"Buy one Pair of Boots, get 2 Free!"

"Buy one Pair of Boots, get 2 Free!"

How we completely replaced our backend accounting and management stack in 3 days. Almost.

Houston We Have a Problem

I was sitting in front of two computers on a folding table in a warehouse in Houston, Texas. Early August in Houston was hot and humid and my son Peter and I were stuck in a little warehouse with a tiny wall mounted AC from 1997 that was leaking condensation in the parking lot in front of the building as it tried to keep us comfortable. We had arrived in Houston about a week prior after driving a white cargo van from Coeur d'Alene to Houston. The van lives in Houston now, parked in front of our little warehouse there, awaiting the next customer order and delivery run. Mission accomplished. Now to finish owner statements and take Peter to the water park as promised... but there were complications.

A Rock and a Hard Place

Turns out, it was a bad time to be away from CDA (Coeur d'Alene). Normally we have fewer cleans and checkouts in August compared to our peak in July - but I had no idea this August would be our busiest month in the history of TurnoverAngel. All told, we had 140 turnover cleans in August which was a record for our little business. Thankfully, my wife Sara and the other kids who were at home all pitched in to help the cleaners get things covered. During the day, I was answering guest messages, directing cleaners, and managing pricing. Once everyone was safely checked into their rentals in CDA - I could finally focus on what I was really interested in: namely, rebuilding the software stack for the business, brick by brick.

The Higher we Climb the More We can See

A year ago I bought two textbooks about Linux, terminal commands, and server management. The more I read and practiced, the more I wanted to know. As our businesses grow, we often add subscription after subscription of boiler-plate software tools that usually don't even talk to each other. We bounce from browser tab, to browser tab, to cell phone app, using ourselves as the human glue holding together a complex mechanical organism... the stack! After years of building this way, evaluating new tools, paying for new subscriptions, cancelling them and trying new tools - I knew what I wanted. We don't want multiple tool boxes with different tools for different jobs. I want one toolbox with all the tools I will ever need.

I sat at the folding table desk hastily set up in the warehouse which was connected to my server back home, and built exactly what we needed on my laptop. The problem was that owner statements were due in 2 days and if I had to build the statements using the old system it would take all of my time for the next 2 days. But if I spent these two days building a unified system, the statements would be generated very easily. Failure meant late owner statements for the peak month of the year. Success meant a new way of doing business.

Late in the day on the 10th of August I was sending out owner statements - on time and accurate. The only problem was that in my hurry to deploy the new website tools, I had made some changes that broke my email set-up. Statements went out from a personal gmail account. A little embarassing, but it got done.

Over the last 60 days we have continued to add tools to our new system. More tools in the same toolbox. Today I'm excited to share some of the improvements we now have in our owner portals.

The Revenue Tab:

My favorite addition is the new year over year revenue display. This report is available in YTD comparison (my favorite) and a "Whole Year" view.

"The best calendar for short term rentals ever designed"

At least that's what I think. When you go to block dates on a short-term rental calendar, it's often confusing which day you are checking out because you select a final night but then leave the next day. TurnoverAngel owners can now easily select and block dates for their personal use of their homes with this much more intuitive interface. Try it!

Photo Feed!

Now you get an almost live feed of cleaning photos for your property. Click on a photo to view the cleaner's checklist and browse photos.

Live Reviews!

Check the reviews tab for a live feed of guest reviews! Transparency is a core value of TurnoverAngel and I think our reviews speak for themselves so we will always try to make it easy for owners to see what guests are saying.

Questions!

Rather than clog your email and ours with hard to follow email threads, we created a question tab in the owner portal so you can post your questions to us and easily track our responses. If a home has more than one owner, the questions are visible to all registered owners of the house. A group message board.

"Buy one pair of boots, get two free!"

This was a billboard I saw in Texas and it stuck with me. A straight up value sales pitch. I was thinking about this billboard and when it comes to TurnoverAngel, our products are integrity, results, and service. Buy one, get two free.