Mid-Office and Back-Office Systems in Travel: What’s Broken and What’s Next

For decades, mid-office and back-office software has been running business operations for travel management companies (TMCs), online travel agencies (OTAs), and other resellers. In this article, we’ll break down how legacy systems work, what’s holding them back, and how modern platforms are stepping in to fix the problems.

We’ll also share some practical advice on switching to newer technologies and whether it even makes sense to invest in upgrades when the future of travel tech might be completely different.

What are mid- and back-office

When you hear terms starting with the prefix mid- or back-, you logically assume there must be a front somewhere, and you are right. The front office is generally the part of a company that deals directly with clients. In tech speak, that’s your customer-facing software. But in this article, we’re focusing on the backstage crew.

That said, it’s also worth noting that the definitions of mid-office and back-office systems in the travel industry vary, with some referring to both collectively as the ‘back office’. However, in our article, we will stick to the three-layer structure:

• Front office (e.g., online booking tool, OBT/ agent desktop/ OTA website, or mobile app): allows for searching and booking flights, hotels, trains, and other travel products.
• Mid-office: applies quality control and enforces travel policy  (in corporate travel), finishes booking, enriches PNR data, generates itineraries, invoices, and other documents, and may also handle ticketing.
• Back office: Manages financial processes like invoicing, supplier reconciliation, commission, and markup calculation. It’s integrated with ledger management and reporting tools, airline billing and settlement systems (IATA BSP/ARC), as well as financial/ERP systems.

Accordingly, the mid-office is the intermediate layer doing everything between booking and finance-related operations, or, from the other angle, an agency’s operational hub, handling core agent functionality.

Mid- and back-office are logical operational layers, not individual tools.  Agencies often combine multiple platforms and automated workflows within each layer. However, you can also buy the whole system covering the end-to-end process from one vendor.

Traditionally, companies owning global distribution systems (GDSs), like Amadeus and Sabre, provide mid-office tools. These solutions are already integrated with GDSs, which most large TMCs have processes built around. The setup is so common and established among TMCs (unlike leisure travel agencies) that switching to other mid-office products can be a real challenge for them. Still, big corporate travel businesses may choose to develop their mid-office in-house, while smaller ones can buy software from third-party vendors.

Some common mid-office platforms are Tramada (front + mid-office), Midoco (mid + back office), and PASS Travel Agent Desktop (front + mid-office). All these are used by leisure and corporate travel resellers. Cornerstone and Amadeus Robotics are corporate-focused.

GDS-owning companies also offer back-office software, but the accounting and reporting don’t depend that much on GDSs. That’s why it’s pretty common for agencies to get back-office products from third-party vendors. Examples of back-office systems are TravCom (one of the oldest but still widely used), the above-mentioned Midoco, Wings (Europe-focused), SAP, Oracle NetSuite, and Dolphin Dynamics.

It’s worth noting that large TMCs can use multiple back-office products for different reasons.

“TMCs might be using different back offices in different regions: say, Wings in Europe, TravCom in APAC, and then something else in the US. I mean, Wings and TravCom operate globally, but it all depends on which back-office system a given agency happens to have selected (often based on legacy contracts, integration capabilities with their CRS, or local support arrangements). Or it can be due to mergers and acquisitions. For example, a TMC has made multiple mergers and acquisitions over the years, and all of a sudden, they got another back office to add to or integrate into their technology stack,” says Martijn van der Voort, travel technology consultant and former Director, Global OBT Product Delivery at CWT. 

Core functions in mid- and back-office

Travel mid-office and back-office software includes several core functionalities and features.

Mid-office: post-booking tasks, and quality control

These systems differ significantly in corporate and leisure travel. In the latter, functionality is much simpler, while corporate tools offer many features that meet the business travel specifics. Also, unlike OTA’s mid-office, TMC must be integrated with the corporation's ERP and HR systems.

Let’s see how the mid-office system streamlines the booking journey from request to confirmed travel.

Approval workflow (corporate-specific). Once a booking request is submitted via OBT, the system routes it to the designated approvers based on pre-configured business rules. This workflow ensures the right stakeholders review and authorize travel before tickets are issued or bookings are finalized. Mid-office logs and tracks approval status to support compliance and auditing.

Quality control (corporate-specific). The system performs automated flight, hotel, and other bookings checks to ensure policy compliance and data accuracy.

Ticketing. This function is relevant only to booking flights. After the airline receives the payment, the mid-office triggers the GDS to issue an e-ticket. Then, the mid-office emails the e-ticket to the traveler. The mid-office also replicates the passenger name record (PNR) created in the GDS into its own database or downstream systems for quality control and reporting.

