Two Rosters, One Storage Lot: What I Built This Year for Storage and Campground Owners
In July I wrote about running my storage lot off a spreadsheet and a notebook. This is the follow-up: what the lot runs on now, the campground version I built beside it, and the offer I am making to a few local owners.
What Runs My Lot Now
Ben's Farm is my storage lot in Thompson, south of Grand Forks. RVs, boats, cars, trailers and equipment, in the shop, the pole barn and out on the gravel. It runs on BayRoster, the storage software I sell.
The spreadsheet had one row per client. BayRoster has a drawing of the property. Rows, units, buildings, and boat slips if you have them, sit on the map where they sit on the ground. Each space colors itself from the renter's paid-until date. Green is paid. Amber is due within three weeks. Red is overdue. Blue means no date is set.
When a renter moves from the gravel into the building, I transfer them with a date and a rate. The old spot is closed, not erased, so the history stays.
Statements Renters Pay Themselves
Each renter gets a link to their own statement. No login. It shows what they rent, what they were charged, what they paid and the date they are paid until.
With online billing on, they pay from that page by card or bank transfer through Stripe. The software sets the amount. The renter cannot type a different one.
If a renter is three months behind, the statement bills all three months, across every space they rent. If they are paid up and want to get ahead, they can pay 1 to 24 months forward from their paid-until date.
Every online payment is checked with Stripe on the server. A clean match to one renter applies itself. Anything unclear waits for me to look at it. Checks and cash still count. I record those by hand and see the new paid-until date before I save.
Booking on the Farm's Own Site
Online booking is optional, and it stays off until the owner sets it up. I set it up for the farm. It runs at bens-farm.com/book, on the farm's own website, not on a marketplace.
A new renter picks a block and a move-in date, reads the price and my rental agreement, and pays by card to confirm. The space is held for 15 minutes while they pay. A booking counts as paid only when Stripe says it is paid, not when a success screen shows up.
Winter storage at my place has a five-month minimum, paid up front. The booking page sells the same five-month prepaid term.
What It Does Not Do
I would rather say this up front than have you find out after setup.
- No nightly reservations. Storage is monthly or seasonal.
- No gate, keypad or lock control. It tracks who is in a space and whether they paid. It does not open anything.
- No scheduled autopay. Renters choose when to pay from their statement.
- No general accounting, payroll or taxes. It exports payments for the person who does those.
It also does not show the lake. Four inches of rain put one on my lawn. The gravel was dry. The lawn was not. Nobody has asked to rent lakefront yet.
PineRoster, for Seasonal Campgrounds
A seasonal campground is closer to a storage lot than a hotel. I wrote about that in what seasonal campground billing actually needs. PineRoster is the sibling I built for those parks: seasonal and monthly parks in Minnesota, North Dakota and South Dakota. No nightly bookings.
Every site sits on a to-scale map of the park with the same payment colors. Each camper gets a private balance page from a link you send: their site, what they are paid through, how many months behind and what those months come to. A season charge can be split into installments, and a missed one turns the site amber. Renewals and next season's deposits are tracked apart from this season's money.
Soft Launch
Both rosters are in soft launch. I am looking for a handful of local operators, storage lots and seasonal parks, who want to lock in a lower lifetime rate before the public price.
The bill is one flat monthly charge for the website, the hosting under it and the software behind it. It does not climb when you fill a space or add a person.
If you know someone who should be on one of these, send them my way. I pay $200 for each new paying customer on either roster, once their setup is done and their first monthly bill is paid. The terms are at bayroster.com/referrals.
Built by Ben. Looked after by Ben.
Run a Lot or a Seasonal Park?
The BayRoster demo is a fictional lot with a published password. Click an amber space, add a month, watch it turn green. Campground owners can try the PineRoster demo. Then tell me about your property.