Unit Trac
By Smallenberger, Inc
Unit Trac typical implementation process:
Sign up and Trial: Start by signing up risk-free for 30 days; no credit card or sales conversation is needed. You can also use a demo account to become familiar with the system.
Input Facility Details: Provide your facility name, address, layout (a simple sketch is accepted), unit sizes, pricing, and key business policies (e.g., deposits, late fees, billing cycles, taxes).
Account Configuration: Set up business settings including locations, units, and pricing. Create unit records and arrange them on the interactive facility map to match your site layout.
Data Migration: Upload your existing customer list (if available) via Excel for quick data entry. Unit Trac’s support team can handle the upload to reduce manual work.
Customize Billing and Deposits: Set business-wide options such as grace periods, late fees, billing cadence (anniversary/prorated), and tax settings.
Add Tenants and Leases: Begin adding leases—either manually or via the uploaded list. Input customer details and tailor any custom fields required. Assign units and set up initial invoicing.
Record Initial Payments: Enter starting balances, process any existing deposits, and use integrated payment processing (ACH/credit card) as needed.
Unit Trac offers a high level of customization to fit a wide variety of self-storage business needs. Here are key data points demonstrating its flexibility:
Customizable Lease Fields: You can add custom fields to capture any data, such as alternate contact info, trailer license numbers, or any unique details relevant to your business. This is managed in Business > Settings > Leases, with fields for both the customer and the lease itself. You can also edit existing leases to include new information at any time.
Flexible Fee and Billing Options: Unit Trac lets operators set deposit amounts, rent charges, billing cadences (monthly, quarterly, etc.), late fee schedules, grace periods, and taxes to match specific business practices. Prorate or anniversary billing options are available, and recurring charges can be customized per customer or unit.
Customizable Documents: The look and content of invoices and receipts are easily modified. You can upload your own logo, include personalized notes, and adjust document templates to fit your brand and communication style.
Interactive Facility Maps: The site map feature can be tailored to reflect your property’s unique layout, with options for noting unit-specific features (like electricity), and for visually organizing units by status, size, or other custom parameters.
Notifications and Communication: Notifications and receipts can be set up to go out automatically based on business preferences. All customer communications can be customized and are logged for review.
Custom Public Website: Unit Trac includes a customizable, maintenance-free website for your facility. You can personalize this site with your logo, facility photos, branding, and announcement messages, and choose which business features to make available to customers, such as online payments and rentals.
API Access for Advanced Integration: For operators with more technical needs, Unit Trac offers a REST API. This can be used to integrate the platform with other applications or create custom business workflows.
Multi-Facility and Multi-Location Management: Operators with more than one location can configure separate facilities under a single account, each with its own unique settings, pricing, and business rules.
Data Import and Migration: Initial setup can be tailored to your circumstances, with the ability to import customer lists from Excel and automatically populate records according to your operational structure.
Custom Reporting: Unit Trac offers customizable financial and occupancy reports to track the metrics that matter most to your business, helping you make data-driven decisions and adapt the system as your needs change.
Unit Trac is known for its transparent pricing with minimal additional costs beyond the standard monthly charges. Here's a detailed summary of what to expect regarding setup fees, maintenance, and support charges:
No setup fees. Signing up is free, with no commitment or credit card required. There are also no charges if you cancel within the first month.
The base cost is $0.70 per unit per month (some sources may list $0.60–$0.70 depending on the review date or region), with a minimum of $30 per month.
Payment Processing (Optional):
ACH (U.S. only): 1.9% + $1.00 per transaction
Add-Ons:
Gate Access Integration (optional): $30 per gate per month.
Maintenance Fees:
No separate maintenance fees. Ongoing software updates and maintenance are included as part of the monthly subscription.
Support Charges:
No extra charge for support. Customer support via email, phone, chat, and help desk is included in the standard subscription. All users also have access to online documentation and training resources at no extra cost.
Custom Website Domain (Optional):
Unit Trac offers training and support resources to ensure new users can quickly become proficient and feel confident managing their self-storage facilities. Here’s what you can expect:
Personalized Onboarding Help: New clients have access to Unit Trac’s support team, who can assist with setting up your facility map, configuring business settings, arranging payment processing, integrating with an existing website, and uploading your current customer list from Excel to save data entry time. You may choose to self-configure or let the support team walk you through each setup step.
Step-by-Step Guides and Documentation: Unit Trac provides extensive, easy-to-follow help articles and step-by-step “how-to” guides for all major software functions. These cover common tasks like adding units, starting leases, customizing invoices, processing payments, and managing facility maps.