Notification service. Mid-office sends travelers near-real-time alerts about booking approvals, itinerary changes, schedule disruptions, or policy violations, via email, SMS, or mobile app.

Post-booking services. These mid-office features come into play after a trip is booked, supporting changes, repricing, refunds, and cancellations. In corporate travel, rescheduling and cancellations are often driven by last-minute business needs, such as a postponed conference or meeting. These changes are subject to policy rules, which may require manager approval or the selection of refundable fares. These workflows are often semi-automated and connected to duty-of-care systems, so any change updates traveler tracking and compliance logs.

Corporate travel tools usually automate reshopping for lower fares and rates within the rebooking window, whether for flights, hotels, or any other travel service. This helps companies reduce costs without involving the traveler. For instance, the system can cancel and rebook without manual input if a lower airfare becomes available before departure.

Leisure travel agencies deal with individual or family bookings, meaning their post-booking services are centered on providing assistance to consumers rather than adhering to corporate policies. Here, the mid-office handles less complex itineraries and doesn’t offer as much help with special requests.

Duty of care (corporate-specific). These features help companies monitor where their employee travelers are and respond swiftly in emergencies, whether it's a political protest, a weather-related disruption, or a health and safety issue. Integration with third-party risk intelligence providers such as International SOS, Crisis24, Anvil, and Safeture is also common.

Profile sync & data enrichment. Mid-office synchronizes traveler data from multiple sources, such as the GDS, OBTs, HR systems (e.g., Workday, BambooHR), or CRM platforms. Enrichment capabilities ensure that profiles are updated with relevant attributes like frequent flyer numbers, payment methods, travel preferences, or cost center assignments.

MIS/Reporting. Management Information Systems (MIS) modules within the mid-office collect and aggregate data from bookings, approvals, traveler profiles, and financial transactions. For TMCs' needs, reports can be customized to track KPIs such as travel spend, policy compliance, supplier performance, and traveler behavior.

Back office: finance and data backbone

This set of technical components handles financial and administrative functions. It determines how much the airline should be paid, how hotels are billed, how much commission a reseller earns, etc.

Let’s break down the key modules and functions of the back office.

Invoice creation. The back office generates invoices based on finalized travel bookings, incorporating fares, taxes, fees, markups, and applicable discounts. Invoices may be issued to individual travelers, corporate clients, or internal departments. The system ensures all relevant data from the booking, mid-office processing, and customer profiles is accurately reflected before sending.

Commission tracking. This module monitors commissionable bookings and calculates the amounts due from suppliers. It tracks expected vs. received commissions, flags discrepancies, and records timing of payments. The system also generates reconciliation reports to verify that contractual commission terms are met and identifies any missed revenue.

Financial reporting. This module compiles financial data related to bookings, payments, receivables, and commissions into structured reports. Reports may be customized based on client, cost center, or region and are typically used for internal audits, budgeting, and financial oversight. The data supports transparency across all travel-related financial activity.

Supplier payments & reconciliation. The back office helps agents settle accounts with suppliers such as airlines, hotels, rail providers, and tour operators. It tracks due amounts, schedules payments through various methods (e.g., virtual cards, wire transfers), and reconciles these payments against booking and invoice records. Any mismatches are flagged for review or correction.

Customer loyalty/relationship & marketing campaign management (leisure-specific). In leisure travel, agencies manage promotional campaigns, seasonal offers, and customer loyalty databases — things corporate travel doesn’t focus on.

Leisure travel sellers also care about repeat individual customers, upsells (like insurance, car rental, excursions), and lifecycle marketing (email follow-ups, birthday offers, etc.) That’s why the back-office system should track customer profiles (birthdays, preferences, past trips), marketing opt-ins and campaign response data, promo code application, etc. The back-office support email campaign automation and upsell tracking.

Accounting integration (corporate-specific). Leisure travelers don’t need to reconcile trips with company's general ledgers or financial audits. But corporate back-office systems connect to external accounting platforms for the general ledger, accounts payable, and accounts receivable modules. This integration supports automated transaction posting, synchronization of financial records, and month-end reconciliation. It also aligns travel-related financial data with corporate accounting practices.

Travel and expense (T&E) platforms integration (сorporate-specific). Business travelers must submit expenses for reimbursement or company credit card tracking. So corporate back-office integrates with T&E platforms like Concur, Expensify, or Emburse (formerly Certify) automatically log and categorizes travel spending in real time, even before a trip ends, reducing manual entry.

An accounting and a T&E tools work together. For example, an expense platform captures and structures user-level data (e.g., taxi in Tokyo on July 3), and the accounting integration pushes summary-level or coded data (e.g., $100 taxi from airport — general ledger account №6012) into the company’s financial systems for reporting and compliance.

