Guest book

By the end of this guide, you'll have the guest book switched on for a place, know where each guest's details land, how the stay fee is worked out, and which file to download when the municipality or the police asks.

How it works

Every accepted booking at a place with the guest book on becomes a stay in the book. Each stay has a roster of guests. Guests fill in their own details through an online check-in link (see Guest check-in), or you enter them yourself. Cabintale checks the details against the rules of the place's country, works out the stay fee, and builds the reports.

Only confirmed and paid bookings appear in the book. Requests waiting for approval, blocked dates and cancelled bookings don't.

Step 1: Switch the guest book on

Sidebar → Places → your property → Guest book tab. (The tab appears once the place is saved.)

1. Turn on Keep a guest book for this place.
2. Fill in Accommodation address — it's printed on the guest book exports.
3. Click Save at the top of the page.

The rest of this tab is set up in the steps below. Everything saves together with the place.

Step 2: Check the rules

The Rules card shows what the guest book follows for this place, set by its country:

• Czech Republic — badge Covered. Guest details and the stay fee follow Czech law: what each guest must fill in, who is exempt from the fee, police reporting for foreigners, and the official forms.
• Generic rules — badge Generic, for every other country. Basic guest details (names, date of birth, nationality, and a document for adults); you set the stay fee rules yourself. No police reporting.

Click Details to read the rules in full, with the legal sources and when we last checked them.

Step 3: Set up the stay fee

In the Stay fee block:

• Municipality — in Czechia, start typing and pick it from the official list. Elsewhere, type the name.
• Rate per person per night — your municipality's rate. In Czechia the law allows at most 50 CZK. Leave it empty if there's no stay fee.

Czech places also set:

• Report and pay — Every month, Every quarter or Every six months, as your municipality's decree says.
• Due by day — the day of the month after the period by which the report and payment are due.

Czech exemptions (children under 18, guests aged 65 and over, ZTP cards, stays over 60 days and the rest) are built in — you don't set them.

Places elsewhere also set:

• Exempt under the age of — guests younger than this pay no fee. Empty means 18; 0 means nobody is exempt.
• Charged nights per stay, at most — leave empty for no limit.

Let guests pay the fee in the check-in

Turn on Guests pay the tourist tax in the check-in to ask guests for the fee while they check in. If the place has a payment gateway connected, guests can pay online or in cash on arrival; without one, the check-in tells them to pay in cash on arrival. See Guest check-in for what guests see.

Step 4: Police reporting (Czech places)

Foreign guests at a Czech place must be reported to the foreign police through Ubyport. In Police reporting, fill in both values from your Ubyport registration:

• Accommodation ID (IDUB) — 12 to 14 letters or digits.
• Abbreviation — exactly 5 characters.

Under it, Exemptions guests can claim lists the exemptions guests can tick in the check-in — Age 65 or older and Disability card (ZTP or ZTP/P). Untick one if you'd rather not offer it. You confirm each claim on the booking (see Step 6).

Step 5: Find your stays

Sidebar → Guest book. The panel lists every place with the book on — each with Entries, Reports and Settings. With more than one place, All entries at the top shows them together.

The book shows one year at a time (use the arrows to change year), grouped by month, newest first. Each month's header adds up its stays, guests, the stay fee and how many guests are still missing.

Each row shows the lead guest and how many others, their nationalities, how many guests are to report to the police and how many are not filled, the dates, the stay fee and a status:

Use Search guest name… to find a stay by any guest's name, and the filters All, Not complete and Foreigners to narrow the list. Click a row to open the booking.

Step 6: The guests on a booking

Open a booking → Guests & check-in. At the top is the Check-in link with Copy link and Send by email — see Guest check-in.

Below it, the Roster has one row per guest. It starts with one empty row per guest in the booking — children get their own rows when the booking uses a guest unit marked Children (under 18) (see Guest units). The lead guest's name is filled in from the booking.

