Urban short-stay operators can spend two days each month reconstructing bookings across platforms to file tourist tax. The whole cycle runs automatically: bookings are aggregated per property, tax is computed by each municipality's rules, and filing-ready reports arrive monthly with permit reminders built in.
Typical results
12/12
On-time filings this year
0
Penalties once live
100%
Permits renewed on time
Figures reflect typical results for this kind of automation.
The challenge
Every month the bookkeeper exported reservations from three platforms, matched them to properties in different municipalities, and computed occupancy tax by hand — each city with its own rate, exemptions, and forms. The two-day scramble ended in late filings twice a year, penalty notices, and one short-stay permit that quietly expired because nobody was tracking renewal dates.
Before and after
Filing prep
−99%Late filings
−100%Permit lapses
−100%The automation
We built a nightly Make scenario that pulls reservations from every platform, deduplicates them, and assigns each stay to its property. A rules table encodes each municipality's occupancy tax — rates, exemptions, guest caps — and computes the liability per stay. On the first of the month, a filing-ready report per municipality lands in the operator's inbox with totals and line-level backup. Permit and license renewals get reminders at 60, 30, and 7 days.
How it works
- 01
Bookings aggregated
A nightly pull collects reservations from every platform, deduplicates them, and assigns each stay to its property.
- 02
Rules applied
Each municipality's occupancy tax rules — rates, exemptions, guest caps — compute the liability per stay.
- 03
Report generated
On the first of the month, a filing-ready report per municipality lands in the inbox with totals and backup.
- 04
Permits tracked
License and permit renewal dates trigger reminders at 60, 30, and 7 days out.
- 05
Audit trail kept
Every tax line links back to its booking, ready the moment a municipality asks questions.
Starts from
- Bookings from all platforms
- Municipality tax rules
Delivers
- Filing-ready monthly reports
- Tax computed per stay
- Permit renewal reminders
The impact
Monthly filing prep typically drops from two days to ten minutes of review. Filings go in on time without penalties, every permit is renewed before its deadline, and when a municipality asks for backup, a stay-level audit trail exports in a single click.
Questions about this automation
How are bookings from different platforms combined?
A nightly run pulls reservations from each booking platform, removes duplicates such as a stay that appears in both a channel manager and the platform itself, and assigns every stay to its property and municipality. The result is one clean list of stays that the tax rules work from.
How is the occupancy tax calculated for each stay?
A rules table holds each municipality's rate, exemptions and caps, such as a maximum number of taxable nights or exempt children. The flow applies the matching rules to every stay and stores the amount with a link to the booking, so each line on the filing report traces back to a reservation.
How are permit and license renewals tracked?
Each property's short-stay permit and license dates sit in the same registry. Reminders go to the operator at 60, 30 and 7 days before expiry, and an unrenewed permit is flagged on the monthly report. This is a multi-step build, usually rolled out in stages, starting with booking aggregation.