Tax/VAT/Compliance ledger (corporate specific). Leisure travelers typically pay tax as part of the price and never worry about reclaiming it or allocating it for accounting.
Corporations, however, may be eligible to reclaim VAT or GST (especially in international travel), must track taxes for compliance, and need to report them accurately in their financial systems.

So, the corporate system maintains ledgers for tax calculations, including VAT, GST, and other jurisdiction-specific requirements. It applies the correct tax rules based on location, service type, and client profile. The ledger supports compliance with local regulations and is used during audits or when preparing tax filings.

The real cost of outdated travel tech

In this section, we will focus on the problems faced by TMCs, as the aforementioned technological dependence on GDS characterizes corporate travel. Legacy mid- and back-office systems were built for an earlier era of corporate travel and are showing their age. Their architecture often creates delays and silos, and involves manual work across booking and post-booking processes. Let’s break down the key problems holding TMCs back.

Non-API architecture. Traditional systems are often developed as closed platforms with little or no support for adding new features or connecting third-party tools. A major drawback is their inherent difficulty in integrating modern technologies and applications. This limits a TMC’s ability to tailor workflows or keep pace with evolving client needs without costly custom development or workarounds.

GDS-dependency. Legacy platforms rely heavily on GDSs as the central source of truth for bookings. This limits flexibility in accessing and managing NDC and other non-GDS content, and makes it difficul to build a unified view of the traveler or trip.

Lack of real-time orchestration. Data is updated through scheduled batch jobs rather than real-time synchronization, leading to growing backlogs during peak periods that delay invoicing, render data obsolete, and can even cause system freezes as transaction volumes surge. This is compounded by their monolithic, tightly coupled architectures, where a heavy load on one component drags down the entire system, making independent scaling impossible and forcing expensive, disruptive upgrades for the whole platform.

Missing real-time updates, together with a lack of integration capabilities, reinforce another problem – fragmented data.

Data silos. Crucial information, such as booking, finance, and profile data, isn't always synced and often remains isolated within separate systems, which results in inconsistencies, redundant data entry, and a fragmented view of the customer.

For instance, a booking cancellation might not immediately update the finance system, potentially leading to inaccurate revenue reports or billing errors. Similarly, changing a customer's contact information in their profile might not propagate to their past or future bookings, causing communication breakdowns.

Local installs. Many traditional tools are hosted on-premise or require installation on local servers. This slows updates, complicates multi-location deployments, and limits access to cloud-native benefits like high availability, global scaling, and remote collaboration.

Low flexibility. Legacy systems are typically not built for elastic scalability or rapid adaptation to changing market opportunities and business demands.  

How modern platforms fix what legacy systems broke

Modern travel platforms like Spotnana (for corporate and leisure travel), TravelPerk (for business travel management), and Navan (a corporate travel solution currently experimenting with some leisure add-ons) are designed for flexibility, speed, and easy integration with multiple tools. Their advantages are based on the technologies and architectural solutions they use.

API-first and microservices architecture. Modern travel platforms adopt a modular architecture where each core function—booking, profile, policy, invoicing, content—is delivered as a microservice. Data is stored in NoSQL and relational database hybrids and moves between the microservices via event-based messaging on streaming platforms like Apache Kafka, or RabbitMQ.

Hybrid DBs efficiently handle unstructured or semi-structured data (e.g., different airline fare formats, rich hotel content, chat transcripts with agents, or receipts uploaded as images or PDFs), while maintaining transactional consistency for financial records. Event-based messaging allows the system to react immediately to user or system actions. When a traveler changes their flight in the booking module, an event is published via Kafka; the profile service, expense system, and itinerary manager each receive and act on that update in real time—nothing like batch processes.

Another advantage of “Lego-like” architecture is the possibility of updating one block without affecting others. Each module can scale independently, respond in real time, and connect easily to external tools (e.g., HR systems, CRMs, expense platforms).

Finally, thanks to open APIs, third-party and customer-built tools can plug into the system with minimal effort. This enables integration with finance, HR, duty of care, or AI-powered communications—all without the need for custom builds.

Cloud-native deployment and centralized data. This approach eliminates regional silos and facilitates global policy enforcement and reporting. TMCs can operate on a single platform with consistent logic across regions and business units.

Flexible business rules. Rule-based engines with real-time data inputs enable dynamic policy enforcement that adjusts by user profile, context, or travel scenario. These engines can automatically integrate with HR systems and booking tools to apply personalized, situation-aware rules.

ML-driven automation and AI features. Modern travel platforms use machine learning to automate routine and complex tasks—like detecting booking anomalies, triggering reissues, or flagging potential fraud. These intelligent automations reduce manual workload, increase accuracy, and speed up decision-making. AI models can also support predictive servicing, such as identifying trips at risk of disruption or recommending lower-cost options, helping TMCs proactively optimize traveler experience and spend.

