How Elevated Tahoe Properties Saves Up to $90k per Year with Topkey

Elevated Tahoe Properties, founded by Nick and Ali Giordano in 2016, began as a simple venture to rent out their personal condo in South Lake Tahoe. What started as "the little condo that could" has since grown into a thriving property management company with 45 properties across the Tahoe basin.

As their portfolio expanded, so did the complexity of their financial operations. Nick, who oversees the company's finances, knew that efficient bookkeeping and accounting were critical to their success. "My dad was an entrepreneur too, and one of the things that he always drilled into my head was that if you don't know your numbers, you don't know anything about your business," Nick explains.

Before Topkey: Manual Processes and Missed Revenue

Before discovering Topkey, Elevated Tahoe was managing their finances through a combination of manual processes and disconnected systems. With about 15-20 properties at the time, they were struggling to keep up with the growing volume of transactions and receipts.

"Basically, we were doing everything by hand," Nick recalls. "We kind of were just doing it all via Dropbox, where we had folders for each property. Anytime there was a charge through one of the various credit cards or bank accounts, we would just have to put that receipt or invoice in the property folder."

This manual approach led to significant challenges:

Missed Charges: Without a centralized system, receipts and invoices often went untracked, resulting in missed owner charges. Nick estimates they were potentially losing "a thousand to two thousand, maybe even a few thousand per year per unit" due to improper tracking and recording.

“The problem with our old system was pretty evident. Things get missed. If the receipt or invoice is not tracked right away and there are plenty of times when we miss charges. Sometimes some pretty significant charges.

“At the end of the day, that's money off of our bottom line.”

Time-Consuming Reconciliation: At month's end, the team had to manually input all receipts and invoices onto homeowner statements, a process prone to errors and omissions.

Labor-Intensive Processes: As the business grew, the manual approach became unsustainable. "If you have one home, okay, maybe putting all your receipts in a shoebox and then trying to sort it all out at the end of the month is practical. When you have 45 homes that you're having to do that with, that's not practical," Nick explains.

For vacation rental managers like Elevated Tahoe, the complexity of property-level accounting creates unique challenges. "Each property you manage is like its own little business in and of itself," Nick explains. "The reporting and expense tracking is all a very critical piece of the business." 

This complexity is compounded by the fundamental duty property managers have to their clients. "We have a duty to all of our homeowners to provide fair, accurate, and timely accounting," Nick emphasizes. Meeting this obligation becomes exponentially more difficult as a portfolio grows.

The search for a solution led Elevated Tahoe's tech-savvy team to evaluate numerous accounting and bookkeeping platforms. They needed more than just basic accounting software; they needed a system that could handle the unique demands of property-level financial management while scaling alongside their growing business.

Introducing Topkey: A Comprehensive Financial Solution

Elevated Tahoe discovered Topkey at an industry conference in Florida. Nick's wife, Ali, first encountered the platform, and their tech specialist quickly saw its potential to solve their financial management challenges.

Starting out, they used Topkey for 3 main reasons.

1. Expense Management: Linking credit cards and bank accounts for automatic transaction tracking and tagging expenses to properties.
2. Corporate Cards: Issuing six cards to key team members for streamlined purchasing.
3. QuickBooks Integration: Automating the flow of financial data between systems.

Streamlined Expense Management and Improved Visibility

One of the most immediate benefits Elevated Tahoe experienced was the simplification of their expense management process. With Topkey, employees can now easily track and categorize expenses on the go.

"Anytime a charge is made, it is being tracked," Nick explains. "We've instructed our team to put basically everything that can be put on those Topkey cards because it just makes it so much easier for us than trying to go through a Capital One credit card statement and reconcile everything." 

This automated approach to expenses not only saves time for the accounting team but also improves accuracy and timeliness of expense reporting. Nick estimates this saves them several hours each day compared to their previous manual processes.

Faster Bookkeeping and More Accurate Financial Reporting

Topkey's integration with QuickBooks has significantly streamlined Elevated Tahoe's bookkeeping process. Nick's team can now process transactions much more quickly and accurately:

"I have a virtual assistant now who is trained on the ins and outs of Topkey who goes in daily and does all the expense categorization, the receipt collection, attaches them to each and every property, and syncs them with whatever QuickBooks expense category they need to be associated with." 

