Every activity in Tern has three fields that ask for a supplier. Two are on the Booking & Pricing tab and one is on the Activity tab. They serve different purposes, and getting them mixed up is common. This article covers what each one does, when they should match, and how what your client sees on their credit card statement fits in. Short answer on that last one: it isn't set by any of them.
The three fields
Activity tab, General Info: Supplier / Property / Ship
This field identifies the product being booked: the actual property, ship, or tour operator running the experience. It's the label your client recognizes on the itinerary, and it feeds structured reporting and host integrations including TPI Suitcase, Signature, and TLN.
The label changes with the activity type. For lodging it's Property. For cruise it's Ship. For everything else it's Supplier.
Booking & Pricing tab, Booking Details: Supplier
This is the Booking Supplier. It identifies the entity you're contracting with: who owes commission, whose terms and conditions govern the booking, and whose cancellation policy your client sees on the authorization page.
The Booking Supplier is required to mark a booking as booked.
Booking & Pricing tab, Confirmation Details: Supplier
This records the provider the confirmation number belongs to. It's optional, and you can mark a booking as booked without it. If you fill it in, it points to the same entity as the Activity-tab Supplier / Property / Ship in a direct booking.
When the three fields match, and when they don't
In direct bookings, all three point to the same entity. If you book Sandals directly with Sandals, the Activity-tab field, the Booking Supplier, and the Confirmation Details Supplier are all Sandals.
In wholesale or consortia bookings, the Booking Supplier differs from the other two. If you book a Sandals stay through a wholesaler, the Activity-tab field and the Confirmation Details Supplier stay as Sandals, because that's the product your client is going on and the entity the confirmation number belongs to. The Booking Supplier is the wholesaler, because that's who pays commission, and whose terms and cancellation policy your client agrees to at authorization.
If your booking sits under a host agency's accreditation and you see the error "the supplier must be recognized by [host agency]" when trying to mark it as booked, that's a specific case with its own article: Why your booking says "the supplier must be recognized by [host agency]".
What appears on your client's credit card statement
Tern is not the merchant of record and does not process charges. When a supplier runs your client's card, the merchant name on the statement comes from that supplier's own payment processor. It doesn't come from any field you enter in Tern, including the Booking Supplier.
That means:
The merchant name your client sees can differ from the Booking Supplier name in Tern.
It's common for the statement to show a parent company, a booking platform, or the property's corporate legal name instead of the name your client recognizes.
You can't change what appears on the statement from Tern. There's no merchant descriptor field.
How to prep your client before a charge posts
Before the charge posts, send your client a quick heads-up so they know what to look for on their statement. A few things worth including:
The merchant name, if you know it. From a past booking or from the confirmation. It often will not match the supplier name in the itinerary. Calling it out ahead of time saves a "who charged me?" text later.
The amount and the card ending in the last four digits. Confirming both means your client can match the charge line by line when it hits their account.
The rough timing. Whether the charge is going through today, on the deposit due date, or on the final payment date, giving your client a window helps them not panic if it takes a day or two to post.
A note that it may show up as a pending authorization first before it fully posts. That's normal and doesn't mean they were double charged.
On your side, two things help. Make sure the activity name and dates in Tern are clear and recognizable, because those feed into the authorization flow your client sees before they approve the charge. And confirm the final price, including all taxes and add-ons, before sending the authorization, so you aren't re-collecting it later.
For more on how mismatched merchant names relate to chargeback protection, see Updating an Authorization After a Price Change. The section on merchant name mismatch is the one to point to.
Does listing an entity in the Booking Supplier field create liability for my agency?
No. When your client authorizes a payment, they always sign your agency's own terms and conditions, set in your agency settings, alongside whichever supplier's terms the booking pulls in. One doesn't replace the other. Whatever language you have in your agency terms clarifying your role, for example that you're facilitating the booking rather than supplying the trip, is part of every authorization, regardless of which entity is entered in the Booking Supplier field.
What we're improving
Entering supplier information in three places is more than most advisors need, and we know it. Tern is standardizing supplier field behavior across booking forms so this becomes cleaner over time.