I'm wondering, when a travel/tour agency, let's say in Chiang Mai, sends a client off to a tour/event such as an ATV tour.. When do they get their commission? What is the Thai way? Do they pick it up weekly? monthly? daily? Physically or sent from intra bank? Anyone with experience that can open my eyes to this would be great

Usually the customer buys the ticket from the tour agency for the, in this example, ATV tour. So the tour agent receives the ticket price from the customer.

Every month, or 2 weeks, depending on how many tickets re being sold, the owner of the ATV company will usually do the rounds of the tour agents and hotels who have sold tickets to get the money from them. The tour agent keeps their commission and pays the money to the ATV Tour boss.

So the tour agent gets their commission immediately and before the ATV Tour gets paid.

It's an easy to work system, no risk for the tour agent of not being paid, that also ensures that employees of the ATV Tour don't handle any money, only paper tickets, so no chance of money going missing anywhere. ( If customers were handing cash over to ATV Tour employees you can imagine a few of the ATV trips not making it onto the company books.

a lot also simply take the deposit whether it is 20% or 30% and retain that as there commission with the balance being paid to the operator on arrival