Direct Coaching for Advanced Features: For enabling more advanced features such as the customer portal, eSignature, online rentals/payments, or custom integrations, the Unit Trac service team will personally guide you through activation and configuration if requested.
No Extra Support Fees: All training and support—including onboarding assistance, troubleshooting, and continued education—are included in your monthly subscription; there are no additional fees for help.
Continuous Learning: The platform encourages new users to explore on their own with demo accounts, and training resources like video tutorials, detailed documentation, and best-practices articles are freely available for self-paced learning.
Unit Trac employs a set of security measures to protect sensitive business and tenant data. Here are the core data security practices and features in place:
Encryption: All data is encrypted both at rest and in transit. This means information sent between users and the Unit Trac platform is secured using robust protocols (such as SSL/TLS), making it difficult for unauthorized parties to intercept or access.
Regular Data Backups: Unit Trac routinely performs backups of all customer and business data. This practice ensures information can be recovered in case of accidental loss or disaster and helps safeguard against data corruption or ransomware attacks.
PCI Compliance for Payments: Unit Trac is PCI compliant, meaning it meets stringent standards for secure handling and processing of credit card data. Payment information is processed securely, and credit card transactions are protected through advanced fraud detection mechanisms.
3D Secure Authentication: For online payment security, Unit Trac uses 3D Secure protocols, supporting Strong Customer Authentication (SCA) requirements in the EU and similar international standards. This multi-layered approach helps prevent payment fraud and protects facility owners from chargebacks.
Role-Based Access Controls: Administrators can define detailed permissions for each user, ensuring only authorized staff have access to sensitive functions or personal data. Customizable access levels help minimize insider risk and protect confidential information.
Audit Trails and Activity Logs: Every user action and important system change is tracked, enabling audit trails for compliance and enhanced visibility into who accessed or edited which data and when.
Secure Infrastructure: Servers reside in secure U.S.-based facilities, compliant with industry security standards like HIPAA and PCI DSS. Communications between user devices and Unit Trac servers are always encrypted.
Fraud Protection and Monitoring: The platform monitors for suspicious transactions and notifies administrators if potential fraud is detected, further reducing the risk of unauthorized activity.
Privacy and Confidentiality: Data is handled according to strict privacy practices—only shared with trusted service providers under confidentiality agreements, and never sold or rented to third parties without consent.
Unit Trac releases updates on a regular and ongoing basis, focusing on continual feature enhancement, bug fixes, and security improvements to serve their self-storage customers efficiently. Here’s how their update process typically works:
Continuous Improvement: Unit Trac is known for "continually working on new features" in response to customer feedback and evolving industry needs. This implies there’s a steady stream of enhancements rather than infrequent, large-scale updates.
Automatic Updates: The cloud-based platform manages updates seamlessly in the background. Users do not need to manually download or install updates—new features and fixes are incorporated directly by the Unit Trac team and are immediately available to all users.
Release Frequency: While the company does not publicly specify a strict release schedule (e.g., monthly or quarterly updates), user reviews and product documentation consistently describe "regular" improvements and timely roll-out of new capabilities. This includes core functional upgrades, expanded automation, and security enhancements.
User Notification: Users are kept informed via email updates, in-app notifications, and support documentation when significant new features or changes go live. This ensures operators can quickly adopt new tools and understand any workflow changes.
Unit Trac’s policy on data ownership and portability is designed to give users strong rights over their business and customer data, while outlining important responsibilities and procedures:
Data Ownership:
Unit Trac does not claim ownership of any content you post on or through their platform. All business, customer, lease, and other operational data you store remains your property. By using Unit Trac, you grant them a license to use the data as needed to deliver their service, but ultimate ownership remains with you.
They encourage users to maintain their own backups of all important business data, as Unit Trac is not a backup solution, and removed content may not always be retrievable without a court order.
Data Portability:
Users are responsible for exporting a copy of their data before terminating or closing their Unit Trac account. After termination, Unit Trac retains billing data for 30 days, during which you may request data export, though a professional service fee might apply for such retrieval.
You have full control to access, edit, and export your data at any time via your account settings and profile management tools. If you need help or require your data in a particular format, Unit Trac’s team can provide additional support to facilitate portability.
Unit Trac’s help articles confirm that all customer information stored is considered your data. You can delete or de-identify customer data on request, and you are responsible for complying with local data deletion or portability laws such as GDPR.
