Accommodation Tax by QR Code: Letting Guests Pay Directly

How it works

The feature is opt-in and toggled per accommodation. Once enabled, closing a reservation triggers Best Guest to:

1. Calculate the fee using the same logic as the monthly municipal report — based on nights stayed and any configured exemptions (for example, guests under 18 or seasonal workers).
2. Pick the right payment format for the guest, based on their nationality: Czech QR Platba for Czech guests, Slovak PAY by square for Slovak guests, or the pan-European EPC standard for everyone else — each pre-filled with the amount, your bank account, and a unique payment reference. If the amount was calculated in a different currency than the guest’s format expects (for example, a Czech property’s fee shown to a non-Czech guest), Best Guest converts it automatically — by default at the official ČNB daily exchange rate valid on the day the request is sent, though you can set your own fixed rate instead in your billing settings.
3. Email the main guest the code along with payment instructions.
4. Show the same QR code to the main guest inside Best Guest after the reservation closes, in case they want to pay later.

If the fee comes out to zero — for example, because every guest is exempt — no email is sent at all. Nothing is sent either until Best Guest has a verified rate on file for that municipality; we’d rather calculate nothing than charge a guest the wrong amount.

How to identify a payment

Best Guest never verifies or handles the payment itself — the money goes straight to your account — so it’s important to be able to match an incoming payment back to a reservation:

• The variable symbol is the reservation number. It’s unique and never repeats, even for a returning guest. (The pan-European EPC format has no separate variable-symbol field — for those payments it’s folded directly into the message instead.)
• The payment message includes the guest’s name and check-in date, so you can recognize a payment at a glance without opening Best Guest.

The reservation detail view always shows when a payment request was sent, and you can resend the same email to any address at any time — including your own, if you’d like the reference handy while reconciling your bank statement.

What to watch out for

• Payments aren’t verified. Best Guest won’t tell you whether the guest actually paid — you’ll need to match it manually using the variable symbol (or, for EPC payments, the reference in the message) on your bank statement.
• Remitting to the municipality is still on you. The collected amount lands in your account exactly as before; Best Guest only makes it easier to collect from the guest — the reporting and remittance obligation doesn’t change. If a currency conversion was applied, you still owe the municipality the exact original amount in the property’s own currency, not what the guest happened to pay.
• The conversion uses the official ČNB daily rate by default. You can set your own fixed rate instead in your billing settings. If the ČNB rate is temporarily unavailable, Best Guest falls back to a published platform rate so the request is never blocked. Whichever rate applies, you still owe the municipality the exact original amount in the property’s own currency — see the bullet above.

When the email isn’t sent

Besides a zero amount or an unverified municipal rate, Best Guest also skips the email if the guest has no email address on file, or if the accommodation has no bank account configured. In both cases the choice of whether to send the request and collect payment stays entirely with you — the feature never blocks closing a reservation.

For details on how the accommodation tax itself is calculated, see the accommodation tax feature page. You can turn the feature on for a specific property directly in that property’s settings, or from the local fees automation page in Best Guest.