Import a Bank Statement Into AppFolio (CSV)

Every account needs a feed or an upload

AppFolio builds its reconciliation around bank feeds, and it expects every operating and trust bank account to have one, either a direct integration with the bank or a manual statement upload. Direct feeds cover most major institutions and import transactions automatically. But when your bank is not one AppFolio can connect to, or you need a period the feed does not reach, the manual upload is the supported alternative. The snag is that banks send statements as PDFs, and AppFolio cannot read a PDF. Converting the statement to a CSV gives you the file the manual upload accepts, so an unsupported-bank account can still carry the feed AppFolio requires.

Uploading a statement for an unconnected bank

The manual path mirrors the automatic one: instead of AppFolio pulling transactions from the bank, you supply them as a file. Convert the PDF statement to a CSV, then upload it to the matching bank account in AppFolio, taking care to load a trust account statement against the correct trust account number rather than the operating account. AppFolio then presents the transactions to match against what it already has recorded. Because a converted statement comes out with clean, consistent columns, the upload and match go smoothly, without the reshaping a raw or malformed bank export can require.

Operating vs trust account reconciliation

The two account types reconcile to different standards. An operating account is a straightforward match of the bank's transactions to the records in AppFolio for the period. A trust account goes further: reconciliation must confirm that the bank balance, the property management records, and the owner ledgers all agree, which is what catches an error before it reaches an owner statement or a compliance report. A converted statement gives you the bank side of that tie-out in sortable form, so matching each cleared item and confirming the balances line up is a filtering task rather than a page-by-page read.

Service charges and matching the date range

Two small things cause most reconciliation differences. Bank service charges are easy to overlook because they appear on the statement but may not yet be recorded in AppFolio, so a converted CSV that lists every debit makes them easy to catch and enter. The other is the date range: the period you reconcile in AppFolio has to match the period on the bank statement, or the balances will never tie. Converting the statement keeps the exact transactions and dates in front of you, so aligning the range and accounting for every charge is straightforward before you finalize the reconciliation.

Multi-property firms and privacy

A management firm runs many operating and trust accounts, so bringing several unconnected banks into AppFolio can mean a stack of statements. Bulk conversion turns that folder into upload-ready CSVs in one pass, one per account, so onboarding or backfilling accounts does not mean opening a dozen PDFs. Because trust statements hold owner and tenant funds, files are processed to build the CSV and then deleted automatically, with nothing retained on a server afterward. That automatic deletion keeps client trust data out of a third-party tool while still turning PDFs into the feed AppFolio needs.

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