Guest Registration Guide

This is where you record the details of one guest on a booking: personal data, ID document, contacts, tourist tax and, for whoever booked, the invoice details. You get here from the booking card: tap a guest's name in the list, or tap «Add Guest», which creates the row and opens this screen straight away.

The lead guest of the booking has a couple of blocks the others do not: the invoice details are theirs alone, and their ID document is always asked. On any other guest a star appears in the top bar, «Make Lead», which promotes them to lead guest.

Who decides which fields you see

Not you, and not us either: the country of the property does. Vezpa keeps a sheet for each of the 32 countries you can choose from, listing the fields the authorities of that country ask for by law, which are mandatory and which are not. The screen is drawn from that sheet. There is nothing to configure, and the fields follow the property's country even when the guest comes from the other side of the world.

What changes with the country, concretely:

• whether the «Residential address» block exists and with how many boxes (it exists in 17 countries out of 32);
• whether «Document Type» and «Document Number» are mandatory, and who they are asked of;
• whether «Issued by» appears, and whether it wants a place or a country;
• whether the «Gender» dropdown appears (8 countries);
• whether «Visa number» and «Purpose of stay» appear (today only the Czech Republic);
• whether the «TOURIST TAX» section appears (23 countries);
• whether the «SIGNATURE» section appears, that is, only where the law requires the signature of the guest (4 countries: Germany, Austria, France and Spain);
• which shape the «Invoice details» block takes.

The order of the blocks

Scrolling from the top: the document scan, the assignment (room and dates), the personal data, the ID document, the visa, the contacts, the invoice details, the residential address, the tourist tax, the notes, the signature and finally the button that registers. Blocks tied to the country simply do not appear where they are not needed, and the rest closes up.

Scanning the document

The first block on the page is «DOCUMENT», and it carries the «Scan Document» button. It does not open the camera directly: it opens a choice between «Take photo» and «Choose from gallery». On a computer there is no camera and only the gallery remains. After the first scan the button reads «Scan again».

The reading is done on the MRZ, the strip of fixed-width characters: on an ID card it is on the back, on a passport on the photo page. Printed text on the front is not read, so photographing the wrong side leaves nothing to read.

What the scan fills in, when it succeeds: last name, first name, gender, date of birth, place of birth, citizenship, document type and document number. Always read the fields again before saving: a worn document or a crooked photo can get a letter wrong.

You are told the outcome, and there are three different ones:

• Data extracted automatically — the reading worked.
• Nothing could be read — the service answered and there was nothing readable on the side you photographed. This is the case where turning the document over makes sense.
• Automatic reading is unavailable right now — the service did not answer. Turning the document over will not help here: fill the fields in by hand.

Reading the chip with NFC

Above the scan button, on phones that have the reader, «Read with NFC» appears. The button exists on phones and tablets only: on a computer it does not appear at all.

The route runs through two screens, and the first one is a camera again. Tapping the button opens «Frame the MRZ»: frame the lines of fixed-width characters at the bottom of the document, well lit and in focus. The app captures by itself, over and over, until it manages to read them, and «Capture» forces a shot straight away. Those characters do not fill in the form: they are the key that opens the chip, and without them the chip cannot be read.

If the camera cannot manage it, «Enter manually», at the top right, opens three boxes — «Document number», «Date of birth (YYMMDD)» and «Expiry date (YYMMDD)» — and then «Continue». Both dates want six digits in year-month-day order: 3 March 1985 is written 850303. It is the only place in the app where you type a document expiry date, and it is there only to open the chip: it is not saved on the guest and goes into no message.

Then the chip is read. Slide the document slowly along the device until the chip is caught. On an iPhone the sensor is at the top, along the upper edge; on Android it is on the back, in the middle or near the cameras. As soon as you hear a sound or feel a vibration, stop and keep everything still until the reading ends: if the document moves, the reading breaks off and has to be repeated.

If the document has no readable chip the app tells you so: the sheet closes with «Enter manually» and the guest's data goes into the form by hand, as usual.

German ID card. Its chip can only be read by the authorities: when the camera recognises a German ID card, the app doesn't even try to read it and tells you straight away. Take a photo of the back of the card, where the lines with the <<< characters are, or enter the details manually. A German passport, on the other hand, reads normally.

Starting from the surname

The «Last Name» field searches among guests who have already stayed with you: type at least three letters and the app offers the matching profiles. Picking one fills the whole record, ID document included. It is the fastest route for a returning guest, and the field stays free: a new surname you simply write.

The three fields that only accept an entry from the list

«Place of Birth», «Citizenship» and «Residence» are not free boxes: the value must be picked from the menu that appears as you type. Text written and never confirmed is cleared when you leave the field, with a message saying so. It is not a whim: only the entry you pick carries the reference that identifies the place without ambiguity, and that is what ends up in the messages to the authorities.

