How Hunter Marshall reduced administration costs by 23% using AI, automation and a smarter staffing model
Introduction
Growing operational businesses rarely struggle because of a single broken system. More often they are held back by the quiet accumulation of manual processes: spreadsheets built to solve yesterday's problem, information passed between people through messages and conversations, and financial control that depends on someone remembering to check.
This case study describes how Hunter Marshall helped Playa Blanca Holiday Villas move from a fragmented, spreadsheet-driven operation to a single, purpose-built operating model combining AI, automation, better processes and a smarter staffing structure. The engagement began at no cost with a complimentary AI & Automation Opportunities Report and, within two months, delivered a live operations platform: REX, which reduced administration costs by 23% in its first year, while improving management information and financial control rather than simply cutting resources.
Client Information
Playa Blanca Holiday Villas owns and operates a portfolio of luxury holiday villas in Playa Blanca, Lanzarote, offering guests private heated pools, high-speed wifi, air conditioning and a range of premium amenities across properties ranging from two-bedroom retreats to six-bedroom villas sleeping up to sixteen guests. As a hands-on, owner-direct operator providing round-the-clock local support to guests, the company encountered financial constraints that limited its ability to expand its finance function despite growing operational demands.
Company Name: Playa Blanca Holiday Villas
Industry: Hospitality - Holiday Villa Rentals
Location: Playa Blanca, Lanzarote
Job Title: Remote Accountant
Website: playablancavilla.ie
Playa Blanca Holiday Villas manages a portfolio of owner-direct holiday villas in Lanzarote. Behind every guest stay is a significant operation: a local team manages cleaning, maintenance, pool and hot tub servicing, guest services, purchasing and villa turnarounds between stays, alongside staff hours, suppliers, payments, invoices, bookings and the financial performance of individual properties.
Roles & Functions Required
The engagement was not a single piece of software. It combined technology and people across a set of connected functions:
- Operations platform (REX) - A purpose-built system to replace multiple spreadsheets and disconnected records with one operational record of what happened, who did it and what it cost.
- Workforce management - Cleaning-team scheduling, staff hours, availability, dated pay-rate control and payment approval.
- Financial control - Petty cash, purchasing, invoice validation, payment authorisation and property-level cost visibility.
- Maintenance and property operations - Structured issue reporting, task assignment, tracking and verification, plus pool and hot tub servicing.
- AI & automation layer - Automated invoice reading and checking, exception detection, and booking-driven workflows.
- Dedicated remote staffing - A Spanish-speaking remote administrator to own the work that still genuinely required a person.
With these requirements in mind, Smarter Surfaces needed to find a solution that would address their staffing needs while respecting budget limitations imposed by pandemic-related financial pressures.
Initial Challenge
Like many growing businesses, Playa Blanca Holiday Villas had developed its processes over time to solve problems as they arose. Spreadsheets managed bookings, maintenance, staff hours, payments, suppliers and property costs. Invoices were processed manually. Files for the accountants were prepared by hand. Information moved between team members through messages, spreadsheets and conversations.
Individually, many of these processes worked. Together, they were becoming increasingly difficult to manage:
- Financial reconciliations were producing errors.
- Petty cash balances could conflict.
- Staff pay rates were not always applied consistently.
- Purchases shared across several villas were difficult to allocate.
- Scheduling depended heavily on manual communication.
- There was limited visibility into the true cost and turnaround time of individual villas.
Underlying all of this was a heavy dependence on human oversight. Someone had to notice the unusual staff hours, the missing information, the incorrect invoice, the cash discrepancy or the operational conflict. As bookings increased, management needed better control without simply adding more administration.
The business didn't need another off-the-shelf tool. It needed to understand where AI, automation, better processes and people could make the biggest difference.
Implementation & Experience
Onboarding Process
Hunter Marshall began with a discovery session as part of its complimentary AI & Automation Opportunities Report. There was no predetermined software being sold; the objective was to understand how the business actually operated. This includes its workflows, repetitive administration, data sources, management controls and recurring problems, along with a simple question: if you could redesign how the business operates, what would you want to work differently?
The report identified opportunities across AI, automation, improved processes and management information. One opportunity was significant enough to justify building something specifically around the business. It became REX.
Rather than asking the business to change how it works to suit an off-the-shelf system, REX was designed around the team, properties and processes already in place. It is used by the team on their phones and can operate in English or Spanish. One sign-in gives each person access to the areas relevant to their role, while notifications and alerts bring issues to their attention instead of relying on people to keep checking.
From the initial review, REX was designed, built, tested and put into operation within two months. Delivery was deliberately fast: the goal was to turn genuine opportunities into working improvements, not to spend months producing specifications about what AI might eventually do.
Implementation was validated through structured testing:
- Four structured testing rounds were completed over three days.