These integrations have dramatically reduced the time required for monthly financial tasks. Nick estimates that what used to take several hours each day now takes just 30 minutes, freeing up significant time for more strategic financial management.

Transforming Daily Financial Operations

"Topkey has been fantastic for a lot of reasons," Nick explains. "First and foremost, the synchronization between Topkey and QuickBooks has really helped out big time with our back-end accounting, tax preparation, and month-end reconciliation."

The platform has become a critical bridge between front-end operations and back-office accounting. Nick's team has established an efficient daily workflow where their virtual assistant, trained on Topkey, handles all aspects of expense management. "They go in daily to do all the expense categorization, receipt collection, and attach everything to each property," Nick notes. "All of this automatically synchronizes with our QuickBooks account."

This automation has transformed their financial operations. "Topkey has really been a critical piece, bridging between the front-end categorization and collection, and the back-end tax preparation and reconciliation," Nick says. The seamless integration between systems has eliminated the manual work that previously consumed hours of their team's time each day.

Significant Labor Cost Savings and Simplicity

One unique challenge Elevated Tahoe faces is the complexity of their financial structure due to legal requirements and multiple business entities. They operate with several bank accounts and credit cards across different entities, to comply with laws in Nevada and California.

Topkey has been instrumental in helping Elevated Tahoe navigate this complexity. "Without a singular bird's-eye view of that financial picture, I had to look at four different bank accounts, six different credit card accounts and really spend time reconciling in order to keep up with everything on a daily basis," Nick explains. “We're talking hours, like hours, probably two to three hours a day just doing that.”

Topkey has transformed this process completely. Even with multiple business entities, the platform's linked workspaces make daily reconciliation effortless. "Now our team just logs into one Topkey account, toggles between the two Topkey accounts, and can have all that expense categorization done in half an hour," Nick notes. 

This efficiency gain represents more than just time saved - it's a significant reduction in operational costs, reducing daily reconciliation time from multiple hours to just 30 minutes.

“Topkey is a significant source of savings when we're talking about labor costs.”

Why Topkey: Responsive Support and Continuous Improvement

For Nick and his team, what sets Topkey apart is not just its features, but the company's commitment to customer success and continuous improvement. Nick particularly values the ongoing support and flexibility:

"Every time we have had any sort of issues with functionality on Topkey, we've brought it to the team's attention and they have fixed it immediately. Literally, I'll email customer success with a problem, they’ll call me a minute later and we're working through it." 

This level of engagement and responsiveness has been crucial in helping Elevated Tahoe adapt the platform to their unique needs, including creating a non-interest-bearing account to comply with legal requirements and resolving payment processing issues.

The Topkey Difference: User-Friendly Interface and Efficiency

When asked about advice for other property managers considering Topkey, Nick emphasizes the platform's user-friendly interface:

"I look at Topkey as like the Apple of platforms where it's just very clean. It's very easy to use. The user interface is very friendly... versus some of the other softwares out there that tend to be a bit clunkier."

This ease of use has been crucial in Elevated Tahoe's ability to scale its operations efficiently, allowing them to manage a growing portfolio without a proportional increase in administrative overhead.

Looking Ahead: Positioned for Continued Growth

With Topkey as a cornerstone of their financial operations, Elevated Tahoe is well-positioned for continued growth. The platform has allowed them to scale from 15-20 properties to 45 without sacrificing financial control or visibility.

As they look to the future, Nick and his team are confident in their ability to manage an even larger portfolio efficiently, thanks to the streamlined processes and robust financial infrastructure they've built with Topkey.

"We treat Topkey largely as our financial source of truth," Nick concludes. "It just makes it that much easier and makes it that much more efficient."

Ready to see how Topkey can transform your vacation rental company's financial operations? Book a demo today and take the first step towards more efficient, profitable property management.

*Topkey is a financial technology company and is not a bank. Banking services provided by Thread Bank; Member FDIC.

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