AppFolio Webhooks & Events

Overview

AppFolio Stack delivers real-time webhook notifications for property management lifecycle events including tenant onboarding, lease execution, rent payments, and maintenance workflows. Use these webhooks to sync AppFolio data with your CRM, accounting system, or custom property management dashboards without polling the API.

Webhook Registration

const response = await fetch("https://api.appfolio.com/v1/webhooks", {
  method: "POST",
  headers: {
    "Authorization": `Bearer ${process.env.APPFOLIO_API_KEY}`,
    "Content-Type": "application/json",
  },
  body: JSON.stringify({
    url: "https://yourapp.com/webhooks/appfolio",
    events: ["tenant.created", "work_order.updated", "payment.received", "lease.signed"],
    secret: process.env.APPFOLIO_WEBHOOK_SECRET,
  }),
});

Signature Verification

import crypto from "crypto";
import { Request, Response, NextFunction } from "express";

function verifyAppFolioSignature(req: Request, res: Response, next: NextFunction) {
  const signature = req.headers["x-appfolio-signature"] as string;
  const expected = crypto
    .createHmac("sha256", process.env.APPFOLIO_WEBHOOK_SECRET!)
    .update(req.body)
    .digest("hex");
  if (!crypto.timingSafeEqual(Buffer.from(signature), Buffer.from(expected))) {
    return res.status(401).json({ error: "Invalid signature" });
  }
  next();
}

Event Handler

import express from "express";
const app = express();

app.post("/webhooks/appfolio", express.raw({ type: "application/json" }), verifyAppFolioSignature, (req, res) => {
  const event = JSON.parse(req.body.toString());
  res.status(200).json({ received: true });

  switch (event.type) {
    case "tenant.created":
      syncTenantToCRM(event.data.tenant_id, event.data.property_id); break;
    case "work_order.updated":
      notifyMaintenanceTeam(event.data.work_order_id, event.data.status); break;
    case "payment.received":
      recordPayment(event.data.lease_id, event.data.amount_cents); break;
    case "lease.signed":
      activateLease(event.data.lease_id, event.data.move_in_date); break;
  }
});

Event Types

tenant.created

tenant_id

property_id

email

work_order.updated

work_order_id

status

assigned_vendor

payment.received

lease_id

amount_cents

payment_method

lease.signed

lease_id

move_in_date

term_months

lease.expired

lease_id

unit_id

vacate_date

Retry & Idempotency

const processed = new Set<string>();

async function handleIdempotent(event: { id: string; type: string; data: any }) {
  if (processed.has(event.id)) return;
  await routeEvent(event);
  processed.add(event.id);
  if (processed.size > 10_000) {
    const entries = Array.from(processed);
    entries.slice(0, entries.length - 10_000).forEach((id) => processed.delete(id));
  }
}

Error Handling

express.raw()

property_id

Resources

• AppFolio Stack APIs

Next Steps

See

appfolio-security-basics