AppFolio Property Manager Features

Overall ease of use. Accounting based, online rent payments, and ability to connect all areas of property management together.

When we first started with Appfolio they were very quick to respond to our customer service needs. Now, all you get is an email that directs you to watch videos or to online chat. When you have already exhausted those options and you need to speak to ANYONE, it is impossible! I have waited over a month for someone to call me back. By the time they call I have forgotten what I needed, or the details of the transaction I needed help with. They need to hire more customer service reps. When they do call you they are very friendly and knowledgeable, but they usually give you a few minutes and if you need help with someone else while you have them on the phone they tell you to make another request. Then, it's back to the WAIT game.

The system-wide search feature, ability to change dates & descriptions of items most of the time & expiration date on recurring JEs. So far, customer support has been great for me - very friendly & helpful.

-Reporting is awful. Columns can be added but report pdf process does not auto-adjust size to page, which means converting to Excel to adjust. There are reports that do not have totals so have to convert those, too.-The financial reports were inadequate, so had to "upgrade" Excel to use Connect Tool just to make the reports look like the ones in the old software.-Rent Roll does not show correct occupancy...

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The ease of use. AppFolio makes every process seem simple. All of the information within AppFolio is easily searchable and our users don't need to be super tech savvy to use AppFolio with confidence.

We'd love to see AppFolio make a concerted effort to improve or add features for commercial properties like sales tracking/percentage rent billing. Even though the commercial property features aren't as robust as the residential features, I have no doubts that I will see these features in the future. AppFolio regularly releases new and improved features. They also maintain a robust user community wherein they take suggestions and let us know what suggestions are in the works.

One of my favorite things about this software is that I feel like Appfolio is growing with my company. The software has come so far in the last couple years with lots of new features. There have been multiple occasions where I have a problem and then in a couple days I get notified that Appfolio has created a solution to my problem. It is actually very weird but I don't believe in coincidences so I just right it off as a great partnership.

I wish that I could change the bank accounts that the properties use currently to a new one without having to work with someone at Appfolio.

It is user friendly and it makes sense! It allows you to edit and change where necessary, without a lot of headache. We all love AppFolio!

Conversions are always challenging, so that was probably the toughest part of the process when we changed from another software. Everyone was great though to work with and helping us get everything up and running.

This software is amazing. It has so many features from initial contact with prospective renters all the way through the rental process. It allows you to initiate online payments to vendors and owners. It is capable of creating HTML packets for posting to websites manually. It also posts automatically to about 30 other websites. It is awesome.

It has taken a lot of work to learn and I’m still learning a lot and I’ve been using it for 7 years. You have to treat it like learning a new language and dive in to understand each facet of the software.

Appfolio has not only a lot of functionality, but is easy to use across our entire organization. It has become the primary backbone of our property management business and we truly view Appfolio as a Partner, not a technology service provider.

Our primary critique with Appfolio is that they tend not to let other good real estate tech products plug into their software via API. In other words, they like to build new products/functions in-house instead of via partnership or integration. There are pros and cons, but in general I would like to see Appfolio play nicer with other prop tech products.

I like the customization of this software. It is ideal if you manage a variety of portfolios. The dashboard and tasks menu are placed well and easy to navigate. The software uses a tab feature that allows to easily work with different tasks at a time. Excellent reporting features. Great mobile app

HORRIBLE customer service. The software is extremely robust, which will normally be a good thing. However, with that comes a lot of questions. Unfortunately only 1 out of 5 agents can help you. Most issues will have to be advanced to a senior agent . Once that happens you will have to EMAIL what your issue is or wait anywhere from 3-7 days for a scheduled phone call. So if your issue is time sensitive...

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Hi Allison, thank you for reaching out to us with your feedback. We do have a guaranteed response rate of 24-48 hours but many issues to require us to follow-up with more information is it is a more complicated accounting question. We do have a robust Help & Training center if you need assistance with accounting. We hope we can improve your experience moving forward!

I love how easy it is to advertise our vacancies. Then the interested parties can schedule viewings and apply for the property right from our web site. Once we select a tenant, we can transfer all of their information from their application over to make them our active tenant with the click of a button. I love how easy it is for tenants to pay their rent online or at pay stations and it goes directly into our bank account and calculates the management fees.

The reports could be a little better. On multiple units, the reports don't break down the expenses by unit number very well. So, the owners aren't able to tell on their reports what a management fee charge was for because the charge isn't broken down by unit number. As a result, we get calls from upset owners and our accounting department has to create reports outside of the software to make sure the owners are satisfied. This takes extra time when the software could easily break down these expenses if it was programmed to do so. Our accounting department said that the bookkeeping side of the software could be better.

Thank you for your review, Kendall! We appreciate the feedback.