Unified system of record. Modern platforms replace the fragmented PNR model with a centralized system of record (repository), often cloud-based and API-driven. Every stage of the trip—from booking to invoicing—is tracked in real time.

“In certain markets, like India, which is far ahead of Western Europe and the US in terms of mid-office, they don't necessarily create PNRs because they service outside of GDS; they tend to link directly to airline APIs. The online booking tool creates the booking, and the mid office triggers the airline’s issuing of tickets. The ticketing data goes back to mid-office and then to OBT. The airline tickets, the booking record, and all its data are stored in the mid and back office. No PNR is created for the TMC because they use central booking repositories linked to the mid-office,” explains Martijn van der Voort.

Synchronized traveler profiles. Modern tools synchronize traveler and company profile data across all systems via APIs or HR data feeds. This eliminates manual profile maintenance, ensures consistency, and improves personalization. But there are even more advanced solutions.

Choosing or upgrading your systems: things to consider

Any travel resellers, including brick-and-mortar travel agencies, OTAs, and TMCs, should take this advice on board. For the latter, it’s important because many TMCs are migrating to newer products to stay competitive in a rapidly evolving, tech-driven travel market. For example, one of the leaders in the corporate travel world, Direct Travel, launched Avenir — a next-generation travel platform powered by technology from Spotnana.

Moving from an old system to a new mid-/back office solution is complex. It requires meticulous planning, a data migration strategy, staff training, and testing procedures to ensure uninterrupted business operations during the transition period.

Here’s how to optimize your tech stack and evaluate the return on investment effectively.

One of the most impactful changes is breaking away from GDS lock-in. As we said, traditional GDS-centered systems tie every process—from booking to reporting—to a PNR, making it difficult to unify non-GDS content or manage travelers consistently across platforms.

Agencies can decouple core data from content sources by implementing a centralized booking and profile repository. This allows better handling of NDC, low-cost carrier, and hotel inventory—without duplicating systems or sacrificing control. Spotnana, for example, uses a system-of-record approach that merges content from dozens of sources into a single booking stream.

Automation is another core area to target. Manual quality control, ticketing, and reconciliation consume staff time and introduce risk. Automating these workflows—especially post-booking processes—reduces errors like missed refunds or incorrect fare rules and cuts operational costs. Routespring’s platform, for instance, auto-generates invoices and applies negotiated rates, reducing the need for manual oversight.

To remain agile, modern stacks must be modular. Instead of all-in-one solutions that force you to compromise on features, look for systems that support plug-and-play capabilities—where each function (like policy, accounting, duty of care, or expense reporting) can be swapped out or upgraded independently. This composable microservice architecture enables customization and makes it easier to adapt to changing business needs or new technologies.

Real-time APIs are essential. A real-time API allows data to be transmitted and received instantly between systems, enabling immediate updates and responses as events happen. Syncing traveler profiles, trip updates, approval statuses, and financial data in real time eliminates delays and duplicate records. It also improves traveler experience and ensures downstream systems (like HR, finance, or duty-of-care platforms) always work with the latest information.

Mobile support should be comprehensive. Check that mobile apps share the same functionality and data as the web/desktop version, so travelers can manage trips on the go without losing consistency.

Once you’ve outlined your modernization strategy and identified the key capabilities your mid- and back-office systems need, the next step is to assess what these changes will deliver.

A clear evaluation of return on investment (ROI) will help you prioritize initiatives and justify the required resources focusing on measurable outcomes:

• manual time savings translate to fewer full-time equivalents (FTEs) required for repetitive tasks;
• fewer debit memos and financial corrections point to improved accuracy;
• faster onboarding of clients and policy rules indicates better scalability;
• higher compliance rates reflect both better enforcement and usability; and
• future system resilience—adapting to supplier changes, new tech standards, or business models—is a strong long-term differentiator.

Ultimately, travel managers should aim for systems that match the flexibility of tomorrow’s API-first companies rather than the rigidity of legacy monoliths.

The road ahead: Will we see mid-office disappear?

Looking into the future, we might see a shift away from mid-office and back-office systems toward intelligent, autonomous platforms powered by agentic AI. In such systems, the AI understands travel logic, executes bookings, enforces policy, and manages workflows dynamically, in real time.

“Opening Pandora's Box to make a case for agentic AI completely changes the story. The back office would likely remain, but the mid-office might disappear. You could directly instruct the AI agent on what to do, enabling free-flow and no-code operations. So, OBTs and all their ecosystem might become the default in the future”, believes Martijn.

Therefore, he recommends investing not in incremental improvements to legacy platforms but in parallel AI-native infrastructures that will eventually support complete migration.