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AppFolio Property Manager

AppFolio Property Manager

Overview

What is AppFolio Property Manager?

AppFolio Property Manager is a cloud-based property management software that allows multifamily and single-family, commercial, student housing, homeowners and condo association, and mixed portfolio property managers to market, manage and grow their business. AppFolio includes accounting and property management functionality,…

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Pricing

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Community Associations

$0.85

Cloud
per unit/per month

Plus - Community Associations

$0.85

Cloud
per unit/per month

Student Housing

$1.25

Cloud
per unit/per month

Entry-level set up fee?

  • No setup fee
For the latest information on pricing, visithttps://www.appfolio.com/pricing

Offerings

  • Free Trial
  • Free/Freemium Version
  • Premium Consulting/Integration Services
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Product Details

What is AppFolio Property Manager?

AppFolio Property Manager is a cloud-based property management software that allows multifamily and single-family, commercial, student housing, homeowners and condo association, and mixed portfolio property managers to market, manage and grow their business. AppFolio includes accounting and property management functionality, including the ability to: provide instant access to reports & statements, post & market vacancies, apply & lease online, screen residents, streamline rent collection, and mobile inspections.

AppFolio Property Manager Screenshots

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AppFolio Property Manager Competitors

AppFolio Property Manager Technical Details

Deployment TypesSoftware as a Service (SaaS), Cloud, or Web-Based
Operating SystemsUnspecified
Mobile ApplicationApple iOS, Android, Windows Phone, Blackberry, Mobile Web
Supported CountriesUnited States
Supported LanguagesEnglish

Frequently Asked Questions

AppFolio Property Manager is a cloud-based property management software that allows multifamily and single-family, commercial, student housing, homeowners and condo association, and mixed portfolio property managers to market, manage and grow their business. AppFolio includes accounting and property management functionality, including the ability to: provide instant access to reports & statements, post & market vacancies, apply & lease online, screen residents, streamline rent collection, and mobile inspections.

Yardi Voyager and Buildium are common alternatives for AppFolio Property Manager.

Reviewers rate Support Rating highest, with a score of 1.

The most common users of AppFolio Property Manager are from Small Businesses (1-50 employees).
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Comparisons

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Reviews and Ratings

(52)

Reviews

(1-17 of 17)

One stop shop

Rating: 8 out of 10
June 24, 2024
Vetted Review
Verified User
AppFolio Property Manager
6 years of experience
We use this as a one stop shop for leads, tenant management, bill pay, etc. Has our lease templates and we’re able to handle every need besides calling through AppFolio.
  • Reporting
  • Vendor Communication
  • Documents
Cons
  • Better custom reporting
  • Reporting for letters
In daily use, AppFolio makes the move in process easy where we can accept online payments for move in costs, handle all lease signing electronically, convert from applicant to tenant and have them do a move in inspection.

Don't bother

Rating: 1 out of 10
January 22, 2024
XB
Vetted Review
Verified User
AppFolio Property Manager
3 years of experience
We set this up to use with a variety of properties we manage and to handle our investments.
  • Maintenance Requests
  • Work Flows
Cons
  • In my experience, no Office 365 support
  • Administration of users (in my experience, severely lacking)
  • Azure/Entra Sync
  • User Support (honestly, I think you would be better screaming into the wind)
I think if you wanted something to work with your Google accounts and never had any support request. This might be a fit. If you need something robust for anything bigger than a mom & pop out fit - in my opinion, look elsewhere. I think if you want something closer to enterprise level, flee from AppFolio Property Manager.

Don't use AppFolio Property Manager for property-management software!