Easy to use web based software, includes apps for management and homeowner/tenant. AppFolio continues to make improvements and they appear, never an update on our end needed, love that since it is web based. Set up a vendor once to use across all condominium associations the vendor provides services for, good work order system and improvements made based on user feedback.

I would like the ability to modify the user level access myself, but that isn't a real problem, just a nicety. There needs to be the ability to create folders or directories to upload the condominium documents so they can be categorized, otherwise an owner needs to look through a significant amount of files. I understand that is in the works though.

I love the ease of use of this software. It gives me so many options for reporting, investigating any issues, and my tenants love that they can pay online and request maintenance online as well. I love the look of it, it is modern without being gaudy.

I only wish that changing ownership for 1099 reporting was easier (IE partners that get monthly distributions but want the 1099 reported to the partnership name)

The ease of use and mobile app make this software very useful for property managers. For leasing, the application and lease signing process is pretty seamless once set-up. The Online Portal is also great as it helps cut down on unnecessary emails or calls to the office. Residents can pay rent, submit requests for maintenance, and sign lease renewals all through their Online Portal. The lease renewal interface is one of my favorite features as it has really cuts down on the amount of time I spend drafting and preparing renewals. This software offers a lot and they are always pushing out updates and new features which is great.

The biggest problem is customer support. Some requests take days or weeks to hear back from someone and in property management, we typically don't have days or weeks to wait for a fix to a problem we are experiencing. However, when someone does help, they tend to always be able to resolve our problems. I would also like to see more customization to the software. Little things like being able to add...

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Hi Dennis, thank you for taking the time to leave a review - we appreciate your feedback.

I love how easy it is to use and that it's got everything integrated from inspections to maintenance to accounting to contract management. It also posts my listings to a bunch of websites automatically.

It was initially a perfect fit for our company. We wanted our website and property management software integrated and we loved the features such as the tenant portal etc. In the past couple of years, it seems that they are gearing themselves more toward large companies (1000+ units) as they are only making certain features available to their larger clients (i.e. Lisa AI / artificial intelligence secretary)...

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Easy to use and understand at the site level in most respects. Reporting to various owners is automated. Includes free on line payments for our residents.

The marketing of vacant units to various advertisers was a real plus but this has gone downhill since we originally adopted use of AppFolio.

AppFolio offers an extremely user-friendly operating interface which is easily "teachable" when onboarding new team members. Their common sense, logic-based approach to property management solutions and associated accounting is refreshing in this industry. They LISTEN to their users and don't just look for the easiest solution; they seek out the most EFFICIENT and EFFECTIVE solutions when developing new enhancements to the product. Improvements are developed at a robust pace with meaningful, ongoing upgrades coming out almost daily! I could not be more impressed with AppFolio as a perfect solution for our quickly-expanding company.

Honestly, there is nothing that concerns or upsets me about AppFolio as a solution for our day-to-day property management, leasing, maintenance, or accounting operations. It has allowed the company to grow by double in the number of units under management in only 3 years without having to substantially add to staff, except for the on-site physical maintenance needs of such a fast-growing portfolio of rental townhome units; which is to be expected.

It can be very user friendly if you invest the time to take advantage of what the system offers. It offers A LOT. When one thing doesn't work the way you want it to, it doesn't mean the system is bad. It is actually REALLY GOOD. It helps us encompass a lot of different platforms into one which was the main reason we chose it. We were pleasantly surprised how much we like using the software.

In our market, there are several items or tasks we need to perform or things we need to track that are often overlooked by property management software. Appfolio does know how to handle one task that is critical but it is not fully functional. When we choose the software, we thought because it was marketed as something that handled "NYC DHCR" leases but that's is misleading. As we were going live,...

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The support staff is amazing. Responses are within 12 to 24 hrs and solutions are found or suggestions for the future improvements. Over the past 7 years I have watched with admiration as this program has blossomed, filling the needs of multiple users in detailed ways. I use AppFolio in two different accounting venues, one with a large property management company servicing over 1600 home rentals,...

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If I had to find something I didn't like it would be the constant change that requires me to think and be constantly attentive to the processes in the program. It seems that almost every week there is a subtle or large change that rocks me for a moment. It is frustrating at times to stop and relearn a process. But then to my amazement I am once again loving this program even more and all that it does to make my job easier. You can't use this program out of habit. It is always evolving for the better.

There are several things that I like about this software. I think the top of my list is that there is so much functionality related to apartment leasing/management that is all integrated - basic general ledger accounting, tenant accounts receivable, screening applicants, online leasing, attachment of invoices, statements, agreements, etc to appropriate pages in AppFolio, vendor payments, owner payments, 1099's, financial reporting, etc, and on top of that, it's an online platform available from any computer or mobile device, live and up-to-date for all users.

