How Andes STR Eliminated Receipt Chaos and Saved 20+ Hours Per Week with Topkey

Andes STR manages 150 properties across the US, Canada, and Chile. Despite its strong reputation, the company faced significant financial operations challenges due to rapid growth. Their operators were spending the majority of their time hunting down receipts instead of growing the business.

When Vicki Osborn joined as US Operations Manager in early 2024, she immediately saw the value of the Topkey system Andes had implemented the year before.

"A good 50-55% of my time would have been spent chasing down receipts—finding one of the maintenance guys who had to dig through his toolbox to find his receipt."

Since Andes onboarded Topkey in 2023, operators like Vicki have reclaimed 20+ hours per week. For a lean property management team scaling across multiple markets, those hours mean everything.

The Challenge: When Growth Outpaces Systems

Founded in late 2022, Andes STR grew rapidly across multiple markets while managing complex property management financials including trust accounting and owner billing. By early 2024, when Vicki Osborn joined as Operations Accountant for the U.S. Division, the company had already recognized a critical problem: manual expense tracking wouldn't scale.

The Receipt Management Nightmare

Vicki describes what the old process looked like at previous companies: "A good 50-55% of my time was spent chasing down receipts—finding one of the maintenance guys who had to dig through his toolbox to find his receipt."

For a startup scaling across four markets with distributed 1099 co-hosts and regional field teams, this manual approach created three interconnected challenges:

Distributed teams meant coordination chaos. Without corporate cards, contractors would front expenses from personal cards and submit reimbursement requests while accounting reconciled receipts from staff scattered across multiple states.

Property-level tracking was non-negotiable. Every cleaning supply, maintenance call, and utility bill needed correct allocation for accurate owner billing. Any mistake could result in billing errors, owner disputes, or revenue leakage.

Finance couldn't become the bottleneck. As a lean startup, they couldn't afford field ops calling accounting for every purchase, properties waiting for supplies, or the finance team unable to focus on strategic work like tax compliance and market expansion.

Traditional corporate cards weren't designed for property management workflows. Recognizing this early, Andes STR implemented Topkey in 2023, before these challenges could derail growth.

The Solution: Implementing Topkey's Automated Expense Management

Topkey became Andes STR's answer to all three core challenges, designed specifically for property management workflows. When Vicki joined in early 2024, she saw immediately how Topkey transformed their operations.

Onboarding That Takes Minutes, Not Weeks

Most corporate card platforms require extensive training, complex approval workflows, and IT support to get new employees up to speed. For a growing property management company onboarding co-hosts across multiple markets, this training bottleneck can delay operations by weeks.

"When I came on with Andes and I was first shown Topkey, it was like, 'Finally, yes, absolutely.' The very first time you log on to Topkey, it is very user-friendly, and you can see everything you need."

For a growing company constantly onboarding new co-hosts across multiple markets, this ease of use is critical: "It makes it easier because with everyone using Topkey, I can easily say, 'Here's your new card, new employee—go talk to another employee if you have any questions because they've got the same card you do.'"

New co-hosts and field staff are productive from day one—no training bottlenecks.

Flexible Card Issuance with Role-Based Controls

Without individual corporate cards, property management companies face an impossible choice: issue shared cards that lack accountability, or force field staff to use personal cards and submit reimbursements—creating weeks of delayed expense tracking and reconciliation headaches.

Topkey allows Andes STR to issue individual cards to every co-host and field operations staff member within minutes. Each card has customized spending limits, and adjusting permissions happens directly within the platform. This eliminates the reimbursement workflow entirely.

Cards are mapped to managers with role-based visibility. The co-host manager sees only his team's transactions. The field operations manager sees only his team's spending. Vicki sees everything she needs for financial oversight. This structure maintains accountability at every level while giving teams the autonomy they need.

Mobile Receipt Capture Creates Instant Documentation

Before Topkey, field staff would make purchases and promise to submit receipts later—often resulting in lost receipts, incomplete documentation, and hours spent tracking down crumpled paper from toolboxes and truck glove compartments. This created a constant cycle of follow-up emails, phone calls, and delayed month-end closes.

Every cardholder has the Topkey app on their phone. When they make a purchase, they snap a photo of the receipt, attach it to the transaction, and allocate it to the correct property in Guesty—all in under 30 seconds.

The mobile app also creates a culture of accountability. Employees know their transactions are visible, which encourages proactive correction:

"One of our co-hosts immediately messaged me and said, 'My Walmart Plus membership renewed on your card and not my personal card, but I think I caught it in time and switched the cards.' I looked and saw it was just an authorization, and then the next day it was completely gone."

This self-correction saves countless hours of follow-up work.

Daily Monitoring Catches Issues in Real-Time

Because all company spend flows through Topkey, Vicki reviews every transaction each morning. This daily oversight takes minutes and catches errors before they become problems.

