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Tag: SiteLink Web Edition

USE SITELINK TO UNDERSTAND OCCUPANCY RATES

Posted on by r6digital

It’s easy to understand the importance of measuring and inspecting the success rates of your Self Storage facility, but how do you actually do that? You might already be gathering this data through SiteLink; however, do you know how to interpret it? Here are some tips for understanding the abundance of information available and how you can apply it to your facility.

Know the goal of your facility

In order to evaluate the success of your facility when looking at reports, you need to know what you should be expecting. Without clear goals and key performance indicators, there’s nothing to evaluate the data against. Knowing what your facility is trying to achieve can help you set your expectations and provide a lens for you to examine and interpret the data with.

Know the difference between unit rates and tenant rates

The unit rate is the set price for a certain type of unit in your facility. The tenant rate is the amount each specific customer pays for their unit/s. For some customers, the unit rate and tenant rate will be the same; however, this won’t always be the case. It’s important you don’t confuse the unit rate and the tenant rate when interpreting your reports. For example, if you want to give a particular tenant a discount, you need to adjust only the tenant rate. Adjusting the unit rate in this instance can significantly lower your future profit margins.

Know your occupancy rates

When you’re looking at your reports, it can be easy to focus on the physical occupancy rates; however, you should actually focus your attention to the economic occupancy rate. While the physical occupancy rate measures how many units are filled, the economic occupancy rate measures how much money is in the bank. If your unit and tenant rates are the same, then your physical and economic occupancy rates will also be the same. If they’re different, you need to carefully examine the economic occupancy rate.

For example, your facility has 10 storage units available and the unit rate is $1o0 per unit. If all 10 of these units are rented, the physical occupancy rate is 100%. If all 10 units are rented at the unit rate, you’re making $1000 and your economic occupancy rate is also at 100%. What about if you’re renting four units at $100 and four units at $50? You’re now only renting eight units for an 80% physical occupancy rate. With an income of $600, your economic occupancy rate is now only 60%.

You’ll need to examine your reports carefully for any gap between your physical and economic occupancy rates. You might be inclined to rent all your units for cheap in order to achieve a physical occupancy rate of 100%; however, this can dramatically limit your profit margins.

Use SiteLink to manage your reports and maximise profits

Using Self Storage management software like SiteLink can make analysing the success of your facility a whole lot easier. You can access your reports in real time and on any device you own. If you’re ready to switch your facility over to SiteLink, contact the team of experts today to learn more.

SiteLink Expands Paperless Office with Lead to Lease Feature

Posted on by r6digital

SiteLink, the global leader in cloud-based software and payment processing for storage operations of all sizes, adds the Lead to Lease feature to SiteLink myHub and electronic signatures to payment receipts with SiteLink Merchant Services. The August update also expands controls for owners with an IP restrictions feature, extending SiteLink’s leadership in customer service and the forward-thinking technology customers rely on to strengthen their business.

Faster & Easier Lead to Lease Workflow in SiteLink myHub

The new Lead to Lease menu in SiteLink myHub replaces Inquiries & Reservations to help managers convert more leads to rentals. The new single-screen, top-to-bottom workflow means fewer clicks with a complete view of rates, specials, options, and competitor pricing. Lead to Lease lets managers schedule follow-up times—not just dates—and appointments. New settings include instant follow-ups, conversions to rentals, and reservations without available units.

Managers rent more because they match leads with the right product faster and overcome price objections with competitor rates at their fingertips. Managers can rent by phone, on the first call, and email leases for tenants to sign more easily with the new reservations menu.

“As the leader in eCommerce websites, SiteLink has handled more online payments, reservations and rentals than other systems,” says Markus Hecker, SiteLink’s COO. “With Lead to Lease, managers convert more leads from websites and other marketing channels even more quickly than before. SiteLink’s LeadAlertTM, TOTAL CRM, and Lead to Lease offers owners the biggest competitive advantage yet.”

