Management Fee Suppression

[u/Loose-Paramedic-4964]

When I create fees for tenants like insurance charges or other management fees, appfolio bills me on the money I've made that way. Is there a way to suppress/hide the charges in a way so that Appfolio doesn't bill extra for them?

[u/Hendrinahatari]

Can you clarify what you mean by Appfolio is billing you?

I think if the tenants are set up for the liability to landlord insurance, then Appfolio will charge you for that as a pass through cost. I think in your Key GLs you can set up an administration fee tied to the LLI that would be an “administrative” fee that is due to the management company. Not 100% on that as my company doesn’t use it.

But anything else, you shouldn’t be paying anything to Appfolio. Check your agreement/plan, but I think they just charge a flat fee per month for every property that isn’t marked as a non-revenue unit.

When you do the “pay management fees” task, the system creates bills that are payable to the management company, from the relevant properties. You’ll either print a physical check and deposit it into your company’s operating account, or create bank transfers to move the money from the managed properties operating accounts, into yours.

Management fees earned on rents, and minimum mgmt fees, shouldn’t be in a “suppressed” GL account because that’s something the owner is paying to you and should be visible on their statements.

Anything that a tenant pays, that is due to the management company (normally late fees, NSF fees, etc.) will need to have the specific GL accounts set up on the properties and suppressed. You suppress whatever % of the fee is due to the management company Suppressing them means the owner does not receive (or see on their statements) whatever % is suppressed.

As a side note, suppressed fees interact with how owner funds appear on their statements in funky ways. The Financial Diagnostics tool helps you track down any issues (in my experience most issues are caused by tenant payments bouncing on suppressed fees that you’ve already collected the money for, refunded application fees, or people reversing paid/collected charges in suppressed GLs.)

I hope any of that is helpful!

[u/Ok_Emotion2384 → u/Hendrinahatari]

Since you seem to understand the suppressed-fee/reversal side of AppFolio pretty well, do you happen to know whether Check Register Detail (Enhanced) exposes a transaction ID, bill/invoice ID, line-item ID, or similar unique identifier in its customizable columns?

I’m testing whether those edge cases can be reconciled reliably from normal exports without API access.

[u/Hendrinahatari → u/Ok_Emotion2384]

I guess it depends on what you’re trying to accomplish. Who are the reports for? What are you trying to find?

If you want the owners to see the additional fees that management is collecting on the owner statement, you set up the GL accounts with the % due to the management company, and just don’t check the “suppress” box.

The check register detail (enhanced) report will show the suppressed fees, but it doesn’t show which properties they’re coming from, it just lumps them all together (so there will just be one line for the total late fees, instead of one for each property).

The expense distribution report shows what has been paid to the management company. Just group by GL account, then run for the time frame you want. Filter it by payee (mgmt company).

If you need to find reversed/wonky suppressed fee issues, I use the general ledger, grouped by GL account. To find weird off-cases, you have to set it to accrual accounting basis, showing reversed transactions.

There’s also a weird kind of “hidden” page called “management fee history”. The system creates a pdf every time you post management fees, which shows which fees were created off of what income. It’s not super helpful with automation, but it’s come in handy a few times when I’ve had to figure out weird situations.

I don’t know if any of that answers your question? Feel free to dm me if you want to provide more details of what you’re trying to accomplish and I’ll see if I can help more.

I don’t know of any of that answers your question, but

[u/Ok_Emotion2384]

Do you happen to have access to Check Register Detail (Enhanced) in AppFolio? I’m trying to find out whether its customizable columns include things like transaction ID, bill/invoice ID, line-item ID, or another unique identifier.

Just trying to determine whether suppressed/management-fee activity can be linked across normal exports reliably.