own a 28-room historic inn. been putting off upgrading our ancient reservation system because every demo made my head spin with complicated features we'd never use. spent 3 months researching options. looked at vendor websites, read reviews on sites like hoteltechreport (though some reviews seem a bit too polished), and actually called other small property owners. the breakthrough moment: found a system designed specifically for properties under 50 rooms. setup took 2 days instead of 2 months. staff training was done in an afternoon. what makes it work: - does reservations, billing, and basic reporting - no monthly per-room fees that kill small properties - support team actually answers the phone - integrates with our existing credit card processor the win: saved 5 hours per week on manual processes. that's time i can spend on actually running the inn instead of fighting with software. guests are happier because check-in is faster and we can actually find their reservations without digging through paperwork. lesson learned: "enterprise-grade" usually means "unnecessarily complicated" for small properties. sometimes simple is exactly what you need. anyone else found success with solutions designed for smaller operations rather than trying to scale down big hotel systems?