# Capacity per departure: how to stop overselling

> Why inbound agencies oversell, and what changes when capacity lives in one place and is subtracted from every channel.

- URL: https://www.viajalo.ar/en/blog/capacity-per-departure-without-spreadsheets
- Publicado: 2026-08-30
- Idioma: en
- Autor: Facundo
- Otras versiones: es: https://www.viajalo.ar/blog/cupos-por-salida-sin-planilla · pt: https://www.viajalo.ar/pt/blog/vagas-por-saida-sem-planilha · fr: https://www.viajalo.ar/fr/blog/quotas-par-depart-sans-tableur · it: https://www.viajalo.ar/it/blog/posti-per-partenza-senza-fogli-di-calcolo · de: https://www.viajalo.ar/de/blog/kontingente-pro-abfahrt-ohne-tabellen

## What causes overselling: the moment the seat is subtracted

Almost every inbound agency has a capacity spreadsheet. The problem shows up when the same departure is sold from two places at once: the passenger who pays on the site at 22:15 and the one who confirms over WhatsApp at 22:20, with the spreadsheet updated tomorrow morning. Both of them are right. One of them is one too many.

## What "a single capacity" means

That every departure has a number, and that the number goes down the instant it's sold, wherever the sale comes from:

- the agency's site,
- the WhatsApp assistant,
- a quote the client accepted,
- the counter,
- another agency buying through the B2B network.

When the number hits zero, all of those channels stop selling that departure at the same moment. Nobody has to be told.

## Changing the time without losing capacity

The other source of overselling is the time change. The 8 o'clock departure moves to 9, "a new one" is opened, and the old one is left with its bookings hanging. In Viajalo the time changes on the same departure: the bookings move with it and there's still only one capacity. If the passengers need to be told, the WhatsApp notice goes out from the booking.

## What you see the next morning

With capacity in one place, the day's schedule builds itself: departures by hour, passengers, supplier, pickups by hotel and payment status. The operations sheet exports to PDF for the driver or the guide, and the passenger's voucher is scanned at boarding.

## Where to start

Load the products with their real capacity and let every channel sell against that number. It's the first step of the demo we run with each agency, with their catalogue, not a sample one.

## Preguntas frecuentes

### What's the most common cause of an oversell?

Selling the same departure from two channels that don't share capacity, typically the website and WhatsApp, and finding out when the spreadsheet is updated at the end of the day.

### Is a shared spreadsheet enough?

As long as someone updates it by hand, no. The problem isn't the file but the moment the seat is subtracted, which has to be the moment of the sale, in every channel.