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Freedom Through Storage
103 members • Free
8 contributions to Freedom Through Storage
Feb 17 •
Deposits - antiquated or …?
Kept seeing comments on various platforms about how “tedious”tracking advance refundable deposits is, it really piques my interests as what exactly do operators do to “track”? I assume most of softwares take the deposit payment and categorize it (accounting wise) in a separate bucket, and when move out happens, you just click the refund button if the tenant didn’t do any damage? Is this not the case? I had no prior experience taking in deposits so would like to hear others who had and what the pain points are specifically.
1 like • 5d
@Ying Fu Sorry i just saw this, How security deposits work in Smart Storage is this.. You can set a "deposit" amount to be charged by the specific unit type.. so it wont get applied to ALL units unless you set it that way. for instance you may not want to charge a security deposit on a parking space. A owner/manager can remove the deposit during the rental process with a simple button click. A renter doing 100% online rental cannot bypass the deposit. Then there is a report that allows you to see what deposits you are holding. As a general comment, no one that I know of charges security deposits any more, most have moved to one time admin fees, Move in Fee, some people have also begun to call this a TSR- fee.. (technology service recovery fee), fancy way of saying a fee to offset the cost of your website, software, and other technology
24d •
Do you give your "boots on the ground" a free unit at your facility?
Question for current facility owners. Shane and I have never had a problem allowing our any of our BOG to have a free unit (depending on occupancy, of course). It gives them a different prospective utilizing the facility as a customer as well as an employee. Do any of you do this? If so, what issues have you experienced? Positive or Negative..
1 like • 5d
I see ALOT of owners that do give away a free space to their employee.. I would charge the full rate and then just add a "employee Credit" to offset the rent amount.. maybe do it once every 6 months or so .. And if they stop being an employee they stop getting the employee credit..
Feb 12 •
Additional streams of income-
Congrats to @Mike Perkins and @Tammy Perkins for reaching out to tenants to see if they need more space and have rented additional units. When a tenant can’t keep up with rent, we offer a smaller unit- opening their bigger unit to be rented at the current street rates. We also charge for 24 hours access, additional fees for cutting locks, new locks, mandatory insurance, and we set up parking spaces with any extra space that we have. I would love to see what other owners/operators do for additional streams of income… look forward to the call noon! See you there! 🙂
2 likes • Feb 12
Charge phone payment fees. $3 (others charge far more) times 20 payments over the phone = $60 just for getting paid, and it DOES cost you more time and resources to accept a phone payment than an online payment.. so get compensated for the extra effort.
2 likes • Feb 13
@Andrea Chapin VA/Employee answering calls
Feb 11 •
VA Phone VOIP
For those that have or are using a VA, what phone VOIP are you using and how important is having texting ability?
2 likes • Feb 12
My VA/ assistant is located in the USA.. if you get one outside the USA just be sure the VOIP you choose allows overseas access.. or they will have to use a VPN.. and that can cause issues with voice calls. That being said... We have been using a service called Quo (former OpenPhone). and we love it. Unlimited everything and has some nice basic features that allow you to setup automated text mssg replys for missed calls, after hours calls, etc. And the price isnt bad either. We are using it for multiple numbers and business'
Feb 10 •
Allowing non-tenants at your facility-
Just curious…on a previous post by Ying, she had mentioned allowing possible “future tenants” to view the unit before making a decision. We don’t typically allow anyone on the lot to “preview” the unit. I’d love to hear who in the group does this… reasons for why you do, or why you do not. Do many people ask for this? Look forward to hearing your answers
2 likes • Feb 12
We are similar to others.. this rarely happens, but when it does, we tell them to call us when they are at the location, we open the gate thru the software and watch them on our cameras, then we give them the door combo code for the unit they are viewing. if they dont rent we just have our local guy swap the lock on his next pass by..
1-8 of 8
Active 5d ago
Joined Jan 1, 2026
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