Lead to Lease allows searching and managing leads and tenants across multiple stores from a central office, similar to a call centre. Central management is more efficient because myHub runs extremely fast. Delivering speed consistently is a challenge for cloud systems, but myHub is designed from the ground up to always run fast. Signature capture and storage in SiteLink eSign now include cash and credit card receipts with SiteLink Merchant Services. With SiteLink eSign, customers sign credit card receipts using a signature pad, tablet, smartphone, mouse, or keyboard. SiteLink saves signed receipts, including those for payments on SiteLink’s EMV terminal. Owners build a better audit trail and reduce tampering by prompting tenants to sign receipts for cash payments. Receipt signatures reduce credit card chargeback disputes. With SiteLink’s EMV chip and signature technology, merchants can capture signatures to better protect themselves.

“We are excited about this last step toward a paperless office,” said Sheryl Scott, SiteLink Merchant Services’ Chief Operating Officer. “Owners save on paper and ink and make the workflow painless and efficient for retrieving a signed credit card receipt.”

The new electronic signature capture for receipts eliminates storing paper copies in traditional file cabinets. Signatures are binding, trackable, and contain required forensics.

Administrators Limit User Access to SiteLink Web Edition and myHub

New IP settings let administrators limit where, not just when, employees can use SiteLink. Owners now control access more precisely by limiting use of SiteLink Web Edition and myHub to multiple discrete IPs and/or a sequential range. Employees are unable to run SiteLink from devices outside the specified IP list. The IP restrictions come with a Security Level Override so administrators can have access from anywhere. Log-on History reports continue to list IP logins and remain an important part of audits.

SiteLink users can expect steady investment in the growth of their operation’s platform through these and other updates. “Technology will always be evolving,” says Ross Lampe, SiteLink’s President. “At SiteLink, we drive the evolution of software in Self Storage through continuous innovation and by listening to our customers, turning feedback into features and delivering the best product possible.”

SiteLink myHub Adds Day-to-Day Tablet Functions

Posted on by r6digital

Go mobile, run your business on tablets, smartphones, PCs and Macs

SiteLink, the global leader in cloud-based software and payment processing for storage operations of all sizes, has released a new version of SiteLink myHub, the browser-based companion to SiteLink Web Edition self-storage management software.

The browser-based SiteLink myHub works in conjunction with SiteLink Web Edition and runs on tablets, smartphones, PCs and Macs. SiteLink myHub and Web Edition share the same back-end server database in real-time. The cloud-based architecture offers access on any number of devices, from any location.

SiteLink myHub adoption is quick and easy because the intuitive, user-friendly interface mimics that of SiteLink Web Edition. Operators run Web Edition and myHub simultaneously because they share the same database, credentials and access levels.

Convenience is key with SiteLink myHub

Browser-based capabilities give managers and owners more flexibility to operate on more systems including mobile devices and Macs:

  • Move tenants in/out; take payments; transfer units; execute, manage and audit electronic leases (SiteLink eSign) anytime, anywhere.
  • Use the graphical reporting Dashboard to view chart data at a glance (for multiple or single locations), or drill down to detailed reports when needed.
  • Managers verify and update unit status in real-time with the Walk Thru audit report.
  • Multi-store operators enjoy one-click access to all locations.

SiteLink eSign eliminates printing and storing paper records and boosts rentals in-person, online and by phone. Owners and customers alike enjoy the option of replacing print with email. With eFile Management enjoy one-click access and audit tools for all stores at a glance.

The Corporate Control Center version of SiteLink myHub offers the same report formatting, including PDF and Excel exporting, for any specified date range. Multi-store operators access consolidated or individual store reports in real-time.

SiteLink Web Edition customers can take advantage of this added convenience by logging into myHub.siteLink.com with their existing SiteLink credentials. For those who want to demo SiteLink myHub or download full-version demo software for SiteLink Web Edition, please either visit our demo request form, call sales at (07) 3889 9822 or email support@sitelinksoftware.com.au

Learn more about SiteLink myHub and SiteLink self-storage management software at sitelink.com.