Rating: 1 out of 10
January 17, 2024
MC
Vetted Review
Verified User
AppFolio Property Manager
1 year of experience
We use AppFolio Property Manager in all aspects of our property management business. From advertising properties, keeping track of prospects, running applications, executing leases, collecting rent and receiving communication from residents, submission, assigning and tracking of work orders, entry and payment of bills, accounting to residents, vendors and property owners, income statements to owners
  • track rent charges and tenant receipts
  • resident work orders
  • marketing of properties
Cons
  • accounting is not in line with other property-management software
  • tasks are not streamlined - numerous steps required for simple tasks
  • In our experience, customer service is nonexistent
  • In my opinion, user interface sub-par
The AppFolio Property Manager App is user friendly and easy to use. The receipt and recording of rents is apt as is the work order flow. When we signed up for AppFolio Property Manager we communicated to every point of contact from the sales agent to the implementation team, that our revenue model stems from marking up bills and services 10%. Everyone told us repeatedly that this was EASILY accomplished through AppFolio Property Manager. Once we spent thousands of dollars and hundreds of hours on implementation, we now realize that those representations were, in my opinion, false. In our old software, markups could be accomplished at the bill level (click a button for markup or discount and input the percentage). In my experience in AppFolio Property Manager, to mark up a bill or service, numerous steps are required. First you must create a work order where detailed information must be input (who creates a work order for a home-depot bill?); close the work order and then go to the work order page, select the work order and "create bill" from the work order; enter all the same detailed information plus additional information; mark up the bill and save; then go to payables, insert bank account and vendor to find the bill - then pay the bill. In my experience when entering 100 home-depot charges on the other software, we would go to vendor, select "mark up" and the percentage, then enter the 100 charges by property; save the bill and then pay it. This might take 20 minutes. In our experience in AppFolio Property Manager, for us to make our profit which enables us to stay in business and pay our AppFolio Property Manager fees, rent, payroll etc., we have to spend ALL DAY creating work orders for every separate home-depot charge and then hop through all of the other hoops and do it 99 other times. My entire office is so frustrated and we cannot focus on marketing, leasing, work orders or getting new business because we are spending all day jumping through all of these hoops to achieve our mark up. In our experience, we reach out to customer service again and again and are only answered by bots. The bots are no help so our issue escalates to a real person. The person is no help and escalates the issue. Ive been told 10 times that i will receive an emailed answer to my question - but no email has arrived and our issue remains unaddressed. In our experience, we are then pointed to "suggestion boards" where there is nothing but dissatisfied AppFolio Property Manager customers who are not receiving answers to their issues. To say that we have buyers remorse is an understatement

AppFolio Property Manager is a great way to manage your renters!

Rating: 9 out of 10
May 15, 2023
KB
Vetted Review
Verified User
AppFolio Property Manager
1 year of experience
It has streamlined our application process for our rental units. It has also streamlined the background checks and has allowed for online payment of their rent and deposit. It has made everything easier to search for information. It has shortened the time it takes for an applicant to apply for a rental unit and get accepted since everything is in a one stop shop with appfolio. We are able to connect it to the investor management appfolio portal, which has allowed us to see how successful our properties are with our investors.
  • Easy to use application process
  • Easy for our renters to pay their rent online
  • Easy to connect to our investors who have invested in these properties
Cons
  • Being able to integrate our old system into appfolio in a more streamline easier way
  • Be able to seperate some "owners" from the investment management and property management
  • Allow for additional customization based on how our organization operates
We have 6 apartment buildings that we manage. Every month we were having to drive to each location to collect rent checks. Since using appfolio, we only have a couple of renters that still send in a paper check, the rest pay online, so we are ensuring that our renters are paying on time.

Once we have an applicant apply, the old way was to take their scanned application, review, and then pay to have a background check conducted. Now, with appfolio, we are able to have them apply, sign off on the background check, and pay their deposit all in one shot. It has allowed our property managers to focus on other property items rather than conducting background checks.