- During roughly 3.5 hours of direct testing, the owner raised 28 improvement requests.
- 14 improvements, including two entirely new modules, were delivered within a single day.
- Across all four rounds, no previously working feature broke.
Challenges That Hunter Marshall Overcame
Replacing spreadsheet dependence without disrupting the operation
REX consolidated bookings, maintenance, staff hours, payments, suppliers and property costs into one live operational record, removing the fragility of disconnected files while keeping the local team's existing way of working intact.
Bringing consistency to staff hours and pay
Unusually long or overlapping time entries are now automatically flagged for review rather than silently accepted. Pay-rate changes are controlled and dated, so amending a rate today no longer retrospectively changes the cost of work already completed. Payment batches follow a clear propose–approve–authorise trail.
Turning petty cash and invoicing into controlled processes
Petty cash became a live balance rather than something reconstructed periodically. Purchases can be assigned to the relevant property with receipts attached to the transaction, discrepancies above agreed thresholds can be escalated automatically, and invoices are validated before- not after they flow into the accounts.
Structuring maintenance and property operations
Anyone on site can raise a maintenance issue against a property with priority, description and photographs. Tasks are assigned, given target dates and tracked through to completion and verification, so recurring problems surface as patterns rather than a series of unrelated call-outs. Pool and hot tub servicing was converted into a structured process recording chemical tests, actions taken and photographs, with follow-up reminders generated automatically.
Reducing reliance on human vigilance
The AI and automation layer reads and checks invoices against the correct company and tax details, files them for the accountants, and increasingly looks for the exceptions management needs to know about — rather than requiring people to review everything manually. Villa calendars and bookings can connect with the platform so scheduling works from live booking information rather than re-keyed data.
A notable discovery emerged during the project: when REX was tested against historical records, it found that applying a single assumed staff pay rate (rather than the rate actually applicable when the work was performed) had overstated costs by several thousand euros in a single quarter. REX now maintains dated pay rates so work is always costed correctly.
Results & Impact
Within the first 12 months, Playa Blanca Holiday Villas reduced its administration costs by 23%, while improving its management information, financial controls and operational oversight.
The business gained:
- 23% lower administration costs in the first 12 months.
- Less management time spent checking routine administration.
- Reduced dependence on spreadsheets and manual reconciliation.
- Better visibility of costs by property and booking.
- Stronger controls around staff hours, payments and petty cash.
- Automated invoice checking, processing and filing.
- Earlier identification of errors, discrepancies and unusual activity.
- Clearer accountability and better management information, without reports having to be manually assembled.
Crucially, automation did not mean removing people. Once repetitive administration had been reduced, it became far clearer which tasks still genuinely required human judgement. Playa Blanca Holiday Villas subsequently hired a dedicated India-based, Spanish-speaking remote administrator through Hunter Marshall at an annual payroll cost 45% lower than the equivalent local hire- putting the right resource against the right work: automation for repetitive processes, AI to surface information, a remote administrator for work requiring judgement and communication, and the local team free to concentrate on guests, properties and work that must happen on the ground.
Since REX is modular, it continues to evolve with the business, with further automation around bookings, calendars and travel information being developed to give the team earlier warning of potential problems such as double bookings, changed arrivals and gaps in availability.
Client Feedback
The owner's experience through delivery reflected the value of the approach. Across four intensive testing rounds, the owner was able to shape REX in real time; raising 28 improvement requests, 14 of which (including two new modules) were delivered within a day, with no existing functionality lost in the process.
For management, the single most valued outcome was visibility: the ability to see what is happening across the operation without personally checking every spreadsheet, timesheet, payment or process. The result was a more organised, more accountable operation: better run behind the scenes, and more seamless for every guest.
Conclusion
This engagement demonstrates both sides of the Hunter Marshall model working together: using AI and automation to reduce the amount of administration required, and using a more cost-effective staffing model for the work that still benefits from a person.
The project began at no cost with a complimentary AI & Automation Opportunities Report. Within two months, REX was live. Within its first 12 months, administration costs had fallen by 23%. The business then added a dedicated remote administrator at 45% lower annual payroll cost and since REX is modular, the solution continues to develop as the business evolves.
Not every business needs a solution on the scale of REX. A Hunter Marshall review might instead identify a handful of straightforward automations that remove hours of repetitive work each week, information that AI could review in seconds, or administration currently handled by expensive senior staff that a dedicated remote team member could own. You don't need to know the answer before speaking to Hunter Marshall, that's what the review is designed to find out.
Looking Ahead
The next phase will focus on bringing greater visibility to bookings, calendars and travel information, helping the team identify potential issues such as double bookings, changed arrivals and gaps in availability.
The goal remains simple:
Make the operation easier to manage, so the team can focus on what matters most - giving guests a relaxing and memorable Lanzarote holiday.