Guest registration in the Basque Country: the file for the Ertzaintza

Properties in the Basque Country report their guest register to the Ertzaintza, through its Registro Hostelero (RH) application, and not to SES Hospedajes. BookCheckin does that sending for you automatically: every night it signs in to the RH application with your own user, which you save once on the property’s Legal tab, and sends the XML file with the guests who arrived that day (step 3). If you prefer not to save your access, or when a sending fails, you can download the file, upload it yourself under the application’s “Envío fichero” tab and record in BookCheckin that you uploaded it (step 6). The rest of the journey — the check-in link, the document scan, the signature, the dashboard — is the same as always.

This file covers only the arrival report: the reservation-time communication that the same Orden (of 25 November 2022) requires remains your responsibility and is outside what BookCheckin sends.

You switch this mode on yourself, on the property’s Legal tab, inside the Ertzaintza card: save the establishment code first, then press “Switch to Ertzaintza filing…”. Before the switch we ask you to tick a box confirming that your establishment is already registered in the Ertzaintza’s Registro Hostelero and that the code is the one they issued you: BookCheckin cannot check this for you. From that moment, this property’s guest registrations stop going to SES Hospedajes.

One important point from the start: automatic sending only works while you keep your RH application user saved (step 3). Without it, BookCheckin does not sign in to the application and cannot know whether a file was uploaded by hand: all it knows is what you tell it. Step 6 is the routine that keeps that always true.

Open the property and go to the Legal tab. You will see the “Ertzaintza filing (Basque Country)” card. The SES Hospedajes cards are still there, but this property does not need them. The switch is only accepted if the property’s address is in the Basque Country: otherwise BookCheckin refuses it, because in Ertzaintza mode it would report nowhere.

The first piece of data the card asks for is the “Ertzaintza establishment code”: the numeric code (up to 10 digits) the Ertzaintza assigned to your establishment when it was registered in its Registro Hostelero. That code names every file and goes inside it, so until it is on file you cannot create check-in links for the property or prepare any file.

Two common mix-ups. It is not your SES Hospedajes establishment code: they are different registers. And it is not a password: your RH application username and password are a different piece of data, saved separately in automatic sending (step 3) with its own consent; this field only takes your establishment’s code.

This is the normal way to work with this manual, and it is set up once per property, on the same card. Open “Automatic sending to the Ertzaintza”, save the “RH application username” and the “RH application password”, tick the consent box and press “Save and test the sign-in (one attempt)”. Once the sign-in is verified, turn on “Send automatically”. From then on BookCheckin signs in with your access, on your behalf, and sends each night’s file. The credentials are stored encrypted and used for nothing else. While you have not saved them, the manual path of step 6 applies.

No RH user with a password yet? You request one from the Ertzaintza with its “Solicitud de usuarios” form for the Registro Hostelero application; BookCheckin cannot request it for you.

Automatic sending runs every night from 22:00 (Spain time): the travellers who arrived that day with a completed check-in go into that night’s file, and anything already overdue goes on the next pass. An automatic file only reaches arrivals from the last 30 days. You can force a sending at any time with “Send now”.

The duty to report each traveller within 24 hours of arrival stays yours, as does keeping your application access up to date: BookCheckin cannot check that your establishment is registered with the Ertzaintza or that the code is the right one.

Each night BookCheckin signs in once with your user, uploads the XML file on the application’s upload screen and records the answer. The RH application does not accept or reject on the spot: it replies that it has received the file, and the verdict appears afterwards in its “Acuses de Recibo” tab. BookCheckin reads that tab shortly after the sending and, if needed, again later, to learn whether the file was accepted.

Each file sent appears under “Generated Ertzaintza files” with its status: “Being sent to the Ertzaintza” while it goes out; “Received by the Ertzaintza — result pending” once the application has it (BookCheckin never uploads a received file again, so the same travellers are not registered twice); “Accepted by the Ertzaintza”; “Rejected by the Ertzaintza — correct and send”, in which case its travellers go back to the queue, you correct what failed and press “Send now”; or “Ertzaintza answer unknown — check”. If the receipt cannot be read within 24 hours, we tell you once: check in “Acuses de Recibo” whether the file appears; nothing is re-sent meanwhile.