AppFolio Review

Rating: 6 out of 10
May 26, 2021
MS
Vetted Review
Verified User
AppFolio Property Manager
3 years of experience
Our entire company uses AppFolio Property Manager - [it's] predominantly used as a portal for our residents. AppFolio Property Manager is the most common way we receive rental payments.
  • Prior to purchasing AppFolio Property Manager we used a texting app so we could mass text tenants. AppFolio allows us to text them by their unit along with their guarantors (if needed.) We use this feature daily. It is so convenient when we need to reach out residents quickly.
  • The online payment system makes it easy for our commercial and residential tenants to make rental payments. The system has also lessened the work of out Account's manager since it's all in once place now and we do not have to enter payments into a separate system.
  • Navigating AppFolio Property Manager is extremely easy. When we have new hire, it does take any time for them to become comfortable with the system. The main page dashboard makes it simple to get from point A to point B and beyond. The Search engine on AppFolio Property Manager is so efficient. You can search almost anything- phone number, first names, last names, addressed, license plate numbers to successfully find what you are needing.
Cons
  • We work with mostly college students. As you can imagine there is a lot of roommate drama which brings lease changes. Or perhaps tenants forget to renew their lease agreement and new residents sign and we have to move people around to different addresses. There is NO feature that will allow you to delete a tenant. There is not way to make changes of address once someone is entered. And the "tenant transfer" feature is not useful for us.
  • We have some issues using the email feature on AppFolio Property Manager. The "letters" feature will allow you to send out an email/ letter and will attach it to everyone's account. If I want to send a personalized email- I have to send it to one resident and BCC the other tenants and their guarantors, anyone blind copied will not have the email attach to their account. So this feature becomes almost unusable for us because of that.
  • Sometimes it's difficult to receive customer support. The chat feature is helpful but, most of the time the question we have is not easily answered and we are passed off to several other people.
AppFolio Property Manager for our residents is phenomenal. It serves us and our residents very well as far as them having access to their portal. I find the program difficult to use from a data entry standpoint. There are many features on our end that make usage for us much more difficult.

AppFolio for Self Managing Your HOA

Rating: 9 out of 10
June 12, 2021
LR
Vetted Review
Verified User
AppFolio Property Manager
1 year of experience
We use AppFolio to manage our HOA. We previously managed in house; however, recent lack of interest and ability to move to digital platforms required the migration to a management company. This added $13k in expenses per year and prevented the HOA from being able to [focus] on any improvement projects.

In 2020 we made the decision to migrate back to in-house management, but [we] needed a platform that allowed us to manage all aspects of the HOA digitally.
  • Accept payments
  • Store documents
  • Print and mail annual reports
Cons
  • Difficult to email select audiences
  • Can't create online applications for all user groups
  • Hard to set up automatic dues for any other time period than monthly
We needed a platform that we could easily migrate our HOA into from an outside management company, but one that allowed for the majority of business to be done and maintained in a cloud based environment.

Onboarding was very thorough and allowed us to really break down the processes and make sure that we had all of the areas of management identified.

Where we struggled was in the post launch support. You have to reach out to the support team in a forum rather than by email and phone and then wait. That piece has made it a little more difficult to smoothly launch certain features like email, setting up reoccurring fees, and things that the homeowners really should see very little stumbling in from their board.

Great, Easy to Use, Resident-Friendly Property Management Tool

Rating: 8 out of 10
September 18, 2020
AppFolio is being used across the company and houses our resident files. It has helped us make our move-in process almost completely electronic. It also allows easy access to resident ledgers and accounts. In addition, Appfolio’s set-up helps us stay organized, from scheduling tours to preparing for move-ins, everything we need is at our fingertips. Reports are also housed in this system.
  • Ease of use
  • Customer Support & FAQ Articles
  • Organization of the Website
  • Ability to Customize
  • Application Screening
  • Constant Updates to Site
Cons
  • Customer service hours could be extended
  • Quicker application results
  • Ability to better keep track of follow-up for prospects
We are able to manage the move-in process from scheduling a tour to the day of move-in through AppFolio. On the management side, budgetary things are managed in this system as well. When it comes to a true tool that’s easy to use and effective in helping to manage a property--this is it! Leasing consultant performance can even be tracked easily in this system.

