When I cancel a booking, does the software keep track of the refund I am still owed by the supplier?

Yes, a cancelled booking stays in your records along with the refund you are waiting on, so the money does not quietly disappear from your books. When you cancel, the booking is not deleted. It stays in the system marked as cancelled, with the cancellation charge that was applied and the balance that should come back to you. That gives you something solid to check against when the supplier or airline finally settles, and it means you can see at a glance how much is still sitting out there unpaid.

How accurate that figure is depends on the supplier and the API behind the booking. Many hotel suppliers return a clear penalty at the moment of cancellation, so the amount owed back is reliable straight away. Airline refunds are usually slower and less predictable, because the airline has to assess the ticket first, so in those cases you may need to update the final figure yourself once the airline confirms what it is actually giving back. The software can record and chase, but it cannot make a supplier pay faster than they do.

It also helps to remember that what you owe your customer and what the supplier owes you are two separate things. Good practice is to track both, so you know whether you have already refunded your customer while still waiting on the supplier. Exactly how much of this you can see in one view, and whether it appears in your reports, can vary with your plan and how your account is set up.

The sensible next step is to put one real cancellation through soon after you go live and follow it all the way to settlement, so you know exactly where the refund shows up and what you need to fill in by hand.