Home Reflections LLC specializes in kitchen renovations, bathroom remodels, additions, and whole-home transformations across the Twin Cities, Minnesota metro region. With over 30 years of home building and remodeling experience, the company has earned an A+ Better Business Bureau rating and a strong reputation for personalized, quality craftsmanship.
The Challenge: Managing project-by-project finances without a dedicated finance team
Before moving into contracting, Zach Slovin spent 10 years in advertising, where the work had to be tailored to the audience. As both owner and general contractor, that same mindset shapes every decision at Home Reflections LLC. From sourcing unique materials for homeowners to managing every project, client relationship, and line item, every tool in the operation has to earn its place.
His old accounting software, Quickbooks, was powerful in theory. In practice, it was designed for every industry, which meant it wasn’t designed for his. It showed too many irrelevant data points, Zach had no reliable way to see which jobs were actually profitable, and the dashboard often made the operation look worse than it was.
“It felt like I was doing terribly as a business,” Zach shares. “But I knew I was buying a houseful of materials and would get paid by the client a couple of weeks later.” As a small, hands-on general contractor, any tool that creates friction doesn’t just slow down one task. It slows down everything.
“Ambrook feels tailor-made for contracting and construction. I get a clear view of how the business is doing, and it does not take any extra effort to get there.”
Construction runs project to project, with long gaps between spending and getting paid, and the traditional software didn’t map to his financial rhythm. “They tried to make it as much of a jack-of-all-trades tool as possible. I didn’t feel like it was well-suited or tailored for contracting and construction,” Zach explains.
Zach tried to work around the visibility gap using the software’s tagging system, but every transaction had to be entered by hand, and the categories weren’t built for project-based work. He wanted to pull up a job—a kitchen remodel, a bathroom renovation, a whole-home project—and see exactly what it cost and what it returned. But when he zoomed out to ask which types of projects were worth repeating, the numbers couldn’t give him a straight answer.
“I wanted to track each project individually: which jobs were profitable, which work was worth focusing on. I was probably spending six hours a week trying to organize my thoughts and my books, and I was dreading it.”
This weekly routine consumed roughly six hours. Not analyzing the numbers. Not making decisions. Just keeping up with a system that was working against him.
Zach researched alternatives, even asking his accountant for recommendations, but the options were slim. Most contractor-specific platforms were built for bigger operations, loaded with fleet management, team communication, and job site tracking he simply didn’t need.
Then Zach found Ambrook. Unlike traditional accounting platforms built around general ledger, payroll, and monthly cash flow, Ambrook is built for project-based businesses like contracting. A demo confirmed it was the right fit, and within a few days, Zach had made the switch.
Solution: An intuitive platform to track jobs, payments, and the books
Zach started conversations with Ambrook in December and went live in a couple of weeks. He worked through a structured onboarding checklist: connecting his bank account, migrating contacts and vendors, and tagging historical transactions so the books carried over without gaps.
By the time January arrived, Zach was fully operational. “As soon as I truly started in January, I was using it to the full potential,” he says.
Project-by-project visibility, without the manual work
What changed most was how Zach sees his work. Ambrook’s enterprise tagging lets him assign transactions by project, type of work, or both, without splitting them or entering them twice. Materials for a bathroom remodel stay tied to that job. A subcontractor payment stays tied to the kitchen it belongs to.
Now, Zach pulls up any job and sees exactly what it cost and what it returned—the project-by-project visibility he’d been trying to build with workarounds for years.
Ambrook’s automatic bank sync pulls in transactions daily, and AI-powered matching categorizes them based on past entries. That removes the manual input that used to anchor Zach to his desk for hours. The books stay current on their own, which means the project-level picture is always there when he needs it. “I like how the ledger organizes all of my transactions and how easy it is to select enterprise, project, and contact,” he says. “They auto-fill if I’ve tagged them before, so I don’t have to do the same thing every time.”
“Now I can check in on the books whenever I have a few minutes and keep going with my day. No more time-blocking four hours on a Friday and dreading it.”
Invoicing, bill pay, and payments in one place
Ambrook also changed how Zach handles money as it moves through the business. Invoicing, bill pay, and reconciliation all run from one place, eliminating the manual entry that used to follow every transaction. Client invoices go out through the platform, with the option for customers to pay instantly online. When Zach told his clients he was switching systems, not one came back with a question.
Subcontractor and vendor payments follow the same path, either by ACH or printed check, and payment auto-matches back to the corresponding bill in the ledger. For payments without a hard deadline, Ambrook prints and mails the check on his behalf. “I don’t have to worry about postage or envelopes,” Zach says. “It just gets handled.”
Fast answers, hands-on support
The support works in two layers. Quick questions get answered immediately through Ambrook’s in-platform chat. Bigger issues go directly to his account manager, who brings in the right people fast. When Zach flagged that paying multiple vendor invoices one by one was adding unnecessary steps to his workflow, it went straight to the product team.
“My account manager got the team on it right away,” Zach says. “I’m very appreciative that they’re open and willing to make adjustments.”
For the first time, Zach has a financial management platform built around how his business actually works, and a team willing to keep improving it.
“Ambrook enables me to focus on what I actually built this business to do. I can spend time sourcing the right materials, meeting with vendors, and delivering spaces my clients love.”
Results
One platform managing $1.6M+ in annual inflows and outflows
Three months into using Ambrook, Zach runs his entire financial operation from one place.
Bookkeeping that used to take roughly six hours a week now takes under one. That time goes back to the work he set out to do at Home Reflections, like sourcing tile from unique suppliers, meeting with cabinetmakers, and creating design renders for clients.
And the numbers reflect it:
80%+ reduction in weekly bookkeeping time
$1.6M+ in annual inflows and outflows tracked
100% adoption with zero friction
Zach was among the first to access Ambrook’s new bulk bill pay feature, built around the exact workflow he had flagged. As his books mature, he plans to go deeper into Ambrook’s reporting to track which types of work are most profitable.