• In Italian properties, place of birth and residence offer Italian towns with their province, plus foreign countries.
• In properties in every other country they offer cities of the world, each with its country in brackets.
• Next to every suggestion, and next to the value already chosen, there is the country flag. It is there because some Italian province codes collide with country codes: AT is both Asti and Austria.

«Place of Birth» is mandatory only where the country asks for it — today Italy, France and Belgium: elsewhere you may leave it blank and saving will not stop. «Citizenship», on the other hand, is always asked, in every country: it identifies the guest's state and every message to the authorities needs it.

When you pick a citizenship, if the phone field is still empty the international dialling code of that country is filled in. If the phone is already written, it is left alone.

Capitals on first and last name

In properties where the Questura module is on — today Italy alone — the keyboard writes «Last Name» and «First Name» in full capitals: that is the convention of the Alloggiati Web format. In every other property the keyboard capitalises the first letter of each word, because full capitals elsewhere mangle names with diacritics. Either way, the capitals Alloggiati Web needs are guaranteed by the server when the file is sent: what you type here does not change what goes to the Italian police.

Room, dates and guest type

The «Room» dropdown says which room of the booking this guest belongs to; below it sit «Arrival date» and «Departure date», which can be narrower than the booking's if the guest arrives later or leaves earlier. In Italian properties «Guest Type» also appears, which for the lead guest reads «SINGLE GUEST» when they are alone and «HEAD OF FAMILY» or «HEAD OF GROUP» when they are not.

The ID document

The «DOCUMENT» section asks for «Document Type» and «Document Number», and in some countries «Issued by». It always appears for the lead guest; for the other guests it appears where the country declares that it wants the type or the number — and that is 23 countries out of 32. In Italy only the lead guest's document is asked, because that is the one the Questura format carries.

«Document Type» is filled in two different ways: in Italian properties it is a field with a list that searches the Questura document types; elsewhere it is a dropdown with the documents that country provides for (for example Personalausweis and Reisepass in Germany and Austria, DNI, Pasaporte, NIE and permiso de residencia in Spain).

Visa and purpose of stay

Below the document, in the Czech Republic, «Purpose of stay» appears — a dropdown, with the entries already translated in the country sheet — and under it «Visa number». It was the Czech authority that asked for the host to be able to fill them in, and in the same request said they cannot be mandatory: many foreign guests have no visa, and a purpose of stay left blank is recorded as other.

Fill them in when the guest gives you the answer, leave them empty when there is none: an empty box is missing data, a box filled at random is false data. The visa number is not forced to capitals, because it is an identifier issued by a state and has to be copied as it stands. Both apply to every guest, not just the lead one.

The photos of the ID document

If you turned on «Photo of ID document» in «Configuration» › «Tax & legal compliance» › «Online check-in», the guest who does the online check-in photographs the front and back of the document, and here the «Photo of ID document» box appears with the «Front» and «Back» thumbnails. Tap a thumbnail to enlarge it, the bin to delete it. The box is there only if the guest uploaded at least one photo, and only the roles that manage bookings see it.

Where they appear depends on the screen. On a computer or a wide tablet the photos sit in a panel to the right of the form: the photo you tap is enlarged inside the panel and the fields stay free beside it, so you copy the data while looking at the document. On a phone the thumbnails are the first block of the page: the photo you tap opens in a box at the top and the form scrolls below it; «Full screen» shows it on the whole screen, and a tap takes you back to the box. In both cases «Front» and «Back» switch from one side to the other, your fingers or the mouse wheel zoom in, and the X closes the photo and gives the whole page back to the form.

The photos are stored encrypted and are deleted automatically 7 days after departure. How to turn it on, and why to do so only when you really need it, is explained in the Property guide.

The invoice details

Below the contacts, the «Invoice details» block starts closed and concerns the lead guest only: it opens with «Add invoice details» and closes again with «Remove», which also empties the fields. It has two shapes, and again it is the property's country that chooses.

Italian properties. The fields are the usual ones: «Tax Code», «VAT number», «SDI Recipient Code (7 characters)» and the certified email. The tax code and the VAT number are checked for shape only when the customer is Italian: 16 characters the first, 11 digits the second.

Every other property. SDI and certified email do not appear, because they are Italian concepts. In their place there is a «Private» / «Company» switch: under Private no tax identifier appears, under Company you get «Company / Name», the business-registry number and the VAT identifier.

The labels carry the real name each identifier has in the right country, and the two countries are not the same one:

• the VAT identifier takes its name from the property's country, because that is the word printed on the invoice: a Czech property writes DIČ even when the value is German;
• the business registry takes its name from the customer's country, and only appears if that country has one: a German company has no IČO, and indeed is never asked for one.

