# Group booking change referral brief template | SourceX

Canonical: https://refer.sourcex.si/resources/group-booking-change-reconciliation-referral-brief-template
Last updated: 2026-10-19

A company introduction about group booking change reconciliation is a one-page brief with nothing attached: the business task, the company's size, the record classes and the years they cover, rough volumes, the systems by plain name, the open question about history or exports, who owns the records and who can authorize a licensing discussion. The director of events should recognize every line as accurate. Below is a blank template, field by field, and one completed Illustrative brief.

This template is part of the [group booking change reconciliation guide](/guides/workflow-group-booking-change-reconciliation). For tone and wording of the first message itself, adapt the [warm introduction brief for a business owner](/resources/a-warm-introduction-brief-for-a-business-owner); the [client opportunity brief generator](/tools/client-opportunity-brief-generator) produces a similar note for any record type.

## Rules for filling it in

Three rules keep the brief usable and safe to forward.

- **Metadata only.** Describe records in categories and counts. No event names, client names, attendee lists, invoice amounts or screenshots.
- **Say who said it.** Every estimate carries its source, such as "director of events, from memory". SourceX verifies later.
- **Unknown is an answer.** If nobody knows whether event order versions were kept, write unknown. Do not ask anyone to run a report to find out.

## The blank brief

Copy the field names and fill in the right-hand column.

| Field | What to write | Usually answered by |
|---|---|---|
| Company and structure | Legal name, owner-operated, managed or franchised, number of properties | Director of finance |
| Size | Full-time employees at peak, contractors excluded | HR or finance |
| Business task | One sentence on which reconciliation this is | Director of events |
| Record classes | Contracts, event order versions, guaranteed counts, production sheets, captain's counts, postings, corrections, invoices, change requests | Director of events |
| Years of history | First and last year per class, and any gap | Director of events, systems administrator |
| Rough volume | Group events per year, share that end in a billing adjustment | Event accountant |
| Systems | Sales and catering, property billing, ledger, mailbox or CRM, by plain name | Systems administrator |
| Open question | The one thing nobody can yet confirm | Whoever raised it |
| Access or change event | Planned system replacement, contract end, retention setting | Systems administrator |
| Record owner | Owner entity, operator, or both | Director of finance or counsel |
| Authorized contact | Name of the CEO, who can approve a licensing discussion | Owner or operator leadership |
| Sponsor | The person who checked the brief | Director of events |

The "Open question" field is the one that makes a brief worth reading. Most platforms store the latest numbers for each event; whether a company also kept every superseded version, and the reason behind each billing fix, is precisely what a brief should flag rather than assume. A reader at SourceX decides from that one line whether the history is likely to hold decisions or only outcomes.

## A completed brief (Illustrative)

Every value below is invented, for a fictional hotel management company. It shows the level of detail to aim for, not a real opportunity.

| Field | Illustrative entry |
|---|---|
| Company and structure | Hotel management company, 11 managed properties, one 300-room conference resort with most group business |
| Size | About 640 full-time employees at peak (finance estimate) |
| Business task | Reconciling group food and beverage charges when headcounts change after the guarantee deadline |
| Record classes | Contracts, event orders with revisions, guaranteed counts, production sheets, captain's counts, postings, corrections, invoices |
| Years of history | About seven years in the current sales platform; earlier events only as PDFs (director of events, estimate) |
| Rough volume | Roughly 1,400 group events a year across the portfolio; perhaps one in ten ends in a billing adjustment (event accountant, estimate) |
| Systems | Sales and catering platform, property management system, back office ledger, shared events mailbox |
| Open question | Whether the outgoing sales platform exports attendee change history with timestamps, or only final numbers |
| Access or change event | Sales platform being replaced next year; read-only period not yet agreed |
| Record owner | Operator controls operating records; owner consent required under the management agreements (director of finance, to confirm with counsel) |
| Authorized contact | CEO of the management company |
| Sponsor | Director of events at the conference resort |

On exports, the open question stays open until the administrator answers. Some platforms offer configurable exports (Oracle documents General and Back Office exports in CSV, JSON and TSV with chosen columns and filters for its own product), but whether a given setup includes revision history is specific to that company.

## Fields partners most often get wrong

- **Size.** Counting contractors or seasonal agency staff. Eligibility uses full-time employees at peak.
- **Record owner.** Assuming the hotel brand on the sign owns the records. In managed hotels the agreement decides; the [who-can-license decision tree](/questions/who-can-license-group-booking-change-reconciliation-records) walks through it.
- **Systems.** Listing only the sales platform. The kitchen, billing, ledger and mailbox each hold part of the history, as the [system map](/guides/group-booking-change-reconciliation-records-across-systems) shows.
- **Authorized contact.** Naming the director of events. They sponsor; the CEO signs.

## Before you send it

Check the company against the program rules. It needs 50+ full-time employees at peak (contractors excluded), a documented operating history, rights to license the records and an authorized contact. Companies in the U.S., Canada and the EU qualify, as do companies in the UK, Australia, New Zealand, India, Singapore, South Africa, Latin America, the UAE and Saudi Arabia when at least 90% of the data is in English. Partners sign the Channel Partner Agreement before submitting introductions; the first valid introduction within the 90-day window is credited when the company submits a verified application.

Unknown until SourceX reviews it: buyer interest in this record set, the rights review result, which records are selected and how client and guest details are de-identified, the offer and any reward. Event files name planners and sometimes guests; under the EU General Data Protection Regulation, personal data is any information relating to an identified or identifiable natural person, and data minimization is one of the regulation's principles, so expect some fields to be removed. Why break-resolution notes matter to AI developers is explained on the [reconciliation exceptions data page](/data-types/reconciliation-exceptions-ai-agent-training-data). If the hotel company is in a sale process, the same invoices may already be under review for a [quality of earnings](/resources/mcp/mcp-quality-of-earnings) analysis. Neighboring hospitality cases cover [service recovery approvals](/guides/workflow-service-recovery-approvals) and [rate parity exception review](/guides/workflow-rate-parity-exception-review); the sector overview is on the [hospitality page](/industries/hospitality), and every sector is on the [industries hub](/industries).

## Next step

> **Refer a company. Earn up to $100,000.** Default reward: 25% of Actual Supplier Payout, capped at $100,000 cumulatively per referred company. Eligibility and payment conditions apply, and a signed Schedule A or addendum can differ. A lead, meeting or signature alone does not trigger payment.

When the director of events has checked the brief and the CEO agrees to a call, [register as a partner](/register), confirm the company on [who qualifies](/who-qualifies) and keep the [program terms](/terms) beside the brief as you submit it.

## Sources

- https://refer.sourcex.si/terms
- https://docs.oracle.com/en/industries/hospitality/opera-cloud/22.5/ocsuh/t_exports_creating_or_editing_a_general_export_file.htm
- https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/reg/2016/679/oj/eng
- https://commission.europa.eu/law/law-topic/data-protection/data-protection-explained_en