Money expected in
Registration fees, instalments and balances have a date and a status. Family instalments on a school group enter the same schedule as individual enrolments.
Features
The invoice starts from data already in the booking file
The seventh module of DBJOY brings finance inside the study travel cycle: schedules for family instalments and payments to partner schools, open items, reconciliation, electronic invoicing through the Italian exchange system, and the VAT margin scheme for travel set out in art. 74-ter of Presidential Decree 633/1972.
Payment schedule
You know who owes you and whom you owe, booking file by booking file
In a study travel operator the money moves on different clocks. The registration fee arrives months ahead, the family balance shortly before departure, the partner school is paid on the terms of its own contract. When those three calendars live in three places, treasury is an estimate.
Money due out
Partner school and accommodation deadlines come from the contract and from the booking file, including cancellation charges and no-show fees. Every payment stays attached to the session that generated it.
Open items and reconciliation
The balance for each family, school and partner supplier is always legible. Receipts are reconciled against open items, so reminders go out on correct amounts.
The margin scheme
The travel margin scheme is not an add-on: it is how DBJOY counts
The margin is computed from booking file data
Across the European Union, travel agents and tour operators acting in their own name fall under the special scheme in Articles 306 to 310 of VAT Directive 2006/112/EC. English-speaking markets call it TOMS, the tour operators’ margin scheme; Italy implements it in art. 74-ter of Presidential Decree 633/1972. VAT is charged not on the full price of the package but on the margin between what the traveller pays and what the operator pays for goods and services bought in from other taxable persons for the direct benefit of the traveller. VAT on those bought-in services is not deductible, which is exactly why they have to be identified precisely.
In DBJOY those costs already exist: they are the partner school and accommodation net rates assigned to the booking file, in their contract currency and at the exchange rate applied. The margin is composed from there, without a manual reclassification at the end of the month. Invoices to the family or to the school carry the Italian VAT code N5, used for margin-scheme operations, with no VAT shown separately on the document.
- art. 74-ter
- Articles 306-310
- VAT code N5
- bought-in services
- chargeability
Margin, commission and in-house services stay separate
The same company often does three jobs at once, and tax law treats them differently. DBJOY keeps the three cases apart from the service line onwards, so the separation is not reconstructed after the fact.
- Packages under the margin scheme: course and accommodation bought in from third parties and resold in the operator’s own name to the family.
- Intermediation: commission on services sold in the name and on behalf of somebody else, outside the margin calculation.
- In-house services: services provided with the operator’s own resources, such as a tutor on site, taxed at their own rate.
This is the split that makes the profit and loss readable, and your accountant will ask for it in any case. Making it while the booking file is being built costs less than rebuilding it at the end of the year.
- package travel
- commission
- in-house services
- own rate
Electronic invoicing
From the booking file to the file for the exchange system
Italy clears business invoices through the SDI, a national exchange system that receives every electronic invoice and delivers it to the recipient. The sales document is built from data already present: bill-to party, whether a family or a school, booking file reference, service lines, amounts and the regime applied. DBJOY prepares the electronic invoice in the format required for transmission.
Documents and their status
Invoices to families, receipts, credit notes and documents to schools originate from the booking file and keep its reference. The status of each document is visible alongside the booking file, not in a separate program.
If you sell through agents and consultants on commission, the agent’s position sits next to the family’s on the same booking file.
Duties towards the family
The information duties of the Package Travel Directive (EU) 2015/2302, transposed into the Italian Tourism Code (Legislative Decree 79/2011), are part of the document flow of the booking file, together with confirmations, vouchers and insurance cover.
One necessary clarification
DBJOY is software, not your accountant
DBJOY calculates, records and prepares documents according to the rules you set with your own adviser. It does not replace the accountant or the firm that keeps your books, and it does not take responsibility for your tax decisions: how an operation is characterised, how edge cases are treated and how returns are filed remain professional judgements.
What DBJOY removes is the mechanical work: reclassifying supplier costs by hand, reconstructing the margin of a trip months later, retyping into accounting data that already exists. The information on this page describes how the software works and is not tax advice.
DBJOY does not set out to replace the accounting package you have used for years either. It exposes integrations so the data reaches the systems already in place, and your finance office and your adviser keep working the way they know.
Frequently asked questions
Does DBJOY keep the per-booking-file record the VAT margin scheme requires?
The margin scheme under art. 74-ter of Presidential Decree 633/1972 requires revenue and third-party costs to be tracked per booking file. DBJOY holds that register, with partner school and accommodation costs attributed to each file, which is what makes the margin a calculation rather than an estimate. The exact accounting treatment is configured with the operator’s accountant during the initial set-up.
How does DBJOY handle registration fees, instalments and final balances?
A study trip is rarely paid in one movement: a registration fee at enrolment, a balance before departure, instalments in between. DBJOY records each payment against the booking file, so the outstanding amount and the due date are visible per family. Because the margin under art. 74-ter of Presidential Decree 633/1972 is computed on amounts paid against third-party costs, payments and invoicing belong in the same system.
Why do package invoices carry VAT nature code N5?
In Italian electronic invoicing, nature code N5 identifies margin scheme operations, where VAT is not shown separately on the invoice. A study travel operator selling packages under art. 74-ter of Presidential Decree 633/1972 uses that code. DBJOY builds the sales document from the booking file, so a course and accommodation bought from a partner school follow the treatment recorded rather than one chosen by hand on each invoice.
Can DBJOY show which families and partner schools still owe money?
DBJOY holds payment positions on both sides of the booking file: what the family or the school still owes the operator, and what the operator still owes each partner school or accommodation provider. That produces an open-items view by booking file and by counterpart, which is what an operator needs in the weeks before a departure. How far it reconciles with the accounting package depends on the integration agreed during set-up.
Didn't find your question? Go to the full FAQ hub
Run DBJOY on your real enrolments for three months
We set the system up together on your own rates, partner schools and destinations. At the end of the three months the decision is yours, with no strings attached.
Start your free 3-month trial
No credit card. No automatic renewal. Your data stays yours and stays exportable.