If something cannot be sent — the application refuses the sign-in or the file, or its answer cannot be read — you get an email that same night or, as a backstop, at 08:00 if the guest is still not reported. Those emails never include any guest’s name or the application’s answer: only the property and how many travellers it affects.

Automatic sending pauses by itself, and the card says so with “Automatic sending paused: …” and the reason: the application refused the sign-in; the Ertzaintza rejected a file; the application gave no readable answer; the application’s upload screen does not look as expected; or the establishment code changed. While paused, BookCheckin does not try again on its own.

If the application refuses the sign-in, sending stays paused until you press “Enter the password again” and save it. Because repeated failed sign-ins may lock your account, BookCheckin tests the sign-in only once each time you save; if you are not sure of the password, change it in the application first rather than trying variations. If you change the password in the application, the one BookCheckin holds stops working until you enter it here again. And if you change the establishment code, save the password again to confirm it.

If the application’s upload screen changes, BookCheckin uploads nothing, pauses sending and alerts its team; meanwhile, upload the file yourself (step 6). In every paused case the manual path remains available.

This step is the manual path: use it if you prefer not to save your application access, or as a fallback when an automatic sending does not go out (steps 3 to 5). With automatic sending on, new guests are normally sent without you doing anything: use “Generate” only as a fallback.

With at least one guest ready, press “Generate file for the Ertzaintza (.xml)”. BookCheckin builds the file with all the guests ready at that moment — never the blocked ones — and starts the download. The name is ertzaintza_, your establishment code padded with zeros to 10 digits, an underscore and a three-digit number: for example, ertzaintza_0000012345_001.xml. Numbering starts at 001 and goes up to 999. The RH application sets no naming rule; the name is only for your own tracking.

Sign in to the RH application with your user and upload the .xml under its “Envío fichero” tab, within 24 hours of each guest’s arrival. The Ertzaintza’s verdict appears afterwards in its “Acuses de Recibo” tab; BookCheckin does not see the receipt of a file you upload yourself, so keep your own proof. Each file must contain only guests you have not sent before: BookCheckin already takes care of that, and a guest who is in a file does not come back to the queue unless you discard that file.

Once the application has accepted the file, go back to the card and press “Mark as uploaded by me to the Ertzaintza RH application”: the file moves to “Uploaded by host”. Confirm it only when it is true, because BookCheckin cannot verify a file you upload by hand: it records what you tell it. If the application rejected it, or you generated it by mistake, press “Discard…”: its guests go back to the queue and you can generate a new file. Discarding a file already marked as uploaded requires you to write the reason.

Inside the card, one line summarises the queue: “N guests ready · N blocked · N not yet arrived”. A guest enters the queue when they have a name in BookCheckin and shows as “ready” from the day of their arrival; before that they count as “not yet arrived”, so an empty queue is not read as “nothing to do”. By default the queue looks at arrivals from the last 30 days. A guest whose arrival has passed and who is not yet in any file is flagged “overdue”: that is the one to resolve today.

The “Blocked — the RH application would reject these” list gathers the guests who lack something the file requires, with the reason written next to each. These are the same checks BookCheckin applies to a guest’s data before reporting them to SES; BookCheckin does not fill anything in by itself: it prefers to block rather than invent. Press a guest’s name to go to their booking in Submissions, correct the data or ask them to complete it, and on the next load of the card they move to “ready”.

Guests who had already been reported to SES Hospedajes before the property switched mode do not appear in the queue: putting them in a file would register them twice. The card points to them with the “See them in Submissions” link.

Switching the mode, saving or removing the credentials, turning automatic sending on, “Send now”, generating, downloading, marking as uploaded and discarding are only available to owner or manager accounts. Staff see the card but cannot change anything: the card tells them manager access is required.

If you later want to go back to SES Hospedajes with “Switch back to SES Hospedajes…”, keep in mind that a property in the Basque Country files with the Ertzaintza: it only returns to SES once it is set up for a system SES covers. Guests already in an Ertzaintza file stay registered there and will never be sent to SES, and your generated files stay available.