How Coastal Vibe Vacations Recovered $10k in Missed Owner Expenses with Topkey

The Challenge: Managing Complex Multi-State Operations

Coastal Vibe Vacations has grown substantially over six years to become a 200-unit hospitality operation spread across three states. As Heather Gunther from KeyRing Business Solutions, their long-time bookkeeper, explains: "I joke and say that basically they've got a 200-unit hotel spread across three states".

This growth brought tremendous complexity to their financial operations. The team was processing between 700 to 1,400 transactions monthly depending on the season, with multiple team members making purchases across different locations. “We knew that we were leaving money on the table, that there were receipts that were missing and expenses that we never got an answer for and weren’t able to then charge our owners.”

The Receipt Management Nightmare

Before Topkey, Coastal Vibe's expense management process was a multi-step ordeal that consumed enormous amounts of time and left money on the table. Kayla, who handles operations and accounting, describes the old process:

"We had a maintenance person run their card. Then they would have to take a picture of that and email it and put it on their maintenance log. And that's a lot of steps for somebody who is running from unit to unit and doing different things".

The complexity of tracking expenses led to significant challenges:

• Lost receipts and documentation: Maintenance staff focused on urgent repairs often forgot to complete all the administrative steps
• Delayed reconciliation: Transactions would hit QuickBooks through bank feeds, but without proper documentation
• Multiple access points required: The process involved maintenance logs, emails, and various systems that had to be manually coordinated
• Substantial cash leakage: Kayla estimates they were missing $10,000-$20,000 in owner expenses that they couldn't recover in the months before Topkey.

Workflow Bottlenecks and Access Issues

The financial workflow created significant bottlenecks. Heather explains the complex chain of communication that was required:

"There was the number of steps and touches between when the card was swiped to when we may have gotten an answer on what the transaction was. And then if they didn't answer right away, we had to circle back and do this whole process again".

‍Time-Intensive Weekly Reconciliation

The manual process required extensive coordination. The team had weekly two-hour meetings dedicated solely to expense reconciliation and coding. As Heather describes: "We were having a two-hour meeting every single week to go over, we got this receipt, now how do we need to code that? But we're still waiting on that person".

For Kayla personally, the time burden was substantial: "I was spending at least 10 hours a week going through maintenance logs".

The Solution: Implementing Topkey's Automated Expense Management

Coastal Vibe implemented Topkey around the end of 2024, bringing their 15+ Capital One cards into the platform for centralized expense management.

Real-Time Expense Capture

The most immediate impact was the transformation from delayed, manual receipt collection to instant expense capture.

‍"When Topkey came into the picture, that immediately started solving problems with the immediacy of making a charge at a store, getting a text asking what it’s for? The receipt is in my hands,, the likelihood of it getting misplaced or blown away in the wind, was reduced dramatically".

Simplified Team Access and Workflow

Topkey solved the access problem that had created workflow bottlenecks. "Kayla's got access to Topkey, where she didn't have access to QuickBooks, and so for our workflow and how we managed access she's not having to wait on me to look at everything first".

This change fundamentally transformed their process from a multi-step, multi-person workflow to a streamlined system where the operations team could work directly with the expense data.

Centralized Information Hub

Rather than juggling multiple systems and documents, Topkey created a single source of truth. As Kayla explains: "Whereas we're not looking at maintenance logs and emails and trying to look at four different things and then bringing them all together, it's more like everything has a central hub. And now Heather, Mandy, and I are a team working together to chip that away every month".

The Results: Dramatic Time Savings and Recovered Revenue

Significant Time Reduction Across the Team

The implementation of Topkey delivered immediate and substantial time savings:

• Weekly meetings cut in half: "Kayla, Mandy, and I used to have a two-hour call every single week that now is reduced to an hour call where we're just more talking about operational type stuff. So we're not having to spend that specific time, doing all this coding and research and texting"
  
• Daily maintenance review streamlined: "I was spending at least 10 hours a week going through maintenance logs. And I bet now I spend maybe 30 to 45 minutes a day because I can just stay up on it"
  
• Monthly close process improved: "I would say it's cut our time in half for Mandy and I to prep those owner statements and everything like that"
  

Recovered Revenue Through Better Expense Tracking

The financial impact has been substantial. Kayla notes: "The first few months after implementing Topkey, we were recouping $10,000, $20,000 that we were missing before."