Privacy and Third-Party Access: Your data is used only for delivering the service and (in anonymized or aggregated form) to improve software features. It is not rented or sold to outside third parties without your consent. If Unit Trac changes ownership, the commitments in place regarding your data remain binding on any successor company.
Unit Trac offers straightforward, highly flexible terms for scaling your subscription up or down based on the changing needs of your organization.
Per-Unit, Monthly Pricing: You pay only for the number of units you manage ($0.70/unit/month, with a $30/month minimum). If your facility grows (add units or locations), Unit Trac scales seamlessly—just add new units or facilities in your account, and your monthly cost automatically updates accordingly.
No Long-Term Contracts: Subscriptions are month-to-month, allowing you to increase or decrease your service level at any time, with no penalties or locked-in yearly contracts. This enables easy adjustments if you acquire more properties or need to scale down.
Easy Scaling (Up or Down):
To scale up: Simply add new units or new facilities through the software dashboard. The system automatically recalculates your bill.
To scale down: Remove units or locations when needed, and the billing will decrease to reflect the new number of active units (as long as you meet the $30 minimum).
Cancel Anytime: You can cancel your subscription at any point with no cancellation fees. Data export is available, and support can assist with transition or scaling needs if you’re selling your facility or transferring management.
Terms and conditions for contract renewal and cancellation with Unit Trac:
Subscription Structure: Unit Trac operates on a straightforward, month-to-month subscription with no long-term lock-in. There is no annual contract to renew unless specifically arranged, so service continues as long as payments are made for the active subscription period.
Contract Renewal:
Your subscription is automatically renewed each month when you pay your recurring monthly fee. There are no binding long-term commitments—services continue until you decide to cancel.
Unit Trac reserves the right to modify or discontinue the service (or your access to it) at any time, without notice or liability.
Any special feature or promotional terms may have their own specific renewal or expiration clauses, which take precedence if there's a conflict with general terms.
Cancellation Terms:
You can cancel at any time with no penalty or cancellation fee. No notice period is strictly mandated for cancellation (unless otherwise stipulated for a special feature or promotion).
To cancel, you typically log in to your Unit Trac account and look for the cancellation feature under account settings. If you can't find it, you are advised to contact Unit Trac support for immediate processing.
Upon cancellation or termination, all software access ceases, and all licenses granted to you are revoked immediately.
Unit Trac retains your billing and relevant data for 30 days after account termination; you are responsible for exporting any needed records before canceling. If you request data export after termination, Unit Trac may charge a professional service fee for retrieval.
General Conditions & Rights:
Unit Trac may terminate your access at its sole discretion for violations of its terms, unauthorized use, or if you create a legal risk for the company.
The company reserves the right to refuse access to anyone, modify or terminate services for any reason at any time, and update its terms with notice via the website.
Updated terms become effective immediately upon posting and continued use of the service constitutes acceptance of those updates.
Refunds:
If you cancel within your initial trial or promotional period (such as the free 30-day risk-free trial), there are no charges. After that, payments already made for the current month are typically non-refundable once the monthly service period begins.
The terms include a binding arbitration clause, meaning most disputes must be resolved individually by arbitration rather than in court.
Unit Trac meets several important compliance standards to ensure secure and lawful operations in self-storage facility management:
PCI DSS Compliance: Unit Trac is fully compliant with the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS), which governs the secure handling, processing, and storage of credit and debit card information. This applies to all payment transactions via the platform, protecting both facility owners and tenants.
3D Secure & PSD2 Compliance: For global users, Unit Trac integrates 3D Secure for card payments, meeting the European Union’s requirements for Strong Customer Authentication (SCA) under the Second Payment Services Directive (PSD2). This provides an additional authentication layer to reduce fraud and chargebacks, ensuring compliance in regions where SCA is mandatory (such as the EU, UK, and Asia-Pacific).
HIPAA-Related Physical Security: The servers hosting Unit Trac reside in US-based facilities that comply with security standards, including HIPAA, offering a high level of physical and administrative safeguards for customer data.
Industry Security Best Practices: Unit Trac employs robust encryption (for data at rest and in transit) and regular backups, aligning with common security and compliance protocols required for cloud-based software in sensitive industries. Communications are encrypted using current protocols (SSL/TLS), and commercially reasonable efforts are made to keep data secure by general industry standards.
Data Privacy and Confidentiality: The company commits to strict privacy policies, handles data only with user consent, and does not claim ownership over client-stored data, supporting user compliance with local data protection laws and data portability requirements.