How Arrived Recouped $250k in Expenses with Topkey

When Jennifer Mucha entered the vacation rental industry 21 years ago, she started like many others – with a single property and a vision for better service. Today, Arrived manages 250 properties across multiple markets, primarily focused in the Pacific Northwest and central Oregon. 

"I love where it is right now, I love our team, I love the size in each location," Jennifer explains. "We're growing organically really well in all of our areas and in Central Oregon, the Columbia Gorge right now, which is kind of where my focus is, is growing those and making them amazing and top tier."

The Challenge: Scaling Without Sacrificing Efficiency

Before Topkey, Arrived faced several critical pain points in their expense management. 

"It used to be a big long multi-page process," Jennifer explains. 

• Time-consuming corporate card administration
• Manual receipt tracking and work order matching
• Complex file management across multiple systems
• Delayed owner billing and reconciliation
• Risk of lost receipts and missed charges

"Everyone would save their receipt and write the work order number from Streamline on their receipt... scan in their receipt or put it in a stack for somebody that's scanning later. They would then get scanned in and put in a folder with their credit card name on it." 

"Most of the time receipts got lost in a van," Jennifer explains. "It was a lot of man hours tracking everything down, writing work order numbers, matching work order numbers to those receipts and then pushing the charge through to the owner. Often the owners didn't get charged for, you know, 45 to 75 days instead of within the week."

With approximately 400 work orders processed monthly, the potential for revenue leakage was significant.

Transforming Financial Operations with Topkey

Jennifer's approach to technology has always been strategic.

"My whole philosophy is let's automate before we hire", she explains.

This philosophy led Arrived to build a carefully curated financial tech stack: Streamline as their core PMS platform for the past decade, QuickBooks Online for corporate accounting, Topkey for comprehensive financial operations.

After implementing Topkey, Arrived saw immediate improvements in their financial processes. The platform automated and streamlined key workflows that previously required manual effort.

1. Real-Time Expense Capture

"Now, our team gets a text as soon as they're in the field using their Topkey credit card. Before they even leave the cashier they get a text that says upload your receipt, they upload the receipt, they attach it directly to the work order in Streamline."

2. Automated Property Tagging

"Expenses tag right to a house and right to a work order. My bookkeeper then can see which receipts got charged that day and make sure that they're getting charged out right.”

3. Streamlined Owner Billing

"Now, our team closes the work order and the owner gets charged. So we don't have a big leaky bucket anymore of expenses out in the field that never gets charged out to the owners and we're saving hours and hours of our time."

These improvements meant Arrived could process transactions faster, reduce errors, and ensure proper owner billing - all while saving significant employee time. The automation of these core processes laid the foundation for even greater efficiencies as the company continued to grow.

The Impact of Topkey

Since implementing Topkey, Arrived has seen measurable improvements across their operations, from time savings to revenue recovery and enhanced owner relationships. The platform has transformed their financial operations in multiple key areas.

1. Time Savings

"Now everything happens in a matter of minutes. Our bookkeeper maybe spends an hour on this a week, whereas it was probably ten hours a week before.” 

2. Revenue Recovery

With approximately 400 work orders processed monthly, Jennifer estimates they're "recouping about $75 a work order that we weren't before Topkey.” 

3. Improved Owner Relations

"Even if we want to cover the charge, we can still put it on the owner's statement as a zero charge. Then they see that we did it for them and it gives more value in what we do and keeps them happier.”

For Jennifer and the team, this represents a 90% reduction in time spent on expense reconciliation along with an estimated $250-350k/year in recovered expenses that previously leaked through their manual processes. 

These improvements have been particularly valuable as margins tighten across the industry. "Revenue is getting tighter for all the reasons we know in this industry right now. This is a really easy way to fix a lot without having to go back and raise management fees or charge the guest more per night.” 

“[Topkey] covers the cost of your employees. It covers the cost of doing business. It makes you more profitable.”

The combination of recovered revenue, time savings, and improved owner satisfaction has made Topkey a crucial part of Arrived's operational strategy.

