Whether you’re new to – or a veteran of – the Self Storage or Bank Vault industries, making the running of your business easier is likely somewhere near the top of your to-do list. What that goal in mind, here are six things you should consider when purchasing Management Software.
Good management software lets you manage your customers. Great management software lets you manage their expectations, too.
1. Scalability
A management software package should easily scale to meet the needs of a growing business. One particular way to do this is to use software that has a modular design; in other words, the package grows with you – as Storman does. By adding extra software modules, you can enhance the customer experience through add-on services such as integrated Storman Online Move-ins or Storman Payments.
2. New business locations
How many locations or sites is your business going to have – and can your software cope with these changes? As mentioned above, your management software needs to scale with your business. While you start out as a business with one location and 50 rentable areas, you may end up expanding that to 250 rentable areas… across multiple locations. What if you purchase a new location with another 500 spaces?
Before you know it, you could have a handful of sites that you wish to manage with the same system. The software package needs to be able to manage the data from all locations and enable you to handle key business functions like financials and reporting across the sites as well as on an individual site basis.
3. Number of rentable areas
How many rentable spaces (ie. units, berths, safety deposit boxes etc) do you want the software to manage? Whether you’re dealing with self storage units or safety deposit boxes at a vault – your management software needs to be able to accommodate the information required. Additionally, it needs to manage the many customers that each space will have over its lifetime – plus know how to manage that information and its connection to billing cycles, rental increases, historical data and so forth.
4. Number of users
Just like the number of rentable areas, the number of active users required should also be a contributing factor in your software selection process – as many companies have different requirements and configurations.
Large businesses (such as a busy self storage facility) with many rentable areas will often require that multiple users can access the data at the same time; such as a front desk operator to interact with customers, a manager in the office or an accountant who seeks financial data from the system.
The ability of a software package to manage data between multiple users & avoid information conflicts is crucial, as your entire customer management solution is based around data integrity.
5. Data & Reporting
Those who are on top of all aspects of their business and its performance will be able to further drive its successes – and the key to that is solid reporting. Your management software should be able to provide crucial information and statistics like financial reports, marketing data, income from merchandise sales, as well as occupancy levels & trending …just to name a few.
A business may also wish to conduct audits on its customers, inventory levels, staff – even access control systems. Without this information, business growth can become become stagnant, with little to no ability to reflect and grow. Storman has over 50 reports – as well as a Custom Report Builder – to assist in obtaining the data you need, when you need it. You can also schedule reports to email daily, weekly, monthly & annual – depending on your requirements.
6. Ancillary functions
While the basic functions of your self storage or vault management software will help your business run, there are optional features to consider. These make the day-to-day running of your business a little smoother.
Features like being able to have your customers reserve, book and pay for a rentable spaces (ie. units, berths, safety deposit boxes etc) through your website, utilising a visual display of your facility to give you or your customers a better grasp of what you have to offer, automated payment collections straight from a bank account or credit card = even connections to access control software to monitor the comings and goings at your various business locations.
If the software is modular in its design (like Storman), then most of these features can be added as your business grows – saving you lots of time and money in the long run. If you haven’t yet tried Storman, we welcome you to get a free demonstration today!
