Customer Story

BSG Enterprises: How AppFolio Helps a Family Business Scale — Without Additional Overhead

BSG Enterprises, LLC

Established: 2021
Location: Billings, Montana
Portfolio: Commercial, Residential
Units Under Management: 106

Based in Billings, Montana, BSG Enterprises owns and operates a diverse portfolio. Transitioning from QuickBooks to AppFolio has allowed Melissa Gentry to streamline operations, reduce manual work, and set the foundation for future growth within a single, cloud-based platform.

Estimated return in annual time and labor savings

$200,000

Reduction in background check costs

60% per screening

Increase in speed of background checks

7 days to less than 7 seconds

“There’s so much that AppFolio offers, and that’s why I’m just so excited. Every week there’s something I figure out in AppFolio that makes my life so much easier and better. It’s gotten to the point where my husband is sick of hearing about it. It’s all I talk about!”

Melissa Gentry
Owner and Property Manager, BSG Enterprises, 106 units

From Unexpected Beginnings to Continuing the Family Legacy

Melissa’s promising career in real estate sales and leasing took an unexpected turn in November 2020 when her father, a successful commercial real estate broker who owned a large portfolio, passed away. Melissa found herself inheriting not just properties, but a family legacy that needed steady hands to guide it forward.

Today, Melissa owns and operates 106 units (and counting) in a true family business. Her mother handles invoicing while her husband oversees big picture maintenance and development. As is the case in many family businesses, Melissa’s role defies categorization:

“I do a little bit of everything. I’m the leasing agent, I help my mom with invoicing, I do lease amendments, I make sure everything is in order — background checks, social security numbers. I take move-in pictures. I was even picking up rocks out of a parking lot before this meeting.”

With deep family roots in the local community and a hands-on approach to operations, Melissa has built a thriving business by staying involved in every detail — and by embracing the right technology tools.

The Right Tool for the Job

With only a three-person team, BSG Enterprises oversees every aspect of property management, including invoicing, leasing, maintenance, and resident communication. While QuickBooks served its original purpose for basic accounting, it couldn’t keep up with the increasing demands of a fast-growing and complex real estate operation.

“They kept on timing out the software, and every time I needed an update, they would charge me, and it was expensive. I just didn’t feel like the customer service was there. They were trying to push us to the cloud, but since I wanted a one-stop property management shop anyway, I decided to look at AppFolio, Yardi, and DoorLoop. I’m a little fish in a big ocean when it comes to property management, and Yardi seemed pretty expensive for what I was doing. And then DoorLoop just didn’t seem like it had enough for me. Enough choices, enough customer service. AppFolio has so many bells and whistles, plus the AppFolio Stack™ feature too, which is really nice. So I decided to go with AppFolio for those reasons and because of the price and the customer service.”

Transforming Complex Accounting With Dedicated Support

Taking over a multi-property portfolio meant inheriting decades of financial complexity and being faced with the daunting task of modernizing and organizing years of commingled finances. But the training and support Melissa received made all the difference.

“The training was great. I felt very supported. If I need a phone call or a Zoom from someone at AppFolio, they’ll do that. I have a lot of support here.”

Now, after a year of deep focus, she’s seeing the payoff:

“Just this year I added three more buildings to annual CAM reconciliations. My parents used to manually calculate those bills every month — electric, water, everything. Now with AppFolio, I know if we build it right, it will always be right.”

From Dual Systems to Complete Confidence

For property managers deeply entrenched in QuickBooks, the fear of switching accounting systems can be paralyzing. Will the numbers match? Can they trust a new platform with their financial data? Melissa faced these same concerns and took the cautious approach many owners choose: running both systems in parallel:

“It was horrible. It was a lot of work.”

The turning point came when her accountant delivered the verdict after meticulously reviewing both systems:

“He said they’re identical, and that was great. So as of December 31st, I’m completely done with QuickBooks.”

Digital Transformation: From Bank Runs to Automated Operations

With AppFolio, residents and commercial tenants now pay rent online, empowering Melissa’s team to save valuable time.

