In property management, reimbursable expenses should be one of the cleanest parts of your accounting. A manager makes a purchase for a property, the property reimburses the management company, and life moves on.

But that’s not what actually happens.

What we see, across portfolios of every size, is something very different:

Credit card charges spread across multiple properties, unclear reimbursements, unreconciled balances, and corporate accounts quietly fronting thousands of dollars without realizing it.

It’s one of the biggest hidden problems in property management accounting — and one that owners routinely underestimate until the balance becomes too large to ignore.

And the truth is simple:

This problem isn’t caused by complexity. It’s caused by the absence of a clean, repeatable workflow.

Where Reimbursable Expenses Go Off the Rails

The breakdown usually starts with credit cards. They’re convenient, fast, and used by everyone—property managers, regionals, maintenance supervisors, even vendors. Purchases flow through one corporate card, but those charges belong to many different properties.

So the card gets paid by the management company, and that’s where clarity evaporates.

Suddenly the questions begin:

• Which charges belong to which property?
  
  
• Were all of them billed back?
  
  
• Were they paid back?
  
  
• If they weren’t, how much are we actually owed?
  
  
• And why does this card have a balance that feels… suspiciously high?
  
  

Shawn, our property accounting expert, hears versions of this every week. A manager recently called him her staring at a credit card balance that had ballooned by $25,000, unsure which charges were reimbursed and which weren’t.

Not because anyone did something wrong.

Because no one could see the full picture.

When the workflow is unclear, the numbers become unclear — and in accounting, unclear numbers always lead to stress.

The Real Cost of a Disorganized Reimbursement Process

The financial impact is obvious: the management company unintentionally bankrolls property operations. But the operational cost is just as damaging.

You feel it in the strained cash flow.

You feel it when month-end takes too long.

You feel it when owners ask simple questions you can’t answer with confidence.

And because the process is reactive instead of engineered, reconciliation becomes a chore everyone avoids — which only magnifies the problem.

This isn’t an accounting challenge.

It’s a workflow challenge.

And once you fix the workflow, the accounting snaps into place.

A More Disciplined, Modern Way to Handle Reimbursable Expenses

Here’s the good news: the solution is not complicated.

ShawnSean developed a workflow that’s now used across our portfolio — a system designed for clarity, speed, and accuracy. It works inside AppFolio and adapts well to QuickBooks Online. And most importantly, it brings order to a part of accounting that desperately needs it.

The workflow looks like this from the outside:

Clear data → clean bills → accurate reimbursements → smooth reconciliation.

But let’s make it feel even simpler.

Step 1: Start with a Clean Statement

Once a month, pull the credit card statement as a CSV or Excel file. Send it to the client, and have them label each charge with the property it belongs to. This one step creates clarity where there was none.

(And yes, you’ll be shocked at how often this single action solves half the problem.)

Step 2: Turn Chaos into Structure with AppFolio’s Bulk Bill Upload

This is the heart of the workflow.

Instead of manually creating dozens of bills across multiple properties, you upload the charges in one clean batch. AppFolio creates one bill per charge on the property management company’s books.

Step 3: Track What Properties Owe in One Place

Charges that are billable back to a property are routed to a dedicated accounts receivable GL—typically something like “Property Reimbursements Receivable.” This approach is faster, more precise, and eliminates the messy “multiple checks to the credit card company” problem that often derails reconciliation. 

This single bucket becomes your command center.

You always know exactly how much owners owe, and nothing slips through the cracks.

AppFolio creates one bill per charge, with the right property and the right GL code. It’s faster, more precise, and eliminates the messy “multiple checks to the credit card company” problem that derails reconciliation.

Here, technology does what it’s meant to do:

reduce effort and restore clarity.

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Step 3: Track What Properties Owe in One Place

All reimbursable charges get routed into a dedicated accounts receivable GL — usually something like “Property Reimbursements Receivable.”

This single bucket becomes your command center.

You always know exactly how much owners owe, and nothing slips through the cracks.

Step 4: Use Bill-Back to Complete the Loop

AppFolio’s Bill Back to Property feature quietly becomes the hero here. One click allocates the corporate bill to the right property and creates the corresponding receivable. What used to be a manual chase becomes a clean, closed loop.

Funds flow back automatically.

Receipts match.

The AR clears.

Everyone breathes easier.

Step 5: Reconciliation Becomes… Almost Boring

And that’s a compliment.

Because when the total of your billed charges matches the total on the credit card statement, reconciliation stops being a puzzle and becomes a quick, confidence-building review.

What This Looks Like When It’s Working

When reimbursable expenses follow a disciplined workflow, the whole business feels the difference:

• Cash flow is predictable. No more hidden liabilities.
• Reconciliation is clean. You close the month with confidence.
• Managers feel in control. Owners get clear explanations instead of apologies.
• The accounting team stops firefighting.
• The business gains clarity — and clarity powers progress.

You move from reacting to leading.

From guessing to knowing.

From disorder to discipline.

And that’s the kind of shift that changes how a company operates.

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