CASE STUDY — FINANCE
The Context
The client was a travel company curating offbeat experiences — treks, wellness retreats, and guided expeditions across India, Sri Lanka, and Nepal. They scaled fast through Instagram and word-of-mouth, running 8–10 trips per month, but their internal finance systems hadn’t caught up.
Every trip was handled as a separate WhatsApp group, with POCs managing bookings, vendor payments, and collections independently. Invoices were missing, reconciliations were delayed, and tax filings were done last minute. They reached out to us for bookkeeping support with real-time visibility, vendor control, and compliance clarity.
The Challenge
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No Centralised Finance System: Each trip had its own wallet, spreadsheet, and vendor chain.
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Unclear Profit Margins: Founders couldn’t track profitability per trip or location.
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Vendor Chaos: Payments were delayed, often negotiated last minute, and not recorded properly.
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Scattered Collections: Payments came through GPay, bank transfers, and foreign gateways — but weren’t reconciled.
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Compliance Gaps: GST was underpaid in some states in India, with penalties showing up during audits.
Our Approach
We stepped in as their outsourced finance back office, centralising their books, automating invoicing and vendor tracking, and giving founders a clean, weekly finance view across all active and past trips.
What We Did
1.
Centralised Bookkeeping Setup
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Shifted the team to our custom-developed accounting tool , creating trip-level tagging to track revenue, cost, and margins per experience.
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Migrated past 12 months of cash flow data from Google Sheets + Notion into structured ledgers.
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Integrated GPay, Razorpay, and Stripe to track collections by source and geography.
2.
Invoice & Collection Automation
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Designed branded invoice templates for all customer bookings.
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Set up auto-reminders for partial payments and international transfers.
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Flagged all untracked payments and built a monthly reconciliation SOP.
3.
Vendor Payment Tracker
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Created a vendor master with agreed rates per region and activity.
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Built a payout calendar with approval-based release schedules.
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Ensured centralised vendor payment processing and tracking, with tax structuring for incoming payments.
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Synced payment records to trip IDs to eliminate missed entries.
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Setup of payment gateways to enable online collections, ensure tax compliance, and keep the system scalable.
4.
Tax Compliance Setup
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Identified multi-state GST liabilities and obtained state-specific registrations across India. Also managed VAT and TDS compliance for operations in Nepal and Sri Lanka.
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Coordinated with their CA to ensure timely filings — including interest penalties from backlog months.
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Created monthly checklist shared with their operations head.
5.
Weekly Financial Dashboards
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Shared a tracker showing: Trip-wise revenue and margins Pending payouts Bank balance by currency Upcoming tax due dates
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15-min review call with co-founders every Tuesday.
Services Provided
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Bookkeeping System Setup
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Tech for Custom Developed Accounting Tool
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Trip-Level Ledger Structuring
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Invoice & Collections Automation
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Vendor Management & Payout Tracker
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Tax Compliance Support across India, Nepal and Sri Lanka
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Weekly Finance Dashboard & Reporting Rhythm
Results (After 2 Months)
What Worked
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Trip-level tagging made margins transparent and helped plan better pricing per region.
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Vendor calendar avoided tension and last-minute payout requests.
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Centralising collections and invoices brought structure and trust to customer ops.
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Having a 15-min finance rhythm kept everything in sync — without overloading the ops team.
Key Takeaways (For Us)
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Travel businesses run fast — but without finance clarity, profit often leaks unnoticed.
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Bookkeeping needs to match the way operations actually run — in this case, trip by trip.
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Structuring payouts and taxes gives confidence to vendors and regulators alike.
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Clean books improve not just compliance — they directly improve pricing, planning, and partnerships.