About SiteLink

Founded in Raleigh, North Carolina in 1996, SiteLink leads the industry in cloud-based and Windows self-storage management software and built-in, in-house payment processing. Client base feedback, the industry’s largest, and continued innovation result in the fastest, fewest clicks and most modern interface. Profit tools, integrations, quality service and regular updates make SiteLink the favorite of single and multi-store operators, including most top 100 operators. Stores with fewer than 250 units enjoy special bundle pricing. As the leader in website integration and payment processing, SiteLink offers online marketing, reservations, rentals and payment solutions. Built-in electronic signature and document management, TOTAL CRM, revenue management, TeleTracker phone integration and text messaging boost profits. More than fifty SiteLink Marketplace partners like web designers, call centers, kiosks, insurance, access systems and listing services deliver tighter integrations with SiteLink vs. other software. PCI Level 1 & SOC 1 Type II Certifications and industry-first OneSupport deliver software and payment processing support under one roof.

5 Ways Self Storage Sites Can Be EOFY Ready

Posted on by r6digital
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June 30th has crept up on most of us again. We seem to have one every year and our 5 Ways Self Storage Sites Can Be EOFY Ready guide should help. If you are running a Self Storage business, then here are our top 5 ways to be ready for the end of the Financial year.

  1. Track down those rogue debtors. Every Self Storage sites has them, those storers who you just can’t get to pay up on time. If you have a lot of them then your business is subsiding them and if you use accrual accounting, then come June 30 you will have a tax liability and a GST liability for them. You have to fund this from cash flow, so consider firmer action to get them up to date. Here are some ideas to get customers to pay.
  2. Prepay some expenses – Prepaying expenses prior to June 30 in many cases delivers a tax deduction. Consider updating security like old out of date keypads, cameras, DVR’s and more. Even interest can be prepaid, check with your accountant. Here are the ATO Rules .
  3. Get your software “cleaned up” – June 30 is a good time to take stock of all your software tools. Is your software up to date? Clean out your email inbox, archive old emails and complete all backups. clean out your inbox with secrets from Steuart Snooks.
  4. Consider Dropbox. DropBox is a cloud based data sync and back up tool. Migrate your data folders to DropBox. This will help prevent data loss in the event of a fire, computers malfunction or if your computer is stolen.
  5. Print out End of Year Reports – In accounting software you will need to complete any prepayment journals, make any adjustments needed, print out debtors, creditors ledgers, Payroll reports, GST balances and a trial balance. In your Self Storage software, print out management reports, occupancy, banking and debtors and prepayment reports.
5 Ways Self Storage Sites Banner

Some consider that the end of financial year is a good time to consider a general price increase for space. With modern Self Storage software like SiteLink Web Edition, blanket end of month prove increases are a thing of the past. SiteLink has powerful built in revenue tool to manage rent increases on an individual customer basis.

The end of the financial year is a great time to take stock of your business performance. How did we do for the year could we do better? Are my systems holding me back?

The start of new financial year means you can plan to do better, update systems and take advantage of new technology. Some sites can take advantage of up to $20,000 immediate tax right off – handy to update gear and more. Updating to new Self Storage software is only a 24 hour process, so consider an update to SiteLink Web Edition for the new Financial year and join with over 2,400 sites who changed in 2016. Call us today on 07 3889 9822 for more details.

Reserve or Move In?

Posted on by r6digital

Basically it’s the money.

A reservation, booking, promise to pay, I’ll be back, is just that, a promise. Some Self Storage sites will take a deposit and there is evidence to show that the more deposit that you take, the better the Reservation sticks with the customer.

When we book a car online for our holiday we book a car type, small, medium, SUV, prestige or similar. Budget, Hertz or Avis do not allocate a car for your booking until the morning or a few hours before your arrival – the reason is that you may not turn up or you may ring in and change your reservation. If the car companies were to allocate a car to you as soon as you booked, they would need thousands more cars in the booking pool.