When the customer is a Czech company, next to the business-registry field «Load from ARES» appears, which fills in the legal name, the VAT identifier and the invoice address — street, number, postcode, town and region — from the Czech public register. It follows the customer, not the property: an Austrian host invoicing a Czech company sees it too.

Below sits the invoice address, which starts with «Customer country». That field decides the two rules above, so it is worth picking it from the list that appears as you type: that way the app knows the country code and can show you the right labels.

The residential address

The «Residential address» block is not asked for the same way everywhere: what you see is decided by the property's country, and in 15 countries out of 32 the block does not appear at all — there, residence is given with the city alone, in the personal data.

These are not the invoice address boxes: they are a separate piece of data, and this is the one that ends up in the messages to the authorities. If the guest asks for the invoice at a different address — the head office of their company, say — write that one above, under «Invoice address», and leave here where they actually live.

There is only one rule to remember: fill in the fields you see. The mandatory ones tell you so by themselves — leave one empty and saving stops, says which one and takes you to the field to complete; the others you may leave blank.

The tourist tax

The «TOURIST TAX» section appears in countries that have a tourist tax (23 out of 32), and carries the «Tax exempt» switch. Turned on, it takes this guest entirely out of the booking's tax count. In the countries whose law or system asks for the reason (Czechia, Hungary, Slovenia), with the switch on the «Exemption reason» menu also appears, with that country's official reasons and codes: the reason is printed in the guest register.

Exemptions that can be worked out on their own are not recorded here: age brackets and the cap on nights are already automatic. Age is worked out day by day from the date of birth, so a birthday during the stay moves the bracket from the right day, even across the turn of the year. The switch is for the cases no calculation can guess. Which ones those are is decided by the municipal rules or by the law of the country, not by Vezpa: the app keeps no list of them and does not ask you for a reason.

When the exemption is off, a «Reduction» dropdown can also appear, with the reductions of the room's municipality. It only appears on rooms connected to PayTourist, and only if that municipality has any registered. Mind what it does: the reduction does not change the tax total inside Vezpa; it is sent to PayTourist along with the guest, and that is where it takes effect.

Notes and signature

The «NOTES» block holds a free «Memory» about the guest and the «Remember Birthday» switch. Further down, only where the law requires the signature of the guest (Germany, Austria, France and Spain), «Guest signature» appears, and it is optional: a white pad opens, the guest signs with a finger or a stylus, and the signature is uploaded as an image. Once captured, the button turns green and reads «Signature captured».

The signature is for the property as evidence, and it goes into the PDF of the registration form: no connected government system receives it. In the other countries with a registration form the section is not there: the PDF is printed all the same, with the line to sign on paper.

Registering the guest

The action that registers sits in two places, and it is the same action: at the bottom of the page the orange «Register Guest» button (or «Register Lead Guest») with the number of nights, and at the top, next to the back arrow, the single word «REGISTER». There are two because the form is long: someone filling in the first fields should not have to scroll all the way down to save. While the registration is running they both go dark together, so the guest is not registered twice.

In a very narrow window the top button shrinks to the icon alone, and if there is not even room for that it disappears: the bottom button, which is always there, remains.

On tap, four checks run, in this order: the mandatory fields of the screen, the three fields that want an entry picked from the list, the country's rules (document, address, gender, dates) and finally a check on the server. If something is wrong the form stays open: the problem is written under each box concerned, the page scrolls to the first one and gives it the focus, and a notice at the bottom of the screen sums up everything that is missing. When everything is in order the guest is registered and the screen closes.

On a guest who is not the lead one, below the orange button, there is also «Remove Guest». On the lead guest it does not appear: the booking cannot be left without one.

The sheet that opens — «Remove Guest» — asks what comes off the bill, with the same choices as adding: «Adult», or «Child» with an age selector. The ages offered are only the ones actually declared in that room — you take away a child who is there — and the amount that comes back changes with the age you pick: an infant and a youth are not worth the same surcharge.

On a booking with no declared ages — the older ones, or ones that came from a portal sending one child per room without the age — the sheet offers the three brackets instead, each with its range of years beside it: «Infant», the middle one (which in English also reads «Child», and the range tells them apart) and «Adult». It adds «No change» when none of the three is already at zero. On rooms using the Derived pricing model the sheet offers the configured percentages: there the age plays no part in the choice.

The chip gives the city but not the country

Some documents give the place of birth as a city alone — BERLIN, TOLEDO — without saying which country it is in. After an NFC reading, Vezpa tries to work it out on its own from the property's country, the citizenship and the state that issued the document.

When the city exists in several countries and none of those clues settles it — Toledo exists in Spain, the United States, Brazil and the Philippines — the app asks you, with the list of possible countries. If you cancel, the place of birth stays to be completed by hand and the field reminds you with the message «Complete the place of birth».

