without the portal, none of this appears and the card prices as before.

## Your rate sheet checklist

1. Seasons are defined once, named as your contracts name them, with weekdays where weekends price differently.
2. Every rate is net, in the supplier's currency, on a card with a start date, an end date and a supplier.
3. The contract or rate email sits on the card, with the day the rates were last confirmed.
4. Hotels: each room type on each meal plan, priced by occupancy, with child ages, minimum stay, closed dates and compulsory supplements.
5. Transfers: every vehicle you use on the route, with its seats and bags.
6. Tours carry your own age bands and the days they run; guides their languages and group sizes.
7. Your renewal window matches how far ahead clients book, and someone reads the rates-to-renew list weekly.
8. Before a bulk change, download the sheet, edit it, and read the before and after before you import.