Seventeen Years Strong: How Weatherby Affiliated Companies Build Owner Trust with Escapia

Weatherby Affiliated manages over 1,200 properties and has relied on Escapia for more than 17 years. With a reputation for excellence and a growing portfolio, Weatherby depends on Escapia’s rock-solid vacation rental trust accounting to keep books balanced, owners confident, and the business scaling smoothly. 

Before Escapia, Weatherby relied on outdated DOS-based systems. Trust accounting wasn’t just slow — it was stressful and risky. Every month-end felt like a high-stakes gamble:

• A single error could throw the books out of balance and erode owner trust
• Manual processes consumed hours, creating burnout for staff
• Compliance risks loomed large, with audits threatening fines or penalties

Staff spent long hours verifying transactions and ensuring every owner payout was accurate. One small oversight could create ripple effects — frustrating owners and increasing audit exposure. Weatherby needed a system designed to protect owner funds, ensure compliance, and simplify accounting at scale.

Escapia delivered exactly what Weatherby needed: a reliable, automated trust accounting engine designed for vacation rentals. With Escapia, Weatherby could:

• Automate reconciliations using structured journal templates
• Generate accurate, to-the-penny owner statements at scale
• Simplify month-end and year-end closeouts with automated processing and flexible reporting formats (.xls, .pdf, .csv, .html)
• Gain real-time visibility into cash positions, balances, and financial activity
• Maintain compliance across multiple regions and ownership models
• Track owner charges, commissions, and fees with precision, including split ownership or multi-property statements

With Escapia, month-end reconciliations became faster, error-free, and less stressful. Staff could leave on time and owners received transparent, accurate statements they could trust. Accounting went from a source of stress to a foundation for growth. 

With Escapia powering its trust accounting, Weatherby unlocked: 

• Stronger profitability - consistently higher gross-to-net margins than competitors, translating to hundreds of thousands more dollars returned to owners each year
• Confident growth - Weatherby scaled from 68 to 220 doors in Carmel and eventually to a 1,200-property portfolio over seventeen years, all while keeping accounting seamless and error-free with Escapia’s trust accounting.
• Efficient operations - faster, stress-free reconciliations that save staff hours each month
• Peace of mind - books that are always audit-ready and owner-approved

Running a vacation rental business means money is constantly moving — guest payments, management fees, cleaning charges, taxes, and owner distributions. Even small mistakes can create compliance headaches or compromise fiduciary responsibility.  

Escapia gives property managers full visibility and control, automating charges, customizing owner statements, and providing real-time reporting so they can scale confidently — whether managing 75 units or hundreds more. 

For over 17 years, Weatherby Vacations has trusted Escapia to protect owner funds, ensure compliance, and power profitable growth.

Escapia has been helping property managers for over 25 years and was originally built on trust accounting. It’s not just a feature — it’s the foundation for a tangle-free, reliable system that enables sustainable, scalable vacation rental management.

Stop losing sleep over accounting. Let Escapia handle the books so you can focus on growing your business, delighting owners, and scaling with confidence.

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