@Jennifer Hudgins a lot of different opinions on here but as an owner of a property management company I would say a few things:
1) It sounds like your agreement does spell out the managers spending threshold. However, it should also indicate if they have permission to handle emergency related services and then inform you in a reasonable amount of time (I would say that waiting to inform you on the financial statement isn't a reasonable amount of time). For example, if I have a pipe burst, in order to protect your asset I need to fix that now, not play phone tag and wait for approval. However, I would be responsible for sending you a text/email/voicemail, depending on your preferred method, with a detailed explanation as to what happened.
2)It is imperative that as an owner/investor you specify in your agreements that if the repair (non-emergency) is over X amount of $$$, the PM is required to submit proposals that are identical in scope and that only you, as the investor, can choose the contractor.
I wouldn't agree to pay a manager a minimum trip charge, or any of these bogus fees. I have a full-time maintenance person that is my employee. As my client, you are responsible for an already agreed upon hourly rate for normal business hours work and then after hours work. However, just because that rate is already agreed upon there is ALWAYS an official work order that has the residents info, a description of their issue, a description of what my tech did, the parts used and a time they arrived and a time they finished. This way there is complete transparency between the manager and client.
In my opinion there should only be three types of fees paid to a manager they are management fee, maintenance repair fee and then if your manager is a full service there can be a construction fee if they are overseeing a large renovation or project. Making trips are part of normal operations as is leasing and filling the unit so there shouldn't be extra fees for that.
As investors, I recommend you be very picky in who you are choosing to operate your asset. In most cases your property manager is either going to make the investment a success or they are going to be a major reason why your owner goals aren't met. It is important that you partner with someone who is going to keep you apprised of all the details as if you were onsite yourself.