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What unlimited users means for a two-person storage facility

9 min readUpdated

A two-person storage facility is rarely two people. There is the owner, the manager who runs the counter, a spouse who answers the phone on weekends, a relative who covers vacation week, and the bookkeeper who wants to see the payments report once a month. That is five logins for a place with one employee, and the first thing most software quotes do with those five logins is charge for each one.

This guide walks through what unlimited users self storage software actually means at a small site, who needs their own login, which roles to hand out, and why per-seat pricing fits a corporate office better than a 180-unit facility with a drive-up gate. It works for any system you run; the last sections show how Storage Facility Creator handles each step.

Why per-seat pricing fails a two-person facility

Per-seat pricing was designed for offices where every user is a full-time employee sitting at the software all day. A storage facility is the opposite. Most of the people who need access touch the system for a few minutes a week: the weekend relief checks a balance, the bookkeeper downloads one report, the owner glances at the dashboard from the truck. A monthly seat for each of them is full price for a login used twice a month.

The predictable result is that small operators stop adding users. One login gets written on a sticky note, and everyone shares it. That saves the seat fee and creates three new problems: you cannot tell who recorded a payment, you cannot remove one person without changing the password for everyone, and a part-timer who leaves on bad terms still knows it.

When you compare software, look for the word "user" or "seat" on the pricing page. If the price is per user, multiply it by every name on the list in the next section, not by the number of employees on payroll.

Who actually needs a login at a small facility

Sit down with a notepad and list every person who touches the business in a normal month. Most two-person facilities land on five to seven names. A typical list:

  • The owner, who needs everything: billing, bank connection, rates, and the power to add or remove people.
  • The on-site manager, who moves tenants in and out, takes payments, sends late notices and overlocks units.
  • A spouse or partner who answers the phone and needs to look up a balance or a gate code without being able to change rates.
  • Relief staff, the person who covers vacation week or Saturday mornings, who should be able to take a payment and nothing much else.
  • The bookkeeper or accountant, who needs the monthly payments report and should not be able to change anything.
  • A second-site manager if you own more than one facility, who should see only their own site.

Roles: what each person should be able to do

Roles are the answer to "everyone gets a login but not everyone gets the keys." Most self storage software settles on four tiers, and four is about right for a small operator. More than that and nobody remembers who can do what; fewer and the Saturday relief ends up able to delete tenants.

Match each name on your list to the narrowest role that still lets them do their job. If someone only reads, make them a viewer. If they take payments but should not set rates or remove tenants, make them an employee. Save manager for the person who runs the site day to day, and keep owner for yourself and at most one business partner.

  • Owner: subscription and billing, payment processor connection, facility settings, adding and removing team members, archiving or deleting a facility.
  • Manager: everything on the counter. Move-ins, move-outs, payments, late fees, overlocks, paid-through dates, reminders and team notes. No billing for the software itself.
  • Employee: take payments, record contact with tenants, send a reminder, look up gate codes. No settings, no deleting tenants.
  • Viewer: read-only. Balances, reports and the tenant list. The bookkeeper and the spouse on phone duty usually land here.

Stop sharing one login

If your facility runs on one shared password today, the move to individual logins takes about an hour. This order causes the least disruption:

  • Create the owner account under your own email, not the office email, and turn on two-factor authentication if the software offers it.
  • Invite each person from your list under their own email address with the role you chose. Do not reuse the office address for anyone.
  • Change the old shared password once everyone has signed in with their own login, then retire it. Keep the office email for tenant-facing mail only.
  • Write the role list on one page and tape it inside the office cabinet. When someone asks for more access, you change the role, not the password.
  • When a part-timer leaves, remove their access the same day. With individual logins that is one click and no one else is affected.

Unlimited users self storage software: how Storage Facility Creator handles it

Storage Facility Creator is priced per facility, $75 a month, month to month, with unlimited users and no onboarding fee. Add as many staff logins as you need for that one facility price. The subscription covers the whole team. If you run more than one facility, each one is its own subscription and its own team, and you switch between them, or view them all at once, from one account.