Tech support is terrible

Rating: 7 out of 10
June 16, 2020
EL
Vetted Review
Verified User
AppFolio Property Manager
2 years of experience
Used across the whole organization for property management and accounting.
  • Tenant portal.
  • Collect tenant payments via ACH.
  • Ease of data entry.
Cons
  • Customer service is awful.
  • Only one bank account allowed per specific GL account number.
  • Should have a dedicated support line with techs who know the program.
It is easy to use, and the tenant portal and communication with tenants works well.
Their tech support and customer service can be nonexistent at times.

AppFolio Property Manager: Big Systems for Property Managers

Rating: 9 out of 10
March 02, 2020
AppFolio Property Manager is a very robust Property Management SYSTEM. It is not just an app, not only an interface. It has deep and complex functions that integrate to allow a PM to control and utilize the SYSTEM to complete all the daily tasks necessary to manage, report, and act on PM accounts.
  • Scheduling Showings with Integrated Calendar
  • Creating Leases
  • Accounting Functions are STELLAR
Cons
  • Accounting is not as user-friendly for the general Property Manager type, the folks who are actual accountants, like a dedicated accounting person will be fine.
  • Rental Comps are limited and can be quite OFF on the numbers since it only takes into account Appfolio rents...not any other integration. I use this for a bird's eye view only.
  • Scheduling Tasks with a team has come a LONG way in recent years. It still needs some integration to split tasks among users.
AppFolio Property Manager has focused on larger PM clients for the past couple of years. In the past, circa 2014, any company willing to pay their fees would be able to get the program. They experienced more problems with smaller PMs who were growing (probably because the businesses were growing and the staff was not as seasoned), so they blocked smaller PMs in 2018 or so. This made them more profitable because the 80/20 rule was used to focus on their best, most efficient use of resources, but it limited the clients who could get the program. I think this was a mistake long term. It was short-sighted, and instead of fixing and supporting the small PM problems and helping them grow into larger PMs that could utilize the program, they just blocked anyone who was not yet their most profitable client.

AppFolio Property Manager: The Best Way To Be Efficient as A Landlord!

Rating: 10 out of 10
October 15, 2019
hs
Vetted Review
Verified User
AppFolio Property Manager
2 years of experience
AppFolio Property Manager system is incredible for my position. As a company, we switched from another property management software to this one about 2 years ago and it has been a seamless transition. With the ability for tenants to pay rent online, set up automatic transactions and even request maintenance, it makes my job a lot easier! There are also TONS of analytics and data insight that is valuable in my position. You can see your market rent and what you are getting per month, adjust budgeted amounts, and so much more. The few times that I have reached out to them, they were quick to respond and answered my question as best as possible. I would recommend 100% for any landlord management company.
  • Wonderful user experience. I can log on to the interface, see exactly what is going on for the day: move-outs, move-ins, who owes rent, late fees, etc. You can also modify your screen exactly how you want it!
  • I love the quicklinks. You can see who is delinquent with their rent and automatically add late fees or even send a quick email/text.
  • LOVE the option to text the entire property. Ex: the pool shut down for emergency cleaning, and I was able to send out a quick text so that all tenants were notified, even if they were out of state.
Cons
  • There are so many reports that I still need to view and see their value, sometimes it's hard to see with so many options available as a user.
  • Would love to be able to message a prospective tenant their showing time without entering in so much information. Sometimes a quick email, phone number, and name would be ideal to contact them as opposed to so much information as a guest card.
  • One more con would be the timeout of the website. I understand it's for security, but sometimes it will time out after a few minutes of inactivity. It would be nice to have a longer time out period.
If any colleague or resident asked about the system we used, I would highly recommend it. It is a huge step up from the other platform software we were using, so there are so many more features for both managers and our tenants. As a tenant, it seems they really enjoy the cleanliness of logging in, paying rent, asking for maintenance or contacting the manager. Easy and clean!