“Online payments are huge for me. A lot of people were saying, ‘Gosh, it’d be nice if you guys could take online payments.’ It’s so nice, not having to go to the bank all the time. It’s all in the cloud, and the tenant ledger gets updated automatically. Plus, AppFolio automatically applies a late fee. Before, we had to put late fees on ourselves. It makes life a lot easier.”

Unlocking AppFolio Bank Feed was a turning point for Melissa. What used to be a time-consuming chore is now nearly effortless:

“With Bank Feed… oh my gosh. Everything’s reconciled for me automatically. It’s such a nice feeling, when it goes all green after putting in the ending balance.”

ustomer_Story_BGS_Enterprises_Online_Payments

Maximizing ROI: How AppFolio Pays for Itself

The automation and unified workflows in AppFolio have dramatically reduced the time Melissa and her team spend on routine tasks, freeing them to focus on growing the business. With fewer manual processes and improved efficiency, she estimates AppFolio Property Manager saves BSG Enterprises the time equivalent of $200,000 annually. Tasks such as one-click background checks and collections processes that used to take hours — or even days — now take only minutes, giving back valuable time each day.

“Saving time and my resources does allow me to talk to more people, which helps me definitely grow the business. AppFolio is so much faster than what I was using. What used to take 7 business days, now with AppFolio, it is not even 7 seconds. I was using a separate service for background checks, but AppFolio is barely one-third that cost. And now, I go into AppFolio Stack for collections; with just one click of a button, everything goes to Hunter Warfield, which I really, really like.”

Efficient Communication Meets Reliable Documentation

The bulk email and messaging tools in AppFolio also make it easy for the team at BSG Enterprises to reach all of their customers from a single dashboard. Melissa appreciates that every interaction is automatically documented to provide a secure record of resident communications. This tracking is critical in legal or billing situations, where accurate timestamps and proof of message tracking are necessary.

“I can send statements to the whole building on a monthly basis. Businesses need an invoice they can download, pay, and file for their taxes. We used to send them all out manually and individually. Now, with just one click, I can say, ‘Email the building,’ and it processes everybody.”

Vendor Management Made Easy

Melissa’s contractors also now upload their own invoices directly into AppFolio, further streamlining vendor management. Smart Bill Entry keeps everything organized with digital records and attachments and creates a complete audit trail that simplifies year-end reconciliations. The result is a faster, more transparent payables process that greatly reduces the chance for errors.

“I love the Smart Bill feature. We've been very happy with the fact that our maintenance contractors can just send a bill, and I can pay it right from AppFolio with a whole paper trail.”

Running a Property Management Business From Anywhere

The cloud-based platform in AppFolio gives Melissa and her team the freedom to manage the entire business from anywhere, whether in the office or on the go. With mobile access, remote banking tools, and digital documentation, BSG Enterprises is laying the groundwork for a future where it can operate fully off-site. This flexibility is key, as Melissa plans to travel more to grow their real estate portfolio.

“One day I would love to be completely paperless. I think AppFolio will help me get there. I love it when I collect payment from people and then I put in ‘received payment,’ and then I go to the new deposit, go to deposit it, and then I’ve got it set up to where it prints me out a deposit slip so I don’t have to fill that out myself. I really like that I have AppFolio on my phone, so if somebody gives me cash and I go straight to the bank, I can do the deposit on my phone too, and it's right there in my hand. I’ve just been really, really happy with it.”

Scaling, Refining, and Future-Proofing

For Melissa and her small, hands-on team at BSG Enterprises, switching to AppFolio has helped bring order to a complex operation. It’s cut down on repetitive tasks, improved the way they manage accounting, and made it easier to stay on top of what’s happening across their properties. With more clarity and less paperwork, they’re able to run the business more smoothly — and set it up for long-term success.

“I have encouraged everybody to go to AppFolio. It makes everything easier. It’s so robust in all aspects of property management. It’s just phenomenal.”