Roles follow the four tiers in this guide: Owner, Manager, Employee or Viewer, set per facility and enforced both in the app and on the database, so a viewer cannot change a rate by finding the right screen. Owners invite staff by email with the role they picked, and the new person joins the facility from a link in that email. Changing a role or removing someone later happens on the Team management screen, reached from Settings, then Permissions, one facility at a time.

A few examples of what the roles control in practice. Billing for the software is owner-only; team members see that billing is handled by the facility owner. Connecting the Stripe account that takes tenant card payments is also an owner action, and so is archiving or deleting a facility. Overlocking delinquent units and setting paid-through dates are for owners and managers. Agreements follow the same pattern: viewers can read them, managers and employees can create and send them, and only owners and managers can delete them. Reports are open to owners, managers and viewers by default, which is exactly what the bookkeeper needs and nothing more.

Staff can also message each other and keep shared facility notes inside the app, so the Saturday relief reads what happened on Friday without a text thread. Every call, visit, letter and text with a tenant can be logged on the tenant record, and emails and texts sent from the app are added to that log for you.

Keeping it safe: two-factor, offboarding and the audit trail

Three things make individual logins worth trusting. First, two-factor authentication: each user can turn it on, and then every sign-in needs a one-time code sent to their email. Turn it on for the owner account at least, since that account can change billing and remove people. Deleting a facility takes a typed confirmation and, when two-factor is on, a fresh emailed code as well.

Second, offboarding. Removing a team member takes away their access to that facility. When an account is disabled, any open session ends within about a minute. Either way, the person who left does not keep working access on their phone. Each staff member manages their own display name and sign-in email from Settings.

Third, the record of who did what. Key actions such as payments, move-ins, move-outs, Do Not Rent changes and team changes are written to a per-facility audit trail that cannot be edited, with the person and the time. Every overlock is recorded on the unit's own history, every autopay change is logged with who made it and when, and every retail stock adjustment keeps the before and after count and who entered it. That is the difference between "someone took $40 cash on Tuesday" and a record of which login posted that payment and when.

Gate access is where small facilities most often leak. Storage Facility Creator keeps a gate code on file for every tenant, lets you limit it to certain days, hours or dates, and switches it off at move-out without deleting the record. All staff can look a code up; editing codes is for owners and managers. The app manages codes and schedules only; it does not connect to gate hardware, so you still enter codes at your keypad or controller the way you do today.

A setup checklist for a two-person facility

Whatever software you pick, this is the list to work through on day one.

  • List everyone who touches the business, including the bookkeeper and the weekend phone.
  • Assign the narrowest role that lets each person do their job. Default to viewer when in doubt.
  • Invite each person by email. One person, one login, no shared office account.
  • Turn on two-factor authentication for the owner account, then ask the manager to do the same.
  • Retire the shared password and keep the office email for tenant mail only.
  • Put a reminder in your calendar to review the team list each quarter and remove anyone who has moved on.
  • Sign in from your phone once so you know balances and gate codes are there when you are off site.

Questions operators ask

Is there a per-user charge in Storage Facility Creator?

No. The subscription is $75 per facility per month, month to month, with unlimited users and no onboarding fee. The owner, the manager, relief staff and the bookkeeper all get their own logins at no extra cost per user.

What roles are available?

Owner, Manager, Employee and Viewer, set per facility. Roles are enforced in the app and on the database. Custom permission sets are not available; pick the tier that fits and keep the list short.

Can my bookkeeper see reports without being able to change anything?

Give them the Viewer role. Viewers can read reports, balances and the tenant list, but cannot change anything. The payments report can be downloaded as a CSV for your accountant from the Reports page.

What happens when an employee leaves?

Remove their access from the Team management screen under Settings, then Permissions. They lose access to that facility right away, and if the account is disabled any open session ends within about a minute. Nobody else has to change a password.

I own two facilities. Do I need two sets of users?

Each facility is its own $75 subscription with its own team and roles, so a manager at one site sees only that site. You, as the owner, run both from one login and switch between them or view them all at once. During the trial you can set up one facility; adding more needs a card-backed subscription.

Does the software run on a phone?

Storage Facility Creator is a web app that works in the browser on phones, tablets and desktops with nothing to install. There is no native app in the app stores.

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