User-friendly, Variety of Features, Always Improving and Great Support Services!

Rating: 8 out of 10
September 13, 2019
HU
Vetted Review
Verified User
AppFolio Property Manager
2 years of experience
This is our MAIN program in the office; therefore, I use it every single day. It's always open on one of my Internet tabs on Mozilla. The actual layout of the homepage, including the color scheme of the program, is easy to follow, read, understand, and pleasing to the eye (soft blue hues). You can easily keep track of vendors, owners, tenants, and billing/invoicing. I think it's a quick program to learn even though there are so many features I don't personally use - I know several other people in our office use them. If we ever have an issue we can contact them and the turn around time is super fast. They call us the same day and are always helpful and knowledgeable and even follow up with emails after the calls. AppFolio welcomes suggestions from clients and actually follows through with implementing the updates! They are always evolving and making things easier and more efficient.

Maintenance orders are a breeze with our system. Vendors are integrated with billing and we have all the information in one place. We also find it very easy to advertise with this program and it goes out to several locations and websites. Our website is also powered through AppFolio so it saves us an additional step when making updates and getting the most accurate information out there. I'd definitely recommend this program 10/10!
  • It helps us to keep the Maintenance side of the business very organized. Anyone from our organization can go in and know exactly where a work order is in process (new, waiting, assigned, completed). We know if a work order has been printed and if the tenants are still having an issue we know to contact the Maintenance team. We can build on existing work orders by adding a "-2" or "-3" work order and keep track of the history when managing ongoing issues.
  • AppFolio makes it easy to see exactly what tenants owe and categorizes charges/credits efficiently on their ledgers. We can tell if there are water/sewer charges, pet fees, electricity allocations, late fees, security deposits, etc... It's all easy to follow and understand and it set up in chronological order.
  • I also utilize the Reports and Letters section of this software program quite often. It's great to have a uniform format which helps us maintain the professional element by remaining consistent and accurate. It's easy to run a report with tenant information at a certain property for maintenance and send select tenants letters at a large property without everyone being included. It's very intuitive and the formatting has definitely improved over the past two years I've been using the program.
Cons
  • Only a few very technical items that wouldn't necessarily make sense to non-users and I haven't even cared enough to submit requests on the issues. It'd be nice if parking was easier to keep track of on the system. Right now, if you run a report it doesn't show all the information our company requires for the vehicles and therefore we have to keep track of it elsewhere.
  • Another obstacle we've encountered is that the program charges "by door" so if you have multiple units and properties you can really rack up pricing. That's especially true for large multi-unit buildings with parking.
AppFolio Property Manager is great for small to medium-sized businesses (managing 300 - 1,000 units). I don't know if it would be as useful for extremely large organizations or extremely small organizations. There are so many features that we don't use (we don't currently have a need for) but I can't imagine a smaller business owner needing half of the features this software offers. As I haven't worked for a large organization that utilizes this program, I'm not sure if it would be beneficial or if it would meet all the needs of an extremely large organization (10,000+ units); therefore, I'm unable to speak on that portion.

AppFolio Limitations

Rating: 4 out of 10
October 21, 2022
Vetted Review
Verified User
AppFolio Property Manager
10 years of experience
We started using AppFolio when our previous property management software stopped doing updates. They were bought out and destroyed by a competitor. For years AppFolio performed very well and the customer service was excellent. You put in a request for support and somebody from customer service actually called you within a few hours and walked you through the issue and how to correct it. That good customer service is NO MORE! You have to initiate an online chat that 3 times out of 5 doesn't answer your question or solve the problem. The more options they add, the more they charge, the less they give...
  • ACH Payments to Owners
  • Reports to Owners
  • Maintenance Request Forms
Cons
  • Customer Service
  • Templates
  • Handling of Rental Prepayments
  • Simplifying Move Outs
  • Providing Management Fee Reports
  • Simplifying Rental Increases
  • Explaining Templates and how to adjust them
Don't attempt to use this software for summer rentals or short-term rentals. It's impossible to handle taking security deposits for the next tenant coming in when the current tenant is still in residence.

