Streamlining self-storage payments in APAC

The self-storage industry in APAC is undergoing rapid growth fuelled by ongoing urbanisation, shrinking spaces and rising property prices. Key markets such as Hong Kong, Singapore and Thailand are at the forefront of this expansion, with more people looking for more flexible, off-site storage options to cope with these pressures. 

With an annual growth rate of 8.4% and occupancy rates exceeding 90% during busy periods in high-demand areas – the self-storage sector is brimming with opportunities and potential. 

However, on top of managing site openings and operations,companies in the space still face significant headaches with their financial ops, such as delayed payments, high transaction fees, and clunky manual reconciliation processes, making it difficult to scale and fully capitalise on this growth. 

Just like any other business, achieving seamless operations, maintaining consistent cash flow and ensuring payment consistency with lean, cost-effective methods becomes key as operators add new branches to keep up with demand. Finverse addresses these issues by providing a streamlined and low-cost payment system designed to automate processes, reduce admin, and ensure timely and accurate payments. 

The Challenge

Streamlining payments in the self-storage industry has various challenges, especially as businesses scale. Whether it is converting one-off payments to recurring autopayments, managing eroding profits due to high transaction costs, or reducing manual line-by-line reconciliation, these payment-related issues can intensify, especially with growth and without the right systems in place.

1. One-time and recurring payments: Getting consistent cash flow from short-term renters is a struggle. Turning one-time customers into recurring clients can change the game for business revenue. Auto-debits make it easy for customers to stick around, ensuring predictable income without the hassle of manual invoicing.

2. Keeping costs low: In self-storage, margins are tight. And every fee eats into potential profits. Cards offer automation benefits, but running high volumes on this expensive method erodes margins. On the other hand, manually processing low-cost methods such as QR payments or bank transfers is a nightmare when matching outstanding invoices across hundreds of bank deposits. 

3. Manual reconciliation: Manual reconciliation is often labour-intensive and prone to errors, especially when a variety of payment methods are involved. Auto reconciliation solves this by automatically matching payments to customer accounts in real-time, dramatically reducing the need for manual cross-checking at the end of the month and eliminating many of the mistakes caused by delays or discrepancies between payment methods. 

4. Managing high turnover: High turnover is part of the self-storage business. However, managing new customers, setting up payments, and making sure everything runs smoothly doesn’t have to be overwhelming for the backend operations. Without the right system, teams are stuck with admin overload and constant errors.

5. Multi-channel complex collections: As an omnichannel industry, a self-storage business typically collects payments across a range of channels: online reservations, in-store payments, and recurring invoices, as well as in their app or portal. Creating a unified experience for customers, while streamlining data into a single stream for ops and finance teams is a lasting struggle.

6. Treasury management: Treasury management is especially challenging for self-storage businesses because of their decentralised structure, where each branch operates as a separate legal entity. Payment collection and revenue attribution across different teams often lead to inefficiencies, with funds misallocated between all the different branches. The manual "sweeping" of payments also further complicates cash flow, causing delays, errors, and unnecessary admin.

The Solution

Payment challenges for self-storage businesses and operators can make it difficult to scale. But, with the right systems in place, these challenges can be overcome. 

How? 

1. Connect self-storage software to payments
Software solutions such as Sitelink/R6, and Storeganise, have already helped dozens of self-storage companies to allow customers to view, book, and manage their units. They also store crucial information on which customer owes what amount on which date. Adding a payment link to such invoices connects every invoice to a subsequent payment automatically, scaling across thousands of invoices issued every month. 

2. Turning one-time payments into recurring revenue

One of the biggest pain points for self-storage operators is reducing churn and establishing long-term, recurring clients. Implementing automated payment options like electronic Direct Debit (eDDA or eGIRO) can help streamline the process of setting up recurring payments. These systems ensure a reliable, predictable cash flow, eliminating the need to chase late payments by initiating pull payments based on a one-time customer authorisation.

3. Offer low-cost payment methods that retain automation 

Processing payments via diverse methods – including credit cards, bank transfers, and QR code payments – can quickly increase costs for businesses. However, having a payment orchestration strategy can ensure transactions are routed through the most cost-effective channels, such as FPS QR, bank transfers, or other low-fee alternatives.

This approach not only minimises processing fees but also keeps all the benefits of automation, eliminating the need for manual reconciliation and follow-ups and reducing admin.

4. Streamline multiple payment methods 

High turnover is the expected and standard in self-storage, but it doesn’t have to be a headache. Onboarding new customers and automating their payments is quick and painless. And when they leave, cancelling the payment cycle is also just as simple. A robust system that tracks and reconciles every payment automatically, gives operators space to manage customer changes at scale without getting bogged down in details. 

Whether through bank transfers, FPS QR, or dynamic PayNow, payments are processed accurately and on time, every time – without the hassle and potential discrepancies that come with manual work. 

Solving with Finverse

Finverse gives businesses and teams a payment system that scales as the business grows, taking the weight of payment management off.

Features include: 

• Automation at scale: Integrating with industry-leading ERPs such as Storeganise and Sitelink/R6, the Finverse platform can read invoice data, attach payment links to invoices sent to customers, as well as track and record successful payments automatically within your billing software and accounting systems. This ensures that all payments are automatically initiated, tracked, and reconciled. Automated payments provide predictable cash flow without the need for administrative overhead in chasing customers, recording payments, and fixing errors, month after month.
  
  

• Smart payment orchestration: In addition to industry-specific software, Finverse also syncs with low-cost payment methods such as electronic direct debit (eDDA in HK, eGIRO in Singapore), auto reconciling FPS or dynamic Paynow QR), as well as full-featured low-cost card gateways. Every transaction is optimised to pass through the most cost-effective channels, reducing fees and improving margins.
  
  

• Seamless high-turnover management: The onboarding and offboarding of customers, along with automated payment processing, is handled efficiently at scale. This ensures smooth operations, despite frequent customer turnover.

Finverse forward

With native integrations and industry-specific experience in streamlining payments, Finverse offers a unique opportunity for self storage operators to level up their financial operations. Smart payment orchestration with Finverse not only saves thousands of dollars every month in transaction fees, it also saves hundreds of thousands in man-hours spent on developing and maintaining technical integrations. 

At Finverse, we believe managing payments should be as streamlined as managing your storage units. Whether you have two locations or 20, we have the tools to automate payments, cut costs, and support your scale plans and growth.

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