How to handle City tax changes in Mews Operations

AccountingMews OperationsTroubleshooting in Mews

For legal compliance and accurate financial reporting, it is important to configure your city tax correctly.

 

As soon as you know about an upcoming change in your existing city tax, you can already start preparing for the change. The action you need to take depends on how you set up your city tax in Mews Operations. You can learn how to set up city tax in Mews here.

 

If you use the fixed city tax specific to your region, for example, “Berlin”, “Vienna”, or “Marseille - 5-star property”, Mews automatically updates the city tax in the system. You don’t need to take any action. 

 

In this article, you can learn how to handle a city tax change when: 

When using a fixed city tax, notify the Mews Support team of any upcoming change in your city tax rate and include links to official references. This ensures Mews verifies and implements the tax change in the system.

 

Note: Any update in the fixed city tax affects all upcoming and ongoing reservations within your Editable History Window. For ongoing reservations, the system automatically rebates closed bills with items consumed within this window. 

 

If you use the city tax specific to your region, for example, “Berlin”, “Vienna”, or “Marseille - 5-star property”, Mews automatically updates the city tax in the system. You don’t need to take any action. 

 

Selecting a new city tax

 

Note: To select a new city tax option, you need the Create and manage services permission.

 

When you need to select another city tax to accommodate the change, or you want to switch from using city tax as a product to using a fixed city tax, follow the steps below to avoid affecting city tax for previous reservations.

 

The steps you take are different if:

 You can see the corresponding steps to both situations below. 

 

  • If you do have Admin permissions, or both the “Manage accounting configuration” and “Manage property settings permissions”:

    On the date of the city tax change, you need to adjust your Editable History Window to avoid modifying the city tax of the previous nights.
    1. Temporarily shorten the Editable History Window to a minimal duration, such as 1 day, ensuring it remains shorter than the time until the previous city tax's consumption. For example, if the last check-in was at 3 PM on December 31st, and consumption time corresponds to the reservation start on January 1st, when making this adjustment, make sure your EHW is shorter than until 3 PM on December 31st.

      Note:
      • To prevent updating city tax of previous nights, avoid modifying past reservations while they are within your Editable History window. 
      • This short editable history window needs to stay in place until you check out all reservations overlapping the date of the city tax change or until you pass the previous duration of your Editable history window.
      • Ensure the configuration for automatic no-show cancellation works as expected. If you deselect Enable automatic no-show cancellation in the Visit options of your stay settings, Mews automatically cancels reservations marked as no-shows within the last 30 minutes before your operational history window ends. You can learn more about managing no-shows in Mews Operations here. 
    2. Manually select the new city tax for your bookable service:
      1. Go to the main menu Screenshot_2.png > Settings > Services > Bookable services.
      2. Select your stay service.
      3. In the General settings section, from the City tax drop-down menu, choose the new city tax option for your area.
      4. Click Save.
    3. Check that the new tax correctly applies to a new and a checked in reservation.

 

  • If you do not have Admin permissions or both the “Manage accounting configuration” and “Manage property settings permissions”:

    On the date of the city tax change,
    1. Split any reservations arriving before and staying over on the date the tax changes. For example, if a city tax changes on the 1st of January, and a guest stays from the 28th of December until the 2nd of January, you need to split the reservation and select the 1st of January as the split date.
    2. Close all bills, including products with a consumption date up to the date the city tax changes, as the previous city tax applies.
    3. Check out all the reservations available for check out after splitting reservations. You can learn how to check out reservations using the Check-out report here.
    4. Manually select the new city tax for your bookable service:
      1. Go to the main menu Screenshot_2.png > Settings > Services > Bookable services.
      2. Select your stay service.
      3. In the General settings section, go to City tax.
      4. From the drop-down menu, choose the new city tax option for your region or city.
      5. Click Save.

     

    If you use or want to set up your city tax as a product, updating your city tax in Mews Operations depends on the type of city tax.

     

    If your city tax regulations require you to charge city tax as: 

    • Fixed amount, for example, 3 Euro per adult per night, or as 
    • Percentage of accommodation cost, for example, 5% per adult per night. 

     Follow the steps as applicable.

     

    To configure your fixed amount city tax correctly in Mews Operations, you need to follow the steps below, prior to the date of change: 

     

    Create the city tax as a separate product with the updated rate. You can learn how to create a product in Mews Operations here. 

     

    For fixed amount city taxes only, use the dynamic pricing feature in Mews to apply the existing city tax rate from a date preceding your Editable History Window up to the day before the tax change. 

     

    For example, if the city tax increases from 4€ to 5€ on January 1st, and you set up your Editable history window for 7 days, apply the 4€ rate from at least 1 week before today, continuing through December 31st. This ensures the new 5€ rate starts from January 1st without affecting the Editable history window. 

     

    If you use a product rule that automatically adds the city tax for your reservations, modify the rule to replace the old city tax with the new one. 

    1. In Mews Operations, go to the main menu Screenshot_2.png > Settings > Services.
    2. Click on your bookable service, for example, Stay.
    3. Click Product rules.
    4. Click the rule that adds the previous city tax.
    5. From the Rule actions section, click the rule action that adds the existing city tax.

     

      1. Change the action to Cancel.

     

      1. Click Save.
    2. Go back to the Product rule screen.
    3. Click + Rule action.
      1. From the Product dropdown, select the newly created city tax.
      2. From the Action dropdown, select Add.
      3. Click Create. 

     
    You now have two product rules actions, one that cancels the previous city tax, and one that adds the new city tax to your reservations.

     

    1. Click Save. 

     

    Step 3: Contact Mews Support

     

    Once your new city tax product and the product rules are ready, submit a support ticket using the Mews Digital Assistant to request an update for all your reservations. Note: Contact Mews Support on the date the tax changes take effect.

     

     

    Percentage of accommodation cost city taxes

    To correctly configure your percentage of accommodation cost city tax in Mews, you need to follow the steps below.

     

    On the date of change:

     

    For percentage of accommodation cost city taxes only, on the date of change: 

    1. Split any reservations arriving before and staying over on the date the tax changes. For example, if a city tax changes on the 1st of January, and a guest stays from the 28th of December until the 2nd of January, you need to split the reservation and select the 1st of January as the split date. Note: You can only split checked in reservations.
    2. Close all bills, including products with a consumption date up to the date the tax changes, as the previous city tax applies.
    3. Check out all the reservations available to check out after splitting reservations. You can learn how to check out reservations using the Check-out report here. 

     

    After you split your reservations and check out the reservations available for check out, on the date of the city tax change: 

    1. In Mews Operations, go to the main menu Screenshot_2.png > Settings > Services.
    2. Click on your bookable service, for example, Stay.
    3. Click Products.
    4. Open your city tax product.
    5. Percentage value: Update the field to the new city tax value, applicable from this day onwards.
    6. Click Save. 

     

    Once you finish splitting your reservations, checked out reservations due, and updated your city tax product, submit a support ticket using the Mews Digital Assistant to request an update for all your reservations.  

     

     

    You can learn more about handling tax rate changes here. 

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