AppFolio Provides a Mid-Tier Solution at a Reasonable Price

Rating: 7 out of 10
May 01, 2021
Vetted Review
Verified User
AppFolio Property Manager
2 years of experience
AppFolio Property Manager is used across our entire corporate office for all accounting functions for both property, and non-property-related entities of ours. We also utilize their Investment Management add-on which ties our investment entities and related investor distributions directly into the property management software. One of the main reasons we use AppFolio is that it makes it easy for us to navigate many LLCs/entities in one system (i.e. we do not need separate files for each entity but can access everything via one login).
  • Multi-entity accounting management
  • Checking printing: We have multiple bank accounts tied to our account and utilize blank check stock. Appfolio automatically prints the routing numbers and account numbers at the bottom of the blank checks based on which property we are paying a bill from.
  • Tie-in with their Investment Management tool gives our investors a great resource while keeping our investments in sync with our accounting software.
Cons
  • Customer support is horrendous. It can take weeks to get a live person on the phone and once you get someone, they typically will need to escalate your issue.
  • If you have multiple bank accounts at different banks, the bill-paying feature has trouble properly defaulting to the right bank account.
  • Multiple bank accounts also have issues tying incorrectly to the Cash section of the balance sheet.
I think it is one of the best solutions out there for the price. Cheaper solutions don't have the same features (i.e. check printing for multiple bank accounts). If you need personal support or are not overly tech-savvy, you will be better off with a higher-end product that delivers more personalized service. If you are a tech-forward organization that can figure out your needs and features on your own, then I think Appfolio is a great solution.

The best there Is

Rating: 10 out of 10
December 05, 2017
We use AppFolio for all our leasing and management operations. The software is linked to our website (AppFolio is the creator and administrator) so vacancies post immediately. Everything property management is done through AppFolio such as reports, paying vendors and owners, paying management fees, collections of rents and other charges, tenant general liability insurance, sending text and emails to tenants/residents.
  • Support is phenomenal. Response time is great and results are immediate.
  • By far the easiest property management software I have ever used. If mistakes are made, making corrections is extremely easy and does not clutter up reports, ledgers or other areas of the account.
  • Posting directly to the website and other internet sites is so simple and quick. No more do I spend time inputting data in my software then again to the website and yet again to internet advertisements. Data is entered once and moved to all of these locations at the click of a button.
Cons
  • The calendar needs a lot of improvement. Currently it will sync with Google calendar but I would like to see it sync directly with my Outlook calendar.
  • It would be extremely beneficial if lease expiration dates would post to the calendar OR if AppFolio would notify me in advance that a lease expiration is upcoming.
  • I would like some sort of notification when an on-line payment is made.
  • The ability to send group text messages and emails would be an added luxury.
  • I would like to have the ability to add or take away from the Dashboard.
I can only speak for the types of properties I am currently managing, which are single-family, multi-family and small retail. AppFolio is well suited for property management of each of these. As my business grows I will be better able to determine if AppFolio will be suited for other types of property management. I feel very confident that if I have a situation arise that doesn't appear to work well with AppFolio that their development team will work to correct the problem(s).

