Personal Tool · 2026

Loft

Product Design · Web App · Property Management · Claude.ai

A property manager I built to replace the accounting software I was paying for every month. It handles the parts of the job that software never did.

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Task · Action · Result
Task
Stop paying monthly for software that half fit the job

The accounting tool I rented was built for general bookkeeping, not for someone managing rental units. I worked around it every month.

Action
Kept the parts that worked and built the rest myself

Loft runs on my own Google Drive, backs itself up daily, and covers the property specific work the subscription left out.

Result
Subscription cancelled, and the tool now does more

Tax reports, loan payoff modeling, tenant history, and bulk expense edits all live in one place I control.

Why I built it

Renting software that almost fit.

I was paying a monthly subscription for accounting software to manage my rental properties, and it was never quite right. It was built for general bookkeeping, so anything specific to being a landlord was something I did on the side in a spreadsheet. I was paying for a tool and still doing the work by hand.

So I took the parts I actually used, kept those, and built everything I had been wishing for around them. Loft stores its files on my own Google Drive and syncs a backup every day, which means the data is mine and I am not renting access to my own books.

I built it with Claude. I know what the work needs and what it should look like, so I handled the design and the decisions and let Claude do the engineering. That is the only reason a one person project ends up with amortization modeling and a tenancy chart in it.

It is in a good spot now and I use it for real. I will keep adding to it as things come up.

Before
A monthly bill and a spreadsheet

General purpose accounting software, plus side spreadsheets for anything that was actually about managing property.

After
One tool, my drive, no subscription

Everything in one place, stored on my own Google Drive with daily backups, shaped around how the work really goes.

Inside the App

Built around the work, not the ledger.

Seven sections: dashboard, expenses, rent and income, properties, tenant portal, vendors, and reports. Multiple properties sit under one company, and the app runs more than one company at a time. The demo below is loaded with sample data, so you can click through the whole thing.

Try Loft with sample data

The full app, nothing to install. Add an expense, filter the dashboard, open a property, or flip it into dark mode.

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What It Does

The features I actually wanted.

Everything here exists because the software I was renting either did it badly or did not do it at all.

Ownership
My drive, my files

Data lives in my own Google Drive and syncs a backup every day. No vendor sitting between me and my books.

Structure
Companies and properties

Multiple properties group under one company, and the app runs more than one company without mixing anything up.

Leasing
Onboarding checklists

Move-in runs off a checklist, including the Illinois security deposit steps: written receipt, separate interest bearing account, written bank disclosure, and the return with interest.

Financing
Amortization modeling

An amortization chart shows what different extra principal payments do to the interest I pay over the life of the loan.

History
Tenancy timeline

A Gantt style chart lays out tenant history per unit, so I can see occupancy and turnover across a property at a glance.

Speed
Bulk expense edits

Select a batch of expenses and change their values together, which is how receipts actually arrive.

Tax time
The reports I file with

Profit and loss, expenses by category, net operating by month and by property, portfolio comparison, and CSV exports.

Money in
Rent tracking

Collected against expected, what is outstanding this month, late fees with the option to waive, and deposits tracked per lease.

Build
One file, no stack

The whole app is a single HTML file with light and dark themes. Nothing to deploy, nothing to renew.

Role
Designer and developer
Status
In daily use, still adding features
Replaces
A monthly accounting subscription
Built with
Claude