Sri Maha Hostels: one platform for a 22-branch PG business, with an MCP server
How Gihonix moved a paying-guest operator with about 22 branches off spreadsheets: an admin portal, tenant web and mobile apps, billing, complaints, and an MCP server for plain-language questions.
The Gihonix team · · 3 min read
Key takeaways
- Rent, dues, electricity and complaints for about 22 branches moved from spreadsheets into one system.
- Tenants got a web app and a mobile app; owners got an admin portal.
- An MCP server lets the owner ask about the live business, with a preview-then-confirm step before any change.
Sri Maha Hostels is a paying-guest (PG) accommodation operator with about 22 branches. Gihonix replaced its spreadsheets with one platform: an admin portal for the owners, a web app and a mobile app for tenants, and an MCP server that lets the owner ask questions about the live business in plain language.
The challenge
A PG business produces a steady stream of small records. Every tenant has a bed, a rent amount, a deposit, a meter reading for electricity, and a trail of complaints and requests. Across about 22 branches, all of that lived in spreadsheets.
Spreadsheets work for one branch. At this size they meant the owners could not see the whole business in one place, every answer needed someone to open several sheets, and checking who had paid depended on whoever updated the file last.
What we built
The platform has four parts that share one database.
- Admin portal. Properties, floors, rooms and beds; tenants and their rental details; move-in and move-out requests; deposits and settlements; staff; inventory; announcements and menus.
- Money handling. Rent collection, due payments and pending amounts, electricity billing from meter readings, expenses, and a sheet-reconciliation tool that checks the old spreadsheets against the new records during the move.
- Tenant portal and apps. A web app and a mobile app where tenants see what they owe, raise complaints and follow their status.
- Landing page. A public page for the brand.
Every change in the admin portal is written to an audit log, so the owners can see who changed what and when.
The MCP server
The Model Context Protocol (MCP) is an open standard that lets an AI assistant use a business's own systems through a short list of approved tools. We built an MCP server for the hostel database so the owner can ask questions in plain words instead of opening reports.
Reading data is easy to allow. Changing it is not, so writes go through two steps. The assistant first asks for a preview: the server checks the single change, runs it in a transaction that is rolled back, and reports which rows it would touch. Only after the owner confirms does the server apply exactly that change, and it records the statement and the earlier values in an audit file. Writes are off unless they are switched on deliberately, and each one is limited to a small number of rows.
What changed
Everything moved from spreadsheets into one system. Questions that used to need manual work across several sheets, such as which tenants have dues or how a branch is doing, became one-click answers in the admin portal, or a sentence to the assistant. Tenants have a place to check their own dues and raise complaints, instead of messaging staff.
We are not publishing measured figures for this project.
Technology
Laravel and MySQL for the back end and API, React for the web apps, Expo (React Native) for the mobile app, and an MCP server for the assistant connection.
Work with Gihonix
Gihonix is a software, AI and web development company based in Coimbatore, India, working with clients across India and worldwide. If your business runs on spreadsheets and you want one system with an assistant on top, see our web development and MCP development services, read what an MCP server is, or contact us.