AppFolio-Friendly to all size companies

Rating: 10 out of 10
December 05, 2017
VM
Vetted Review
Verified User
AppFolio Property Manager
3 years of experience
We use Appfolio as our Property Management program to do all our leasing, accounting, and maintenance daily work. Appfolio is very user friendly and has helped us streamline our leasing and several of our accounting processes. It has increased our online availability which has helped us reach our customers all over the world. We have a lot of international students that comes to our local university and the online leasing process and tenant portal has greatly minimized the time it takes to get a lease signed and receive payment from the customer.
  • Their search features are awesome and it helps us find Tenants, Owners and Vendors by first name, last name, or phone number. It's great!
  • Reporting and accounting are very simple and have streamlined several of our processes that used to take hours to do usually can be done in one hour or less. Emailing reports to Owners has now been reduced from 2 days to 1 to 2 hours-that has been a great time saver.
  • Being mobile friendly has allow our employees and our tenants access to what they need 24/7 and almost everyone uses some kind of mobile device which has helped increase visibility for our units and helps keep our vacancy rate low.
  • Their support team is always there to help and has been a great asset to have to rely on their help.
Cons
  • There is some reporting that we would like to see for our Owners and Tenants. Their vacancy report is one we wish we could pull in the tenants phone number to be able to have it on our report when we print.
  • Maintenance also has reporting that we would like to be able to produce from the keys checked out and keys returned so we can stay on top of checking out our units better. We would also like to do reports from the inspections. Being able to print the units coming vacant at the end of any given month and printing it so we know which unit needs to have painting, cleaning and carpet cleaning done would be very helpful. Right now we export the units and copy and paste into a spreadsheet template to have what we need for our maintenance board.
  • The process to remove misapplied rent or how to refund money to a tenant is a several step process we would like to see simplified.
I would recommend the program to anyone that does property management. The search features and user-friendliness of the program alone has helped functionality of our company greatly. Their support is great and replies in a timely manner. Appfolio overall has helped our company be more productive and reach more customers locally and internationally with streamlined processes that have been great time savers.

Too many varied properties thising & thating....AppFolio

Rating: 7 out of 10
March 14, 2017
CB
Vetted Review
Verified User
AppFolio Property Manager
4 years of experience
At present, AppFolio manages about 87 rental properties (single & multi-unit) throughout the US for a client. It tracks vacancies, rent, expenses, work orders, tenants (might as well throw in the kitchen sink) through to financial statements. Honestly, I do not believe these many properties could be properly tracked w/o AppFolio. My client simply loves the product. I do find that the traditional accounting section is quite a bit dated.
  • Tracking work orders per property.
  • Tracking vacancies
  • Tracking rent due/paid
Cons
  • Although, AppFolio has made some recent improvements to the financial statements (yeah), more flexibility and options are still needed.
  • I know a number of peers shy away from AppFolio because the accounting section operates like accounting software in the late 80's, early 90's.
  • Sometimes, it takes a great amount of sleuthing to find an original transaction, or retrieve more detail.
If you have only 1-5 properties to manage, AppFolio might be overkill. But once you get over 10, it becomes more valuable. If you, also, have mult-unit properties, this only increases AppFolio's value. The property management side is so detailed and complete that it is well worth dealing with an antiquated accounting system.

AppFolio: Easy to Use, Hard to Master

Rating: 7 out of 10
November 29, 2017
Vetted Review
Verified User
AppFolio Property Manager
2 years of experience
We use AppFolio to communicate with the property managers of specific clients. Most of the communication is used in reviewing and accepting budget changes and expenses that is recorded and filed through AppFolio and then transferred to the Asset Managers. It's used only by a couple people in a specific department and addresses the business problem of having multiple "telephone effect" moments between managers.
  • AppFolio excels at generating reports that are easy to read and understand
  • AppFolio is also easy to use, and provides userfriendly instructions
  • Customer support is helpful and analysts are often willing to spend much of their time to help clients learn the product
Cons
  • AppFolio does not have much room for customizability outside of the standard report format
  • Licensing is sometimes a problem, though the company is friendly about using trial accounts
  • Program often hangs on mobile devices
AppFolio Property Manager is best suited when there are multiple people who must receive a specific report related to the on-site property management of a specific asset. This is where it excels the most. However, it can be tricky to export the data sometimes for use in modeling. A lot of the tinkering with numbers must be done within the program rather than externally.
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