When asked about profitability, both team members were confident in the improvement: "We're definitely able to recoup more of our costs from owners and feel confident in those requests than we were before".

Improved Confidence and Accuracy

Beyond the time and money savings, Topkey provided something equally valuable: confidence in their financial data.

‍"We have all the pieces of the puzzle and we just have to put it together by the end of the month, which is a totally different approach... versus building a puzzle every month".

Kayla emphasizes how this confidence extends to their entire financial operation: "I feel like Topkey is almost like our Bible. So if something's wrong in Streamline, I feel confident in the numbers that we pulled from Topkey".

Operational Improvements Across Multiple Locations

Streamlined Multi-State Management

Managing properties across three states had previously required multiple general managers reviewing maintenance logs and owner charges in each location. Topkey enabled significant simplification: "We were able to cut out a ton of people from the process and save their time. And really, now it's just Mandy and I".

Enhanced Team Accountability

The real-time nature of Topkey's expense tracking created better accountability across the distributed team. "Sometimes with our old system, people could fudge receipts. Now Nick and I can check what they're buying and verify everything".

Strategic Benefits: Focusing on Higher-Value Work

Bookkeeping Evolution

For Heather, the time savings enabled a shift toward more strategic work: "Now I can actually help more with strategic planning and profitability by unit. All those sorts of things that every owner wants to get to or every property management company wants to get to".

She describes the previous situation: "When you're just dying under the mountain of transactions it's the lowest tier on that Maslow hierarchy. Like, you just got to get through this and maybe one day we'll get to the good stuff.  We are finally able to climb up that tier a little bit.”

Operations Team Project Capacity

Kayla found herself able to take on strategic projects that had been indefinitely postponed: "We had so many of these big projects and things that we wanted to focus on that we were not able to get to because we were constantly putting them on the back burner because we were focusing on these really mundane things that weren't hard but they were just time-consuming".

Implementation Experience: Easier Than Expected

Smooth Onboarding Process

Despite initial concerns about complexity, the implementation proved straightforward. "The transition has been pretty flawless", according to Kayla, who emphasizes: "Really, the ease of adding Topkey was pretty minimal. I mean, there was not a lot of stress".

Heather reflects on how the product met their expectations: "We got the product that we were promised. We knew that that's what we were going to be utilizing it for and it did a great job and continues to do a great job".

Exceptional Customer Support

The team particularly values Topkey's customer support approach. "The customer service team has been a huge support and these weekly calls have been great".

Why Topkey: The Competitive Advantage

Immediate ROI Through Expense Recovery

When asked what they would tell other property managers, Heather focuses on the financial confidence: "Just the confidence in recouping those costs and making sure each month that we are able to charge out what we should be able to charge out. We're not feeling like we're having money just leak out of holes that we're not even aware of".

She emphasizes the core value: "If that was its only function, just getting that expense feedback. That's worth it. All the other functionality of Topkey is kind of just gravy."

No Going Back

Kayla's perspective on the transformation is definitive: "Now that we've done the owner statement side of what we did before and the maintenance logs and everything, if somebody was like, oh, let's go back to that process, I would say no. That sounds terrible".

Looking Forward: Room for Growth

Despite not yet using Topkey's full capabilities, including its Streamline integration, the team is extremely satisfied with current results. "We're not even using Topkey to its full capability... but even with that, I think Kayla would agree that it's still just so much better than where we were".

As Coastal Vibe continues to grow and potentially migrates to modern PMS systems, Topkey provides a scalable foundation for their financial operations.

The Bottom Line

Coastal Vibe Vacations transformed from a manual, time-intensive expense management process that was leaking thousands of dollars quarterly to an automated, confident system that has recovered substantial revenue while freeing up their team to focus on strategic growth initiatives.

Ready to eliminate expense leakage and streamline your vacation rental financial operations? Schedule a demo with Topkey today to see how we can help you recover missing revenue and save hours each week.

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