Whether your storage rental business is large, small, or just starting up, it is important to use self-storage software to manage your company and its financials.

A sound accounting system is the key to properly tracking expenses and revenues—and you can even track these by each unit. With such a system, you can easily calculate your profit-margin and return on investment (ROI), which is critical to running your business productively and profitably. The case is no different when it comes to managing self-storage unit rentals.

One of our clients inquired about such a system, as you can see:

Q: What program do you recommend for managing the rentals of storage units? I have 150 units, and rent is collected monthly. I would also need to be able to change the name of renters as they moved into and out of units.

A: The version of QuickBooks that your company should use depends on the features, number of users, and number of transactions you need. For self-storage rentals, we would initially recommend using QuickBooks Pro, which is a one-time payment. However, since it is a Desktop program, you and your team cannot access your data from anywhere. Also, you will not get automatic feature updates, and because of this, we recommend upgrading the software every three years.

If you would like a software that is ever-changing and always developing to keep up with the industry demand for new features, we recommend using QuickBooks Online for self-storage businesses. QuickBooks Online is subscription-based, but you will receive constant feature updates, and you can access your account from anywhere with an internet connection.

Of course, every business is unique; you can talk with one of our bookkeeping experts to go over what you need out of your self-storage software, and based upon your requirements, he or she can recommend the software that is best suited for your business.