Beacon Storage saves time and streamlines their business, with the switch to Storman Cloud.

Forty years ago in Pakenham, Victoria, a family property sat nestled amongst an apple orchard. A few RVs belonging to family friends were parked around the home – and as word of mouth spread, Beacon Storage was born! Today Beacon Storage operates about 50 units – but true to its roots, specialises in outdoor vehicle storage: anything from caravans to food trucks to buses, and anything in between! You can read all about them on their website, by clicking here.

 

Beacon Storage recently made the switch from Sitelink Web Edition to Storman Cloud for their self-storage management software, and we spoke with Sarah – their site manager – to learn more about their decision to change systems and what it’s meant for their business.

The history:

“When the business first got started, the original owner was recording everything by hand in a diary,” Sarah recalls. “So a few years ago, when his son took over the business, he decided it was time to take it to the next level – with security, management software, the works!”. And so, Beacon Storage installed Storman One, the on-premises predecessor of Storman Cloud.

But as the business continued to grow, their needs evolved – they were looking for cloud-based self-storage management software that they could access from anywhere, and that would integrate seamlessly with their on-site access control. And so, Beacon Storage made the decision to move from Storman One across to Sitelink Web Edition.

However, as a facility that specialises in vehicle storage and the majority of their space being outdoor parking spaces rather than traditional units or bays, they found themselves in a ‘square peg, round hole’ situation with their newly chosen software. “We couldn’t customise the data fields to keep track of the information that was critical to us – aside from the customer information, which was held in Sitelink, we needed to know things like the registration number, and the make or model of the vehicle being stored.”, Sarah explains. To counter for the software not being able to handle the data the facility needed in order to operate, they had to resort to tracking this information in a separate spreadsheet – costing them valuable time jumping back and forth between systems.

 

What led to the switch from Sitelink to Storman Cloud?

 

cloud icon
  • The need for true cloud-based management software for their self-storage facility.
  • The need to have customisable data fields to capture information unique to their business needs.
  • The need to have access to all their information, data and reporting on one single, central platform.

“We needed a single, cloud-based system that could capture everything we needed
in one easily accessible place.”.

 

Enter Storman Cloud.

 

Aerial image of Beacon Storage

 

The change:

Offering a true cloud-based platform that can be accessed from anywhere, along with the ability to create custom data fields to suit the needs of the business (plus a host of other features), the decision to move from Sitelink to Storman Cloud – now more fully developed and improved – made complete commercial sense. Since the big move from Sitelink Web Edition to Storman Cloud in March 2021, Sarah says the software has made management of their facility much easier – in more ways than they expected. 

One of these ways is in the simplicity of Storman Cloud’s user interface – and it’s benefiting not just Beacon Storage’s staff, but their customers as well. 

“It’s just the little features that add up to give you an easier experience”, Sarah says, “You can open multiple tabs, and work on different things at the same time. It takes less clicks to get to things – you don’t need to waste time deep-diving through menus just to find the one tool you’re looking for. Not only that, but with the invoicing templates and layouts, our tenants have said they’re now clearer and easier to understand, too.”. Sarah estimates that the Storman Cloud management software has saved Beacon Storage’s staff over half an hour each day, purely due to the intuitive interface and the fact that reporting and operational tools are both close at hand.

“It’s all about having access to the information you need, where and when you need it. Having a system like Storman Cloud now, that I can log into and see everything I need to know about my customer – who they are, what vehicle they’re storing, where they’re parked – it saves me so much heartache, and so much time.”

– Sarah, Beacon Storage

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