"I can see the authorizations and ask, 'Why is this employee buying Chick-fil-A?' I can reach out immediately, and she might say, 'Oh yes, I was having a meeting with two of the owners.' Perfect. But I caught it right then."

This transforms financial oversight from a reactive monthly task to a proactive daily practice—catching problems before they impact owner billing.

Property-Level Tracking Built Into Every Transaction

The Guesty and QuickBooks integrations solve property-level tracking. When field staff make purchases, they tag expenses directly to properties in Topkey. These transactions then flow automatically into both Guesty and QuickBooks Online—properly categorized by property or class.

With every transaction tied directly to a property, Andes STR eliminated the manual reconciliation that typically slows finance teams down. Instead of waiting until month-end to understand spending, Vicki has real-time clarity into where money is going and what will be billed back to owners—across all four markets.

For property managers juggling dozens or hundreds of units, this real-time visibility is essential for accurate owner billing.

Responsive Support Eliminates Month-End Stress

When issues arise during month-end close, delayed support can halt operations. Topkey's response time solves this:

"When I have an issue, I get a response within an hour—that's probably the longest I've ever waited. And the turnaround when there's an error—fixing it and letting me know it's resolved—has been very quick."

For a lean finance team, this responsiveness means never spending weeks chasing down answers during month-end close.

The Results: Measurable Impact Across Operations

50-55% Reduction in Receipt Management Time

Before Topkey's automated receipt collection, Vicki would have spent hours each week chasing down paper receipts—including tracking down maintenance technicians digging through toolboxes for crumpled receipts. This shift freed her from reactive administrative work to focus on proactive financial management.

20+ Hours Saved Per Week, Reinvested in Growth

Topkey saves Vicki approximately 20 hours per week—nearly half a full-time workweek.

"Topkey has given me back 20 hours a week. We've equipped each team member with a card, expenses track themselves, and I've eliminated the constant interruptions for purchase approvals."

Field staff make their own purchases instead of routing requests through accounting. Receipts are captured instantly. Transactions sync automatically to QuickBooks. Errors are caught daily, not during month-end close.

Those 20 hours are reinvested in high-value work:

"Right now, those extra 20 hours I'm spending on tax and licensing regulations. Short-term rental revenue reporting is different in every state, every city, every county. So I'm researching all the new places we want to go into and applying for the licensing we need."

This shift from administrative to strategic work is the difference between scaling successfully and hitting a growth ceiling.

Complete Expense Visibility Eliminates Revenue Leakage

With daily transaction monitoring across all four markets, Vicki catches misallocated or unauthorized charges immediately—before they impact owner billing.

"Everything is quickly visible on Topkey. I can look at it every morning and immediately see if something needs attention."

The visibility also creates a deterrent effect, encouraging responsible card usage and immediate correction of errors.

Strategic Benefits: Focusing on Higher-Value Work

Peace of Mind at Scale

Despite being a lean team experiencing rapid growth, Vicki doesn't start her mornings stressed about what she'll find. With Topkey, she has bandwidth to focus on operations—analyzing the business, planning expansion, and solving real problems instead of chasing paper.

When Andes STR expands into their fifth market, or their tenth, the system scales with them. More co-hosts, more properties, more transactions—but not proportionally more work for Vicki.

From Administrative to Strategic Work

The transformation is tangible: Vicki's mornings used to begin with anxiety about missing receipts, unauthorized charges, and field staff waiting on purchases. Now they begin with a five-minute review of yesterday's transactions, catching any issues before they become problems.

The time savings enable a fundamental shift in how finance operates—from reactive firefighting to proactive business building.

Why Topkey: The Competitive Advantage

Timing Matters

Andes STR implemented Topkey before rapid expansion forced their hand. This proactive decision meant their financial operations scaled effortlessly without adding accounting headcount. Despite being lean and growing rapidly, finance doesn't constrain growth.

The Time Savings Are Real and Reinvestable

Twenty hours per week isn't just efficiency—it's capacity for strategic work. While other property managers chase receipts, Vicki researches tax regulations for the next market. This is what separates companies that scale successfully from those that hit a ceiling.

Built-in Accountability Changes Behavior

The visibility of transactions creates unexpected benefits. Team members self-police their spending because they know it's monitored daily, saving countless hours of reconciliation work and preventing issues before they impact owner billing.

The Bottom Line

When Andes STR implemented Topkey in 2023, they made a bet: invest in proper financial systems before growth forces your hand. That decision is paying dividends as they scale across multiple markets without breaking their finance operations.

This is what separates property management companies that scale successfully from those that hit a ceiling: the right systems, implemented early, that grow with you.

Vicki's morning used to be about putting out fires. Now it's about building the business.

What will your mornings look like?

Ready to transform your vacation rental company's financial operations? Schedule a demo with Topkey today.