Currently my biggest frustration is RUBS for utilities. The feature is set up in such a manner that we are unable to use it because it allocates costs to anything considered a "unit" which for us includes non-residents who lease a parking space. I have made sure that top management and the development team at AppFolio are aware of this flaw in the functionality of this feature, so I'm hopeful there will be a resolution.

Thanks, Laura! It's great to hear that you are using so many aspects of your software and thank you for your feedback regarding our utility billing feature. We are constantly making updates based on customer feedback and appreciate you taking the time to leave a review.

1. When Money is collected electronically you never have to think about who's paid and who hasn't. - Even with a handful of units, it's time consuming to collect checks and deposit them on a regular basis. This causes sloppy book keeping and helps tenants get away with not paying timely. 2. When a computer keeps track of payments late fees are always charged. - late fees get charged automatically....

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Appfolio is not something you plug into your current systems. To do it correctly and efficiently you'll need to rework your processes around it. This can be good or bad. Depending on if you like creating systems. When you're done, you'll have an employee that never sleeps and takes care of a ton of your management tasks.

Hi Dean, thank you for taking the time to provide this feedback. It's great to hear that AppFolio is integral to running your property management business. We appreciate your partnership!

I love that things are so well integrated. I have been with Chatel Real Estate for 7 years and we have been using Appfolio for the last 6 years. I appreciate all of the new features that you roll out and I'm super excited every time I see that little bubble at the top of my screen meaning something new has been added. Also, it's super nice that it's easy to use on the phone, I don't like the App. I...

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Prepayments on unit owner ledgers do not automatically apply to the next owners charge automatically. This makes the aged receivable detail look off which is annoying and clients complain about it. It's not a huge deal and its something we easily fix. I also wish the homeowner directory report had columns to add their tenant's information into it, instead of having to pull a renter directory and then an owner directory. Clients want just one spreadsheet not two! I wish you accepted AMEX for payments, I get a fair amount of compliants about it.

HI Sarah, Thank you for taking the time to leave your feedback and thanks for being our longtime partner! We have updated the app to have the same, full functionality that the browser has. We'd encourage you to download it from the app store so you can continue to easily pull up information on your phone in any meeting!

Ease of use, quick search, archived records, online payments, ability to scan files into clients portal, pay bills online. We basically did a 15-20 year upgrade . They said when we bought the software it would be like adding an extra employee to our office and after a years use, I would agree. The data entry alone for our bill payments was a two to three day job with our old software, now just a few hours to pay 300-400 invoices a month.

The biggest frustration that I have with the software program is during the transition from when a tenant gives notice to move out and getting a new tenant into that same unit. For whatever reason, when a tenant gives notice and we put that information into the system and click the notice prompt and give the date of their move out (usually 30 days). That unit is going to be vacant and we begin to...

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Dear Doug, we appreciate your review. If you are trying to move in a new tenant while there is an existing tenant in the unit, just make sure that the dates do not overlap and you will be able to perform this action!

The updates and the "what's new" feature are great, this software keeps evolving along with our business. Ability to mass-email or mass-text a property is great, and all the recording-keeping is great for peace of mind. Can't possibly imagine doing business without the organization of AppFolio. Universal Search is great, fast, and efficient. The mobile app is great.

The customer support can take a while, as in, there is no direct call option. Submitting a support request and waiting is fine most of the time, but having an "emergency" option would be great. Lack of specific rules for rent controlled areas. For example, Oakland and Berkeley have different rules for rent control and we have to constantly edit the auto-populate letter. It would be fantastic to...

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Dear Tyler, Thank you for providing your honest feedback. If you are ever experiencing an urgent issue, you can add this to the subject of your support request and we will try our best to facilitate your urgent needs. We are constantly seeking to improve our product and support offerings and I have forwarded your product feedback to all of the appropriate teams for review. They will also reach out to you if they need more information. We appreciate your interaction with our user community as we continue to implement new features from our Product Suggestion Board! We look forward to our continued partnership!

I like the ease of use, and the easy access for tenants. I love the dashboard, and unit turn. It would be nice to see some tweeks on the dashboard to make it more personable. Texting feature is by far our favorite.

The way deposits are processed. We run ours in/out of that account. I don't like that it meshes into the owners account and makes their reports really sloppy and full of info they don't want to be bothered with. I wish the owners reports were easier, P & L version is the ones my owners like, but they are really difficult in appfolio, becuase they are 1-31st of the month only.

Online rent payments, online maintenance requests, customizable reports, robust accounting features, dedicated support team, software is constantly evolving.

eCheck payments being returned as NSF when they shouldn't be, credit card payments are able to be cancelled months later after we've already given the money to the owner, owners aren't able to sign leases through their portal, steep learning curve.