It’s the same for Self Storage. Experienced operators understand that customers circumstances change often a day before or the day after the Reservation date. Some potential customers that have a Reservation don’t even call to say that they don’t want the unit anymore, leaving the Self Storage operator with a Reservation that is not real.

SiteLink Web Edition deals with this conundrum by reserving a “Unit Type”, It’s not a lot different to that car company we were talking about earlier. Depending on how your unit types are entered into SiteLink these can be small medium or large spaces or they could even be by size.

The convenience of reserving a space in this method is twofold. Firstly when the customer is ready to move in you can allocate the next available unit that you wish rented in that unit type. If SiteLink was to reserve a specific unit number into the future obviously would have to take that unit out of the rental pool so that it was available for your reservation, given the regularity that reservations are modified, this method could cost you real business. A reservation is very similar to a move in, with the exception that it still a promise. A move in is the real deal. A golden rule of Self Storage is ‘no money, no Move in”

If a Self Storage operator lives by this motto then few problems can exist with Move ins. It’s a little bit different for a business Move in where the business moving in may require an invoice to be paid by head office. It’s up to the operator if they are prepared to accept this type of Move in. Living by this procedure reduces admin errors and account changes.

Some operators attempt to move customers in for future dates without payment. This practice can cause problems, especially if the Move in date is more than 48 to 72 hours into the future. Once the Move in has been completed even without payment, that unit is removed from the rental pool. For the days up to the Move in date, no revenue is received for that space, it’s not vacant and in reality, because it is not paid for it is not rented either. Now you have a unit in limbo. The right procedure for someone that wants to Move in on a future date is to take a paid reservation which could even be the full amount. Upon Move in, convert the Reservation to a Move in. SiteLink has this convenient feature.

Importantly, following this process ensures that a Reservation can be modified should they not Move in, a units revenue is tied to the Move in date and is reported accurately because the money paid applies from the first date of Move in and most importantly there are not modifications made to Move in dates and credits to be issued because of an advanced Move in without payment.

Another important aspect of understanding the relationship between Reservations and Move ins are your rights as an operator with respect to recovery and charging for storage under the standard Self Storage agreement. It’s important to understand that if a Storer has not signed a storage agreement then you have no right to seek payment for the use of the space or sell any items if payment is not made, so it’s critical to get the agreement signed. There is no contract for storage without a signed storage agreement.

Part of the agreement for Self Storage is that fees for Self Storage spaces are to be kept paid in advance. For every customer that moves into Self Storage, ideally a Move in should only be processed if the payment has been made. It’s clear that there are contractual issues between the operator and the Storer once the agreement has been signed one of those terms is that storage fees are to be paid in advance.

So the right process to consider is:

  • If a customer wants to Move in on a future date more than 48 hours into the future, process a Reservation and take a full deposit.
  • If a customer wants to Move in today or tomorrow, process a Move in and take the payment.

If you process a Move in into the future without taking a payment, with the exception of permitted business use, credits may need to be issued and adjustments need to be made if the move in does not happen as planned. This can be avoided by following the above procedures, keeping reporting accurate.

Spotlight on CRM in SiteLink Software

Posted on by r6digital
Spotlight

CRM (Customer Relationship Management) is a powerful tool built into our Self Storage Software – SiteLink. In the past, our only contact customers was to give them bad news, usually contained in late letter 1,2,3,4 and so on!

CRM allows for other strategic notices and materials to be sent to Storers based on an event timeline. It could be a move in, could be prior to move out, could be their anniversary and there are a whole range of events that can be used to trigger a notice to be sent out.

These notices can be in RTF format or in HTML format, HTML notices provide for rich collaboration of images and videos and logos and are recommended for sales based messages.

Spotlight

What are CRM notices?

