Cottages of Cotswolds cut reconciliation from 6 hrs/wk to 20 min
Host: Ben Hastings · Portfolio: 14 self-catering cottages across the Cotswolds, UK · Platform: Lodgify Ultimate plan, channels Airbnb + Booking.com + Vrbo · Modules used: OTA Reconciliation, Sync Sentinel, Nightly Revenue Report.
The problem
Ben's operations manager Sarah spent every Wednesday morning reconciling OTA payouts against Lodgify bookings. The process: log into each of the three OTA back-offices, download the previous week's statement, open a Google Sheet, paste, sort by booking reference, cross-reference against the Lodgify booking export, flag disparities, chase them with each OTA's support. Six hours a week, every week, and the payoff wasn't clear — most weeks nothing came up.
Except the weeks it did. In November 2025 Sarah caught a £780 payout that Booking.com had simply not remitted for a 12-night booking at their largest cottage. The investigation and recovery took another two weeks. That single event more than paid for her time — but it also raised an uncomfortable question: how many events like that had they missed in the previous year, when the reconciliation had been more sporadic?
What they set up
OTA Reconciliation went live for the Cotswolds portfolio on 12 March 2026. Setup took about 45 minutes: enter the OTA credentials (stored encrypted our side, decrypted only for the nightly statement pull), map the Lodgify booking-ID field, choose an email recipient for the monthly exception report. Ben added Sync Sentinel the same day, mainly for peace of mind on the nightly channel push.
What surfaced in the first 90 days
The March exception report was, in Sarah's words, "surprisingly boring — three small discrepancies totalling £120." The April report changed her mind: Airbnb had failed to remit a £1 340 payout on a 6-night booking at Yew Tree Cottage, and Booking.com had charged 17% commission instead of the contracted 15% on nine consecutive bookings at Stone Barn. The May report added two Vrbo cancellation fees that had not been kept despite the non-refundable rate plan.
Total gross disparities flagged in three months: £5 240. Confirmed recoveries after Sarah's follow-up emails: £4 800. Time spent on reconciliation across the same period: about 4 hours total (down from ~78 hours). Recovery rate: 92%, well above the platform average of ~70% because Cottages of Cotswolds' documentation of every booking is unusually clean.
What Ben pays and what he saves
OTA Reconciliation: 24 €/month. Sync Sentinel: 20 €/month. Nightly Revenue Report: 16 €/month. Total: 60 €/month for the whole 14-cottage portfolio. Time saved: about 6 hours a week, freed up for actual sales and guest-experience work. Money recovered in the first quarter alone: £4 800 (≈ 5 600 €).
Ben's take
"The interesting thing isn't the money — although obviously the money is nice. The interesting thing is that reconciliation stopped being a task at all. Sarah gets an email on the 1st of the month, spends 20 minutes reading it, sends 2 to 4 pre-filled recovery emails, and gets back to actual work. What used to be a whole morning is now a coffee break."