A Lake Huron property manager cycled through spreadsheets, QuickBooks, and Stessa, trying to find a bookkeeping system that worked for him. After switching to Ambrook, he started logging expenses in real time and getting the books done from his phone.
Meet Jeff Czymbor
In Northeast Michigan, Jeff Czymbor runs seven vacation properties on the shores of Lake Huron’s Saginaw Bay. He has a deep love of the Michigan outdoors, so he’s made it his mission to share the area’s beauty with guests from all around.
The team at Lake Huron Cabin Rentals is growing. Jeff, his son, and a few more members of the crew handle maintenance, lawn care, and cleaning for the properties. Being located by the lake keeps them busy: They’re often fielding seasonal maintenance demands, not to mention a steady stream of small repairs and supply runs.
Jeff needed a way to track finances across all these jobs and properties, but he didn’t want to become an accountant. And from his previous experience in other businesses, Jeff also knew he didn’t want to use QuickBooks again. "You pretty much have to pay somebody to do the damn thing," he recalled.
The challenge: Lost receipts, lost write-offs
Before Ambrook, Jeff’s bookkeeping for Lake Huron Cabin Rentals was a box of receipts and year-end spreadsheets. "I did my books at the end of the year and just kept stuff in a box. I had all the receipts I had to put into Excel sheets," he said. It would take him many hours at each year’s close to get all of this done.
It wasn’t just a matter of time, though. This system also left money on the table for Jeff. Receipts were getting lost. His team would make purchases and forget to report them. Mileage went untracked. Small expenses added up to big gaps at tax time. A $50 hardware run here, a forgotten cleaning supply trip there… Things were slipping through the cracks.
"It's not just the hours. It's how many receipts you lose, how many you forget to log at the time you make the purchase, how many you sit on for months."
For a while he tried using platforms specifically meant for property management, like Stessa, but the software still felt overly complicated. “With all of these tools, we just found they were cumbersome and not easy to use.”
Making the switch to Ambrook
When Jeff saw an Ambrook ad on Facebook that promised automated bookkeeping, he decided to test it out. His rule was simple: If it wasn't easy to set up quickly, he'd walk away. "If it doesn't work within the first small amount of time, and if it's like QuickBooks—if it's a pain in the butt—I'm not going to go any further."
He started setting up Ambrook in September, because he wanted it running before the first day of the upcoming year. To his surprise, things ended up moving much faster than that. Jeff had the system working on its own within three days. "I had everything set up and automated after my first onboarding class," he says. "It went really smoothly."
One thing Jeff appreciated was that he didn’t need an accounting background. He connected his bank accounts and started tagging transactions right away, and Ambrook's interface made it easy to assign expenses to the right categories.
"Anybody who has tried QuickBooks knows that you have to understand accounting to use it. With Ambrook, you don't. That's big."
What changed: Separate enterprises for every property
In Ambrook, Jeff set up each of his seven cabins as a separate enterprise. When his maintenance worker fixed a faucet at Cabin 1, the receipt would get logged directly to that cabin in real time. This made it easy to see how each property was performing.
He used the same principle to break down everything else he sells, including kayak rentals and upsells. “I can keep track of all that separately,” Jeff explained. In cases where he ran activities across the entire business, like a broader marketing campaign, he could tag them all and split the cost proportionally with Ambrook.
Expenses that record themselves
Different members of Jeff’s team need to make individual business purchases, so he set up Ambrook Wallet to manage them. He opened a business account and added funds, then issued Wallet cards to his maintenance worker and cleaner. From there, he could set spending limits, pause cards when they're not needed, and have his team upload receipts on the spot.
"The cleaner needs cleaning supplies," Jeff said. "Now, rather than have me do it, they can just pick up the supplies, put it on the card, take a picture of the receipt, pop it in Ambrook. And everything just goes right through."
For recurring purchases like hardware supplies, Jeff set up Ambrook so the system would recognize the transactions and categorize them automatically. This saved him from manual data entry, but it also saved him time from recording expenses every month.
"Once you set up the tagging and automation with your monthly expenses, you don’t have to do it again. You set it and forget it."
When Jeff does need to check the numbers, he just opens his phone and gets things done with Ambrook’s mobile app. "It's with me everywhere I go," he said. "I do most of my work on my phone now, so it works really well."
Monthly reporting to beat the year-end tax scramble
With over a year of financial data in Ambrook, Jeff started using the reporting features to track cash flow trends month over month. He’s been able to see exactly where money is going, property by property, anytime he wants to check. "I don't have to wait until the end of the year and calculate everything up,” he said. “It's all right at my fingertips every time I need it."
When it came time to do taxes, this proved especially helpful. His books were maintained over the course of the year, so there was no scramble to get the data sorted at year’s end. "It saved me the weeks of time I used to spend compiling everything," Jeff said. "Now I just click the button, print it off, and take it to the accountant."
Over time, Jeff has also developed confidence in his bookkeeping, because he can always verify the numbers himself.
"The best part is knowing at every second where you're at without having to rely on someone else. Ambrook's always up to date, instantly."
The result: More time and money back for his properties
From real-time expense records to regular financial reports, the system Jeff put in place with Ambrook eventually won him an estimated 20–30% more write-offs during tax season.
Take mileage, for example. Jeff used to manually count receipts and calculate trips his workers made to different stores. Now, he can run reports showing exactly how many trips the team made, adding up to thousands of miles he couldn’t track previously. "That's $2,000 back in my pocket that I wasn't capturing before," Jeff said. "Most people aren't keeping track of those little things like that. Ambrook makes it simple."
The switch to Ambrook turned a box of receipts into a bookkeeping system that saved Jeff time, money, and the pain of wrestling tools that weren’t built for him:
20–30% more write-offs with real-time expense reporting
From weeks of year-end tax prep to a couple hours of monthly upkeep
7 enterprises and 4 Wallet cards managed in one place
Jeff took a bet on a new system so he wouldn’t have to worry about his books, on top of everything else he was juggling. He encourages other property managers to go for opportunities that could make their jobs easier, too. "Take a chance and try it,” he said. “When I saw the advertisement, it hit something. If it's that simple and easy, I'm going to try it. And sure enough, it was very simple."