Examples of CRM notices that self storage softwares such as SiteLink provide can include a welcome notice, set out 48 hours after move in. In this notice you can remind Storers of your opening hours and gate opening hours and another important detail. This notice can be printed or emailed, should it need to be returned to you, your customer may have given you the right information on move in and you can attend to it quickly.

Engaging with customers regularly via specials and events, advertising packaging supplies and inventory can generate additional business for any self storage facility, after all you have hundreds of customers and over the years thousands, they could all be working you as a “silent salesman” – consider a referral discount if the recipient of the email or letter passes on the offer to a friend that does not store. The beauty of this is that with a self storage software it can do all the sending for you, all you have to do is enter the content and pricing and schedule out these specials or emails to be generated, you don’t even have to be near a computer for the email or alert to be sent, drastically reducing admin time spent on CRM and other tasks.

Importantly, communicating bad news is just as important as communicating good news. Last year we had a customer that had to shut their self storage facility for three days because of an adjacent industrial fire. They took the initiative to contact all of their customers by email and SMS and provided a daily update on when access should be available again. It was amazing to see just how many customers praise their efforts for keeping them up-to-date at a time when many customers could assume that the goods might be under threat, the fire looked very menacing on television only fuelling customer fears. Regular email communication via their self storage software avoided many phone calls in sick customers minds at ease.

As we move into the storm season and flood season, keeping customers up-to-date about your opening hours is important. In times of natural disaster, letting people know that there is a clean dry place to store goods is very important. In the Brisbane floods a few years back we published a webpage with self storage facilities with spare space and cartons for sale, it was amazing how many customers accessed those pages and at one stage 1500 views per hour!

CRM is a powerful tool allowing you to engage with your customers keeping them informed about what you’re up to and importantly specials that you might have. If you have any questions about setting up CRM contact our friendly support.

Self Storage Software

Posted on by r6digital
Self Storage Software draft

To run your Self Storage site successfully, you will need to use a reliable and user friendly Self Storage Software, to ensure that the important things like tenant move-ins, end of month reporting, billing and accounts are all kept up to date, systemised and secure.

There are lots of different brands but SiteLink Software stands out as a user favourite having won the prestigious “Best software” category from Inside Self Storage the leading Self Storage publication 4 years running. Self Storage is a service business like many others. Customers conduct their research on the Internet like they do for most things.

Your company website, more often that not will be the first touch to your business, linking potential customers to you. The key to winning the business that can come from this experience is getting your message across clearly and efficiently and then giving the potential customer the ‘chance to buy”- This is where not all Self Storage Software is the same. Full integration with your unit database and the website is essential so that the potential customer can rent a space from you right there right now, should they choose to.

Unfortunately there are a few Self Storage Businesses that decide to opt for the traditional route and do their admin and move-ins via paper form, which can lead to an array of problems! Human error is inevitable, people make mistakes and can cost the owners a lot of money. Can you now see why investing in a self storage software is so important for a business? It really does take the headache and minimise the admin time spent on optimising your management system.

Self Storage Software draft

Thousands of these online move ins happen every day and Self Storage Software like SiteLink Software makes it easy for these transactions to occur. Once the customer has rented a space, they will want to pay for their storage online. SiteLink Software provides a simple web template that can be added to the website so that self Storage payments can be made.

It’s easy for new operators to skip these steps and make the wrong choice of Self Storage Software that does not offer these built in features. This can be a costly mistake, handing online reservations and online move ins to competitors.

Self Storage Software also automates the daily billing task. SiteLink Software provides schedules of letters to be sent every day by email SMS or post. Keeping up to date with his task is easy with Self Storage Management software, SiteLink Software. If you are an existing operator and want to change to SiteLink, we have conversion programs for Winsen, StorMan Software, RentPlus, Syrasoft, Self Storage Manager and many others.

When you reviewing your Self Storage Software options don’t forget PCI compliance. PCI Compliance is critical to ensure the safety of Credit Card transactions.

Want to know more about SiteLink Software? Contact us here to start your free trial!