Rolling reserve_

Travel businesses often run with significant rolling reserves at their acquirer because of forward exposure on bookings. Watching reserve build-up, release and net impact is essential to keeping operating cash and supplier payments on schedule.

A rolling reserve is one of the largest invisible cash drags on a growing travel business. A 10% reserve held for nine months on a brand doing £20m a year is £1.5m of cash that is not available for supplier payments, growth or contingency — and the more the brand grows, the more the reserve grows with it. Many travel finance leaders only model this once their cash gets tight.

The teams that manage reserves well negotiate them deliberately, with booking-level evidence of low chargeback ratios, healthy refund handling and clean supplier exposure. The teams that do not negotiate accept whatever the acquirer underwrites in year one and discover years later that they have left meaningful working capital on the table.

felloh keeps rolling reserve movements visible alongside the underlying settlement and booking trail so finance teams can plan cash with full awareness of what is held versus what is available.

The Settlement and Risk Analysis views in the dashboard track reserve build-up, release schedule and net impact against the underlying bookings. The Cashflow view rolls available cash up against the reserve position so operating-cash planning sees the real picture rather than topline takings.

For finance directors negotiating reserves with acquirers, the evidence sits ready. Chargeback ratio, supplier exposure and refund handling that drive reserve decisions are all visible in one place, and the conversation about reducing the reserve becomes a data-led discussion rather than a request for goodwill.