How it works
From the statement your PM sends to books you can prove.
Three stages: statements flow in, the auditor proves them, and the picture stays ready for whatever needs it. Here is each stage with the lid off.
1 · Statements flow in on their own
Blotter is statement-native: it reads the document your property manager already produces, so there is no data entry, no bank-feed archaeology, no chart of accounts to maintain. Four roads in, all leading to the same place:
Forward the email
Your PM already emails the statement every month. Forward it once, or set up a rule so it forwards itself, to your private Blotter address. The attachment becomes an audit before you have read the subject line.
Capture from the portal
The browser extension spots statements on your PM’s portal (AppFolio, Buildium, Rentvine, and more) and syncs them in a click, or automatically if you turn that on. No copying files around.
Connect the account
Connect your portal login once and new statements arrive on their own, on schedule, without you touching anything. The connection is revocable any time.
Or just drop the PDF
Drag the statement, or the whole owner packet ZIP, onto the page. A statement from 1997 works as well as one from this morning. Every road leads to the same audit.
2 · The auditor proves the month
Every line is extracted: date, payee, description, amount, and the page it came from. Then the checks run, in order of authority:
The reconciliation oracle. Beginning balance + receipts − disbursements must equal the ending balance. The statement carries its own answer key, and Blotter holds it to the cent. A statement that fails is never silently accepted: the gap is shown, with the failing check and the page. A statement that prints no balances is labeled unverifiable, never pretended over.
The rule library. A versioned set of deterministic rules hunts the expensive patterns: duplicate charges, fee creep, charges against units collecting no rent, fees that disagree with your management agreement, broken month-to-month balance chains, missing statements. Rules are deterministic where money is involved; nothing about your dollars is left to a model’s mood.
The paper trail. If your PM sends owner packets, every charge is matched to the invoice behind it: backed at cost, above invoice, or no paper found. Self-billed PM labor, marked-up maintenance, and reimbursements miscoded as income surface here, where statement-level reading cannot see them.
The bank check. Optionally connect your bank (read-only, via Plaid) and every owner draw is matched to the deposit that actually landed.
3 · Ready the day you need it
The portfolio picture
Income, expenses, and net across every door and every manager, always current, every figure traceable to a statement line.
Monthly digests
A short note when statements arrive: what came in, what changed, and "all clear" when it is, because something actually checked.
Questions worth asking
When a flag is real, Blotter drafts a polite, evidence-cited question for your PM, and tracks what you recover. Questions, never accusations.
The tax package
Schedule E per property, the capital-improvements schedule, the gross-vs-net 1099 reconciliation, and an open-items memo. Your CPA gets a folder, not a shoebox.
Every figure verified against the statement’s own arithmetic. Findings cite their evidence. And when the engine cannot verify something, it says so instead of guessing. That last sentence is most of the product.
Why we built it this way: the manifesto. What it costs: pricing.