AppFolio - Prix, fonctionnalités, avis et comparateur de logiciels

Avantages

The UI is simple and easy for new staff members to learn. The features are 'simple' and provide entry level functionality to get tasks done.

Inconvénients

Since signing up with Appfolio in 2010, they've lost their consumer focus - and replaced it with what can best be described as 'Wall Street Arrogance':
- selling 'value add' services to our clients without our prior consent
- adding a maintenance call center that is a joke and an embarrassment
- their suppressed fees feature is a nightmare to use, requiring hours of extra labor to ensure it works
- coming out with simple versions of software 'improvements' that don't compare or compete with online alternatives

That last point is why I am actively searching to leave Appfolio.

Instead of letting me connect Appfolio to Docusign, they develop their own lousy lease writer which noone likes or uses.

Instead of letting me connect Appfolio to TenantTurner or other showing softwares, they insist on making us wait for their 'simple' (less powerful) version to come out.

Instead of letting me connect my Appfolio to SalesForce or Hubspot or Infusionsoft, they say 'who needs a CRM anyways'? Mind you they use Salesforce to grow Appfolio... but we can manually add new clients versus importing them from our CRM

Instead of letting me connect my Appfolio to Podio or Asana or another workflow management software, they say 'use paper checklists, or maintain a dual database' if you want to get your work done with the latest cutting edge software tech. Folks - THIS MATTERS, and means you will spend TONS of extra hours doing labor that could easily be automated otherwise.

Instead of letting me connect my Appfolio to Survey Monkey, they make us use a dual data base, and miss the chance to survey our clients. Appfolio surveys us all the time, but apparently we don't deserve to use an integrated survey feature.

Instead of letting me connect my Appfolio to PropertyMeld, they want me to use their Model 'T' version of a workorder system. So I went with PropertyMeld, and deactivated the Appfolio maintenance portal so I could replace it with PropertyMeld's portal. We now run far more efficiently - no thanks to Appfolio.

I recently used a competing call center to answer our maintenance lines, and received a 'cease and desist' style letter from Appfolio?! They said that 'for the safety of my data', I was to no longer use any 3rd party services!? I shook the tree long and hard and they retracted that statement. A thinly veiled attempt to shut down a competitor. Shameful actually.

When Appfolio went public, I told my Stock Broker 'you should buy it, cuz I know it will go up'. Their share price tripled over the past two years, but I refused to buy their stock. Why? I HATE that Wall Street Greed and Arrogance has entered our industry, and refuse to support them.

An open source API solves all of the above 'connection' issues, and is what's best for the customer. But Appfolio will not release their API. So folks, before considering moving forward with Appfolio, remember that the folks who play God with your data will decide WHAT improvements to bestow upon us at THEIR leisure. They'll decide what products to sell to our clients WITHOUT our knowledge or consent.

I'll leave you with a closing thought - why would Appfolio decide to shut down live support while their share values triple? One would think that escalating share values means they could afford to give us excellent live support... apparently the shareholder is now more important than the customer at Appfolio.

Note détaillée

Avantages

The product itself is great and very intuitive. The mobile app is very helpful for the entire staff.

Inconvénients

Support is really lacking. I would like to just call and get support, rather than submitting a request and waiting for an answer. I've submitted a request once and was told that what I was requesting was not supported and that I should make a suggestion. I feel that I'm already communicating with Appfolio, why do I have to re-communicate to Appfolio? The support person should have said that the feature I was looking for will be passed on to the appropriate department. I get the impression that the suggestion board is mainly a feel good function and not something that Appfolio takes seriously. I base this on the fact that there are suggestions that have several votes, have been on the board for several months and not getting a response. As an example there is as suggestion for lease expiration notice which has 1,231 votes and was suggested May 2015. It was not responded to until February 2016 and we still don't have this function. What's really funny about this particular function is that before I went to Appfolio 5 years ago I had this function on my website that I designed and had developed. This is just proof that Appfolio doesn't listen to it's clients

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Avantages

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.

Inconvénients

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 have the option to have the option to have a different auto-populate letter for each property. Each City requires different things to be referenced.

Charges are often auto-generated in the middle of the night when you manually onboard new tenants. For good record keeping, it's helpful to record when a rent charge started so we know accurate historical data and another way to know when tenants are eligible for a rent increases. But when we do this the system creates a charge for the current month in the middle of the night, which has to be manually reversed. The flow from application to move-in is very impressive, but AppFolio isn't as smooth when you take over management of a property that already has tenants, which is almost always the case.

We've received some negative feedback from the call center, including a time where a tenant called to complain about the door being on the wrong side on a new fridge. The tenant said a female employee laughed at him. Personally I think this is hilarious, and there is a part of me that is glad she laughed at him, but it just made matters worse. Also the occasional complaint about not being able to get through to someone.

There are requested features that seem reasonable and have a lot of support in the online community, but they don't happen, or at least not right away. I suppose you don't want to spoil us, but things like "weekly recurring work orders" and being able to toggle "payments required in full" for individual tenants seem like things that happen. Ultimately these are good things b/c I assume they will happen, but almost having the feature is painful.

Electronic Payment requires a cell phone. This is kind of strange and would love to be able to just submit payment without the phone.

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Avantages

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, the other with one owner handling his 325 apartment units. This program provides excellent adaptable reports for both aspects of a property management company and for one owner with multiple apartment complexes in all phases of financial accounting, rental reports and maintenance. AppFolio encourages all discussions between all users and the staff of AppFolio resulting in ongoing improvements and additional options within the program. To be quite honest, since my specialty is the accounting department, there are many parts of AppFolio that I have not had the privilege of really working with, but those that I have come across look to be as detailed and helpful as the accounting processes. The Help & Training section within the program is also evolving and very detailed in explaining how things work.

Inconvénients

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.

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Avantages

1. It has what I want from a property software,and if they don't have it, they will if you ask!
2. The customer service is spot on, they really love their customers and it shows!
3. Notes for EVERYTHING with PICS! No more tenants claiming they don't know what you're talking about or not knowing what they are trying to tell you is wrong with their units!
4. It makes it easy to keep track of all the data we have, literally everything has a place to be put.
5. I really love how in depth the help pages are and the fact that there are forums for the users to talk to each other about what they deal with and how they have worked around issues. It can take some time to find the right thing sometimes, but you can always find a way to make things work. Appfolio is very adaptable and it feels like there is no one way to use it. It works with each person in their own way!

Inconvénients

1. The accounting took awhile to get used to and can be a little clunky and confusing at times (and I have an accounting degree).
2. Customer service can take up to 24 hours to get back to you, while that is still a good response time, when you have accounting questions, it can seem like forever.
3. Having the option for so much data can make it hard to remember WHERE your data for a particular item got placed. Was it the unit page? Owner page? Tenant notes? Vendor notes? Maintenance notes? Who knows! It would be great to see a system that links together notes a little better with catch words or a notes search option by date etc to make finding the large volumes of data we collect a little easier. But it is STILL a far better system than anything we have used before.

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