In the case for flex living, we explored why managing short and long stays through one operating system matters. But getting the right system in place is only the first step. The next question is how many people it takes to run the operation.
A flex property can create more work than either stay model alone. Weekend guests and six-month residents arrive, pay and need cleaning on completely different cycles. When those workflows rely on disconnected tools, it’s in danger of turning into additional headcount.
Hiring your way out is neither easy nor advisable. Around one in ten hospitality positions are unfilled across Europe, and every extra hire pushes up your cost per occupied unit as your portfolio grows.
The number of staff you need isn't just about the size of your operation. It's also about how much manual work your systems leave for your team.
Cut manual work, not service
A lower cost per occupied unit doesn’t mean doing less for guests and residents. It means building an operation that can handle more activity without creating the same amount of extra admin.
Longer stays can mean fewer room turnovers. But a property mixing short and long stays still has to manage different arrivals, departures, payment cycles and cleaning schedules.
When those processes rely on disconnected tools, teams spend time chasing information and repeating tasks. Connect the right workflows, and there’s less admin to get through and more time to focus on guests and residents.
Where the manual work adds up
The key is knowing where manual work is creeping in – and which tasks your team shouldn’t have to do by hand. These are four key areas to watch closely, and the automation that keeps overheads down.
Billing and payments
A weekend booking and a six-month residency don’t follow the same payment cycle. Short stays may be paid upfront, while longer stays involve deposits, initial payments and recurring monthly charges.
Managed manually, that means tracking due dates, processing charges and chasing anything outstanding across every property. Automating recurring payments and reminders cuts the routine work and shows teams what’s been paid and what still needs attention.
The Circus Group saves two hours every day through operational automation. Read their story.
Check-in and coordination
Short stays need a quick check-in and clear access instructions. Longer stays can involve contracts, deposits and move-in coordination. Online check-in, automated pre-arrival communications and digital access cut the back-and-forth, giving guests and residents more autonomy and freeing staff for the arrivals that need them.
Housekeeping
Short stays mean frequent, tight turnovers. Longer stays need scheduled cleaning and maintenance. In peak summer, the two overlap. Without reliable information on reservations and room status, managers can spend hours rebuilding rosters and chasing updates. Digital housekeeping workflows let teams plan cleaning around arrivals, departures and recurring schedules instead of spreadsheets.
Reporting
When information sits across different systems, someone has to pull it together before the team can act. Your Apartment’s reservations team spent around 1.5 hours every morning compiling check-in and housekeeping requirements until a daily report replaced the process. Read their story.
For operators with multiple properties, connected reporting also shows how each stay type is performing without repeated exporting and reconciling. Each of these tasks seems manageable alone. Across a property, every day, they add up to hours better spent on guests and residents.
How Truliving runs short and long stays on Mews, with RevPAR up 20%
Truliving Vallecas, a 285-apartment flex living property in Madrid, shows what a more connected operation looks like in practice.
The property combines short stays with extended stays averaging around 20 nights. Previously, the team used Mews alongside Excel, Salesforce and a separate contracting tool. When a long-stay contract was signed, someone had to block the room manually in Mews, adding another step to managing availability.
Truliving has since introduced a direct DocuSign connection to manage contracts through its property management system. This removes the need to create reservations manually from signed contracts, while space types, pricing and guest profile data are updated automatically.
Mews Housekeeping supports room readiness and recurring cleaning schedules, while Mews RMS supports pricing, with RevPAR up 20% between 2025 and 2026. Finally, Mews Business Intelligence brings reporting together so the team can analyze performance by space type, channel and booking source. Read their full story.
Five questions to ask before you commit
Before choosing an operating system for a flex property, look beyond the feature list. Ask whether it can support the operation when demand is at its highest.
- Can it manage short and long stays together? Reservations, contracts and availability should work across both without separate processes.
- Can it automate recurring billing? Extended stays shouldn’t mean manually managing every payment cycle.
- Can housekeeping respond to live data? Cleaning schedules should reflect actual arrivals, departures and apartment status.
- Can teams get reports without compiling them? Information should be ready to use, not another admin task.
- Can it handle peak summer without extra coordination? More turnovers shouldn’t automatically mean more manual work.
If the answer involves exporting data, updating a spreadsheet or transferring information between systems, you’ve found manual work that has a real cost. That’s worth understanding before you commit to a technology stack, particularly when your portfolio needs to scale.
Build the operation around the work
When billing, check-in, housekeeping and reporting are connected, one team can manage more activity without every additional task becoming another manual process. This way, you won’t be forced to hire more staff to fill the gaps, or make cuts to service to keep costs low.
In fact, your starting point shouldn’t be: how few people can you run a property with. It should be how much manual work can you eliminate.
Want to build a more efficient flex operation? Talk to Mews about managing short and long stays through one operating system.