Elevating the Bookkeeper's Role

For Arrived's bookkeeping team, Topkey hasn't eliminated jobs – it's elevated them to more valuable work. "We want to take the repetitive tasks off their plate and give them more responsibility and things that actually are probably a lot more engaging and fun to do. Then we can help them do the high level things that they’re qualified to do and do well.”

"We're going to automate this so we can take off the menial tasks that you're doing every day that are keeping you from high level work or your kids or anything else.”

The transformation was significant. From spending ten hours a week on manual reconciliation, receipts, and expenses, Arrived’s bookkeeper now spends "maybe an hour on this a week." This dramatic reduction in tedious work hasn't eliminated her role – it's elevated it.

This shift has allowed Jennifer's team to focus on more strategic financial management instead of chasing receipts, manually matching transactions to properties, and manually creating work orders. As Jennifer puts it, "She now can actually focus on high level work instead of doing these manual tasks for every receipt.”

"There's absolutely still a job to do there," Jennifer emphasizes. "We just want to take the repetitive tasks off.”

This approach allows Arrived to leverage technology while maintaining their focus on people – both employees and clients. They've found that by automating basic tasks, their team can focus on more valuable, strategic work that drives the business forward. Now that they are armed with Topkey, Arrived’s bookkeeping team is more valuable to the business.

Implementation: Immediate Value, Effortless Transition

The transition to Topkey was remarkably smooth for Arrived. Unlike implementing a new property management system, which can take months and disrupt entire operations, switching to Topkey is remarkably straightforward. Most customers start seeing value from their very first onboarding call, as they discover easier ways to handle tasks that previously consumed hours of their time.

From the very first onboarding call, Arrived found Topkey was already more efficient than their previous process. The ease of implementation meant they could start capturing cash leakage and time savings immediately. 

"It was super easy and almost immediate," Jennifer recalls. "Even while we were transitioning, it was faster than what we were doing before.”

These immediate efficiency gains made the transition period itself valuable, rather than being a burden on the team.

Customer Support That Delivers Real Results

What impressed Jennifer most was Topkey's exceptional support that went beyond standard customer service.

"You guys have the best customer service," Jennifer emphasizes.

"The customer service wasn't just speaking the right words when you guys would send up an email or pick up the phone. It was actually following through and it happened really quickly.”

Even after hours and on weekends, the support remained outstanding. Jennifer recalls an instance that exemplifies Topkey's commitment to service when she emailed Topkey’s CEO instead of the customer success team: "I accidentally emailed Jon instead of Matthew one day, just a real quick question, like on a Sunday afternoon... Five minutes later, Jon had replied and it was super helpful.”

Jennifer particularly values how Topkey's support and development teams worked together to solve problems for her. "Not only did you guys answer right away, but you would answer immediately and say, 'Oh yeah, we could do that.' And then in a matter of days or maybe a week, we would have a new feature that solved the problem.”

Topkey's commitment to rapid problem-solving helped Arrived continuously optimize their financial operations.

Future Growth and Scaling

Looking ahead, Arrived is well-positioned for continued growth, with Topkey providing the financial infrastructure to support their operations. The platform's efficiency has allowed the company to focus on strategic growth rather than operational challenges. "This is a problem that we've all been talking about for a while because nobody knows how to solve it," Jennifer explains. "There's never been a tool for this before and we've all just been doing our best with a workaround, but it's important in our industry to get this figured out."

For Arrived, Topkey has been that solution. The platform has transformed their financial operations at every level. By reducing expense reconciliation time by 90% and recovering $250-350k annually in expenses, the platform has proven invaluable as both a time-saving and revenue-generating tool. But perhaps more importantly, it's allowed Arrived to focus on what matters most: growing their business, empowering their team, and delivering better service to their owners.

As Jennifer puts it:

"It's a no-brainer. You're going to save money and save time. There's no reason not to do it.”

Ready to transform your vacation rental company's financial operations? Schedule a demo with Topkey today to learn how we can help automate and improve your processes.

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

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