«Issued by»: two countries, two different questions

It is one box, but it does not ask for the same thing everywhere.

• In Italy the Alloggiati Web format requires it and wants a place or authority (a town in the form TOWN - PROVINCE, or a foreign state). It is mandatory for the lead guest.
• In Bulgaria and Portugal the country sheet requires it and wants the country that issued the document. There the box is shown but does not block saving.
• In every other country the box does not appear at all.

The list offered is the same in both cases and mixes countries with Italian issuing authorities: it is the only one the check on the server accepts today.

The city of residence of foreign guests

The «Residence» field is always drawn, in every country. What changes is whether it is mandatory, and three different rules can switch that on:

• in Italy the Questura requires it;
• Croatia declares it a mandatory field of the electronic check-in, including for guests resident abroad;
• in Poland, Sweden, the Netherlands and Denmark it is mandatory for a different reason: there the address block does not exist, but the town of residence still has to be declared, so this field is the only place to put it.

In every other country it may be left empty.

When you arrive here from a notification

If a message to an authority got stuck on one of this guest's fields, the notification brings you straight here and an orange panel appears at the top of the form, with the system that stopped and the reason. Where the server can suggest the right value, the panel also carries the button that applies it. The panel closes with the X and does not stop you saving.

A guest on a booking with no room

In the «Room» dropdown, the entry of a booking that has no room is written in red and bold and reads «Room not assigned» instead of the name. The text says what the colour says, so it reads even without telling red apart.

You can register the guest anyway: registration does not depend on the room being assigned. The red is a reminder that a room is still to be assigned on that booking, and you assign it from the booking card, with «Assign room».

When the server corrects or warns

The check on the server can correct a value — a town that no longer exists, replaced by the one that absorbed it, for example — or tell you what it discarded. In both cases it shows you before going on, and you see the correction written in the field. Were it not shown, a correction by the server would be indistinguishable from a lost value.

If the server does not answer at all, saving is not blocked: you are told the check was not run and you decide whether to go ahead. You can be offline with the document in your hand, and in that case registering beats not registering.

Who can be on this screen

Guest registration follows the permission to write on bookings. The «Load from ARES» button asks for something more — access to tax data — so the front desk sees the business-registry field and fills it in by hand, but the button does not appear for them.

• I typed the city and it vanished when I left the field. Place of birth, citizenship and residence only accept an entry picked from the menu: reopen the field, type two letters and tap the right row.
• I scanned the document and nothing was filled in. Look at the message: if it says nothing could be read, you photographed the side without the character strip — on an ID card that is the back. If it says the reading is unavailable, the service cannot be reached and the fields go in by hand.
• I cannot find the NFC button. It only exists on phones and tablets with an NFC reader. On a computer there is none.
• I cannot see the document section on a guest. That is the one with the fields, not the scanning block that carries the same name at the top of the page and is always there. Outside Italy the fields are asked of every guest only where the country provides for it; where it does not, they appear for the lead guest only.
• I cannot see the «Issued by» box. It appears in Italy, Bulgaria and Portugal. Elsewhere the document is declared without it.
• I cannot see the address block. It exists in 17 countries out of 32. Where it does not, residence is given with the city alone in the personal data.
• I cannot see the gender dropdown. It appears in the 8 countries where an authority or the guest book asks for it. A value already read from the document stays saved even where the dropdown is not shown.
• I cannot see the signature section. It appears only in Germany, Austria, France and Spain, where the law asks for the signature of the guest. In the other countries it is not needed: if there is a registration form, you print it and have it signed on paper.
• I cannot see the «Reduction» dropdown. It only appears on rooms connected to PayTourist, and only if the municipality has reductions registered.
• I set a reduction and the tax total did not change. That is expected: the reduction travels to PayTourist and does not touch the count inside Vezpa. To take a guest out of the count, use «Tax exempt».
• I cannot find where to enter the document expiry date. The guest form does not ask for it: it collects the type, the number and, where provided for, who issued it. The only box that asks for it is «Expiry date (YYMMDD)», in the manual fallback of the NFC reading, and it is there only to open the chip: it is not saved on the guest.
• I cannot see the ARES button. It only appears if the invoice customer is Czech, and only for people with access to tax data. The field can still be filled in by hand.
• The top button has gone. On very narrow windows it shrinks to the icon and then gives up its place: use the one at the bottom of the page.
• I tapped Register and nothing happens. Scroll the page: the missing field carries the message under its box, and the page has already moved there. If you saw no message at all, the registration was already running.
• I cannot find «Remove Guest». It is not there on the lead guest of the booking. On any other guest it sits at the bottom, under the orange button.