Appfolio webhooks events

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

Event	Payload Fields	Use Case
tenant.created	tenant_id, property_id, email	Sync new tenant to CRM
work_order.updated	work_order_id, status, assigned_vendor	Dispatch or escalate maintenance
payment.received	lease_id, amount_cents, payment_method	Update accounting ledger
lease.signed	lease_id, move_in_date, term_months	Activate unit and send welcome
lease.expired	lease_id, unit_id, vacate_date	Trigger renewal or re-listing

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

Issue	Cause	Fix
Signature mismatch	Wrong secret or parsed body	Use express.raw() for verification
Duplicate events	AppFolio retry on timeout	Track event IDs for idempotency
Missing property_id	Event from archived property	Check property status before processing
5xx from handler	Downstream service unavailable	Return 200 immediately, process async

Resources

• AppFolio Stack APIs

Next Steps

See appfolio-security-basics.