Each row shows the guest, their country (with Report to police for foreigners at a Czech place), Complete or Missing info, and who filled it in — Guest or You.

Add or correct a guest

Click Add guest, or Edit on a row. The guest dialog asks for:

• Given names, Family name, Date of birth
• Adult or child — set automatically from a valid date of birth
• Nationality
• Address of residence
• Document type and Document number — ID card, passport, residence permit or another document. At a Czech place, a child can also be In a parent's passport or have No identity document.
• At a Czech place, for foreigners: Purpose of stay, and Visa number for guests from outside the EU, EEA and Switzerland
• Stay fee exemption — set automatically for children from their date of birth; pick a reason for anyone else who's exempt

Click Save guest. A stay holds up to 30 guests.

You can remove a guest with Remove guest until the arrival day. After that, correct their details instead.

Confirm a claimed exemption

If a guest ticked an exemption in the check-in — "The guest says they are 65 or older and exempt from the fee" — check their document on arrival and click Confirm exemption in their dialog. Until then they count as paying.

Change history

Once a guest is complete, every later change is logged in Change history at the bottom of the dialog: what changed, from what to what, who changed it (You, Guest or Automatically (Cabintale)) and when. Address, document and visa numbers show only that they changed, never the values.

A booking you can't delete

From the arrival day, a booking with a filled-in guest is part of the book and can't be deleted until its personal data is removed (see How long we keep the book). Before arrival, deleting the booking deletes its roster too.

The stay fee on a booking

The booking's Price breakdown card shows a Stay fee line: the rate × the nights each paying guest stays. Children and exempt guests count as zero. When a guest's date of birth is still missing, the amount is marked ~ estimate.

• Turn on Add to price to add the fee to what the guest pays — it then goes into the payment links as its own line.
• If the fee changes later (a guest added, an exemption confirmed), the line says it's out of date — click Update.
• The booking keeps the rate it was made with, so changing your rate later doesn't touch existing stays.
• The stay fee is never counted in your revenue figures — it belongs to the municipality.

When guests pay the fee in the check-in, each payment appears in the booking's Payments table as Tourist tax, "For the municipality, not part of the booking price", with a Tourist tax still to pay or Tourist tax overpaid row when the amounts differ. These payments never change the booking's own paid status. While a guest is paying or has paid the fee in the check-in, Add to price is refused, so the fee is never charged twice.

Step 7: Reports

Sidebar → Guest book → your place → Reports. Pick a Month, Quarter, Half-year or Year. A Czech place opens on the period that just ended, with its due date.

The fee block — Figures for the municipality at a Czech place, Stay fee elsewhere — shows guests, charged and exempt person-nights, the fee to pay, a month-by-month table and exemptions by reason. Check before you send lists stays whose fee is still an estimate, with a link to each. Cabintale prepares the figures — you send the report and the payment to the municipality yourself.

Downloads

For the Ubyport file, click Check & download. Cabintale first checks the period: guests missing details Ubyport needs (with a link to each booking), a missing IDUB or abbreviation, or no foreigners to report. When everything's in place, click Download UNL and upload it in Ubyport.

How long we keep the book

The guest book is yours. Each year (stays arriving in that year) stays with us until the end of the following year — then we delete the guests' personal data. The stay fee figures stay.

• Whole year on the Reports page downloads one ZIP with both books for every place, plus a README. While a year is still open, Download so far gets what's there.
• Every January we e-mail you that last year's book is closed, and the dashboard shows Download your guest book until you do.
• Every December we send a last call: the previous year's personal data is deleted on 31 December.

In Czechia the law asks you to keep the book for 6 years, so download each year and keep it safe.

Closing your account? You get 90 more days to sign in and download your guest book. After that it's deleted with the rest of the account.

Troubleshooting

Related guides

• Guest check-in — Guest check-in
• Guest units — Guest units
• E-mail templates — E-mail templates
• Accept payments on a property — Accept payments on a property
• Booking dashboard — Booking dashboard