Product Showcase
Key feature releases from Q2 2022
Designing and building great products that our customers love is at the heart of our business. In fact, it’s in our DNA. We’re constantly iterating on our software and solutions to ensure all AppFolio customers have everything they need to succeed — now and as they grow.
The second quarter was a particularly exciting one for AppFolio. We launched brand new offerings (hooray, AppFolio Stack™!) and released impactful enhancements throughout the product that simplify common workflows and provide for a richer user experience overall. Read on to learn about what we delivered in Q2 in the areas of: Integrations & Partnerships, Accounting & Reporting, Maintenance & Efficiency, Affordable Housing, and Association Management. We’d love to know what you think!
Last modified: July 6th, 2022
By: Lauren Suggett
Integrations
Level up your integrations with AppFolio Stack™
Discover more ways to optimize key workflows with seamless integrations through AppFolio Stack, our new partner marketplace. We’ve designed AppFolio Stack to connect the industry’s best proptech solutions with AppFolio’s easy-to-use platform, giving our customers a competitive edge.
We heard the Property Management community loud and clear regarding the challenges associated with technology integrations — historically, the connections have been unreliable, difficult to implement, and difficult to use. AppFolio Stack was designed to solve these pain points. Our customers love how seamlessly AppFolio Stack enables partner solutions to integrate with AppFolio Property Manager, enhances productivity, improves the resident experience, and allows users to see all of their data in one place — neatly organized and updated in real-time — so they can confidently act on insights faster.
Currently, our growing partner marketplace features partnerships with top proptech solution providers including ButterflyMX, Conservice, HappyCo, Knock, Lowe’s, and Property Meld. Connect with us to make sure you don’t miss announcements of new integrations as we continue to expand our partner ecosystem.
“This is truly a sign that AppFolio is dedicated to partnering with property management companies as well as best-in-class vendor companies to provide the most custom-tailored experience possible.”
Michael Krause
Partner, Atrium Management Company
Accounting & Reporting
Refund Security Deposits via eCheck
With Security Deposit Return via eCheck, you can continue to surpass your residents’ expectations and increase your chance of positive reviews even after their leases have ended. This feature — available to customers enabled for online payables — removes friction from the move-out process by allowing you to pay out the remaining security deposit funds electronically via eCheck, and even split remaining refunds between tenants. Payments can be requested, tracked, and sent all within AppFolio Property Manager, simplifying the process for you and creating a positive experience for residents during move out.
Funds will be returned to residents faster, with no need to track down forwarding addresses or cut paper checks during move out. The resident banking information is encrypted during the collection process, providing a high level of security to protect your residents data.
Automate Bank Reconciliations
Reconciling your bank accounts each month is a core accounting task — one that can be tedious, time-consuming, error-prone, and even more stressful if you manage a diverse portfolio. By partnering with industry-leading banking integration solution Plaid, we’re making it even easier for you to securely link your bank accounts to AppFolio Property Manager and automate your bank reconciliations.
This release includes the ability to streamline bank reconciliations with support for bulk transaction syncing across multiple linked accounts. It improves the efficiency and accuracy of your reconciliations by limiting manual input, freeing up your accountants to have better visibility and control over financials. This feature is being rolled out to customers gradually, so keep an eye on your What’s New feed to see when it’s available to you.
Maintenance & Efficiency
Complete Inspections On-site and Offline
In the world of maintenance, the value of efficiency is paramount and the faster you can complete inspections and unit turns, the quicker you can start collecting rent again. With the enhancements to AppFolio’s inspections capabilities, you can now use customizable templates to manage inspections from start to finish onsite, on your mobile device — including taking photos, notes, and marking items that need follow up — without the need for an internet connection. Your inspection will sync with your AppFolio system once you’re back on wifi.
Having a better mobile experience with offline functionality allows service techs to conduct inspections more efficiently and eliminate repetitive administrative work by completing them out in the field, regardless of connectivity, instead of having to go back to the office to get things done.
“This is an Amazing feature that has helped our staff be able to more efficiently perform inspections not just without the worry of using their personal data, but also in areas of our complexes that may have limited cell service.”
Jesse Wilham
Regional Manager, KH Properties
Affordable Housing
Subsidy Receipts for Housing Choice Vouchers
At AppFolio, we recognize the role our customers play in providing housing for all members of their communities. Recording rent receipts for residents paying with housing choice vouchers or other third party subsidy is a repetitive, tedious, and time-consuming process that requires users to carefully match each line item on the monthly HAP (Housing Assistance Payment) statement and manually create a receipt.
Our recent enhancement to our subsidy receipts functionality makes entering subsidy rent receipts, including prepayments, for residents using Housing Choice Vouchers (HCV) much easier and faster. This streamlined interface for recording subsidized rent payments allows you to create multiple subsidy rent receipts for a single property in one go, saving time and improving accuracy.
This new tool can save your business an average of 2.5 minutes per unit each month, giving you more time to focus on what matters. By harnessing the power of technology, you and your team can focus on creating a seamless and better service experience for all. Learn more about how technology can help make it easier for property owners to accept affordable housing vouchers and make a bigger difference.
Association Management
Home Sale Docs Integrations
Being able to complete tasks easily and efficiently can become a daily struggle if you don’t have the right technology in place. AppFolio’s Home Sale Docs Integration takes the hassle out of home sales by sharing key home sales document data between AppFolio and your Home Sale Docs partner. Choose from either CondoCerts or HomeWiseDocs to enable your integration.
By automating this workflow, you can minimize the cumbersome process of manually entering home sales information and give your team back time to focus on higher-level tasks, while serving error free documents to relevant parties in a timely manner.
Bank Transfers
With community association accountants in mind, we’ve provided a more straightforward way to complete monthly reserve transfers without leaving AppFolio. The new Bank Transfer task introduces a way to initiate a reserve transfer in a single step and presents users with a real-time bank balance so they can be confident that funds are available before initiating the transfer.
This has been incredibly helpful for accountants because they no longer have to switch between platforms, allowing them to efficiently manage their workflows, all while reducing time on task. We couldn’t be happier to provide more peace of mind that your banking information is equipped with bank-level security and a way to reduce potential errors when migrating data.
Take advantage of the latest innovations in your business
If you are an AppFolio Property Manager customer, you can find out more about these features by searching for them in the Help Center.
Not an AppFolio customer yet, but want to see how these powerful tools can help your business succeed? Let’s chat — sign up now for a customized product demo.
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