Training Employees for Self-Storage Software Use

Management software is intended to streamline your business operations and improve customer service. If you can’t make your software do what you want it to do—and what it was made to do—your employees won’t be able to effectively or efficiently manage your site. However, training is crucial to effectively and fully apply software at your facility.

To fully integrate management software into your day-to-day systems, an understanding of what the software does is essential. Management software should automate the major aspects of operating your site including accounts receivable (AR), client information, point-of-sale data and reporting. Good management software should be an account-based system, which makes it easy to lease multiple items to a single client and maintain all client and accounting information.

The software should manage documentation by generating invoices, receipts and letters. Having the programs automatically generate these letters and forms and send reports to selected recipients via e-mail frees up your time and decreases the chance of overlooking a customer.

Quality management software manages all aspects of accounts receivable by tracking balances, fees and payments. If the management software system is fully automated, it assesses all rents when due and late fees when past due; updates all rental rates at scheduled intervals; generates default letters and rate-increase notifications; creates a variety of user-selected reports; and reports which customer credit cards need to be charged, who is vacating and other customer-related information. Additionally, if the software is integrated with a credit card processor, it will automatically charge the customer’s credit card or process an automated clearing-house payment for debit card and check payments.

The software keeps track of client information, such as contact information and additional user data, and tracks automatic charges as they are incurred by customers. This allows you to more quickly and efficiently take care of your customers because the management software automatically lets you take one payment for all items from one simple payment screen. User-friendly management software allows you easy, point-and-click access to any screen in a client’s account.