The operating control layer for self-storage
Your PMS records what happened. StowOS controls what happens next.
StowOS sits above Storman and the rest of your operation. It reads every enquiry, reservation, payment and site report, works out what needs attention and who owns it, and keeps each action true as the day changes — then writes the outcome back.
Live state · Northgate · 09:14
01Why StowOS exists
The PMS keeps the ledger. Nothing keeps the promises.
A good property management system records units, agreements, payments and leads accurately. It was never designed to notice that a quote went unanswered, that a check was skipped, or that a price agreed on a call never made it in.
That work lives in inboxes, spreadsheets, WhatsApp groups and the memory of whoever is on shift. It is where most operators lose revenue and control — not in a crisis, but in dozens of small gaps a week.
A normal week, without a control layer
- Sun 21:42Convert
A web enquiry arrives after hours
It waits in an inbox until someone checks. By Tuesday the customer has booked elsewhere.
- Fri 16:10Convert
A quote goes out and nobody replies
No one owns the follow-up. The lead ages quietly in the PMS as ‘Quoted’.
- Mon 10:00Convert
A container rate increase is agreed
Entered at one site, forgotten at the other, noticed at the quarter end.
- MarchOperate
A unit is flagged for repair
Still offline in June, invisible to whoever is selling.
- 17:30Operate
The shift hands over
A voice note to the next person, half of it about a parcel in the office.
- WeeklyControl
The fire doors are checked
Probably. There is a tick on a sheet somewhere in the office.
- Thu 14:25Control
A complaint is settled by phone
No record of what was promised, by whom, or why.
None of these is a software failure. Each is a moment where something happened and nothing took ownership of what should happen next. StowOS is built for exactly those moments.
02How it works
One enquiry, from Sunday night to a closed loop on Monday morning.
Every part of StowOS runs the same loop: read, normalise, reason, act, write back. Follow one prospective customer through it.
1Read
Read everything that happened
Sunday evening, a web enquiry arrives. Minutes later Storman records the same lead. On Monday morning she rings while the desk is busy. StowOS reads each of these as an event, from whichever system saw it first.
2Normalise
Normalise it into one version of events
The three signals describe one person. StowOS matches them, merges the duplicate the PMS echoed back, and keeps what each source knew — including that she needs somewhere to park a van.
3Reason
Reason about what it means now
Your rules decide the rest: which cadence applies, how quickly a new enquiry must be contacted, when the site opens, who is on shift, what is actually available. The missed call raises the priority. The result is a single action with a deadline and an owner.
4Act
Put one clear action in front of one person
JM does not open four screens to work out what to do. The call is at the top of Today, with the reason attached. One tap records the outcome and the note that matters for Wednesday.
5Write back
Write back and close the loop
The outcome closes the action, updates the lead in Storman, schedules the next step and records the lot. Nothing depends on someone remembering to update two systems — and anyone can see later why each step happened.
- The architecture in detail
03Live state
Actions that know when they are no longer true.
A task list records what someone once thought needed doing. A StowOS action is derived from the current state of the business, so when the state changes the action changes with it — completed, withdrawn, blocked or escalated — without anyone tidying up.
Play the morning. Each event below is something that really happens on site.
- Open
Chase balance on B-114
£184.00 outstanding for 16 days.
10:00AR - Open
Call back Tom Hughes
Quoted 100 sq ft on Friday. Cadence step 2 of 4.
11:00JM - Open
Fire door check · Block B
Weekly control. Needs a photograph and the release tested.
12:00MT - Open
Prepare C-07 for move-in
Reservation R-20391, moving in Thursday. 2 of 4 steps done.
WedSK
- Nothing has changed yet. Send an event.
04What it controls
Convert. Operate. Control. Three kinds of work that usually live in three different places.
They share one engine, one action surface and one audit history — so a damp patch can block a move-in, and a payment can cancel a chase.
01Convert
Every enquiry answered, every quote followed up, every price decided on purpose.
Enquiries from your website, the PMS and the phone become one record with one next action and one owner. Cadences decide what happens after each outcome. Pricing proposals and rent reviews arrive as decisions to approve rather than spreadsheets to reconcile, and only approved changes are written back.
- One lead record across every source
- Next Action queue ordered by urgency
- Follow-up cadences by enquiry type
- Pricing proposals and approvals
- Rent reviews with sensible exclusions
- Controlled writeback to the PMS
02Operate
Site work that gets done, and can be shown to have been done.
Recurring checks, move-in and move-out jobs, maintenance and deliveries run as structured work with steps, owners and due times. Staff record what they find with a photograph and a short note, and the end-of-day handover is built from what is genuinely still open.
- Recurring checks with evidence gates
- Move-in and move-out jobs
- Maintenance issues linked to units and assets
- Site log with photographs
- Open loops and shift handovers
- Deliveries held for customers
03Control
Evidence, approvals, and a record of why.
Owners and managers see exceptions rather than activity: work overdue, work closed without evidence, prices changed outside approval, decisions that need a second look. Every outcome, approval and writeback carries a name and a time, and role permissions decide who may do what.
- Exceptions and escalation
- Evidence-backed completion
- Approvals before anything is written back
- Role and authority governance
- Decision log and director screening
- Portfolio view across every site
05Alongside your PMS
Leave the ledger where it is. Run the business above it.
StowOS is not a replacement for the system that runs your billing. It is the layer that decides what happens because of what that system recorded.
The system of record
Your PMS
- Units, unit types and availability
- Customers and rental agreements
- Invoices, payments and arrears
- Reservations, move-ins and move-outs
- Rates as charged
Reads events
leads, reservations, payments, moves, unit states
Writes back
lead status and approved rates, verified afterwards
The system of work
StowOS
- What needs doing, by whom, by when
- Rules, cadences and deadlines
- Evidence and completion records
- Approvals and decisions
- Exceptions and escalation
- The history of why
Storman is supported today. StowOS is designed to be PMS-agnostic: another PMS means a new connection in the read and writeback layer, not a new way of working for your team.
How the boundary works06What changes
The same business, run from what needs attention instead of what someone remembered.
Site staff
TodayStart the shift by reading the inbox, the diary and whatever was left on the desk.
With StowOSStart with Today: the actions that are theirs, in order, each with the reason it matters.
Site managers
TodayChase the team to find out what was done, then check the PMS to see whether it was recorded.
With StowOSSee what is overdue, blocked or missing evidence, and step in on the exceptions only.
Owners and directors
TodayHear about a problem when a customer complains or a number looks wrong at month end.
With StowOSReview exceptions, approvals and decisions across every site, with the evidence behind each.
07Trust
Safeguards you can point to.
StowOS works close to money, customers and safety records. Governance here is not a settings page; it is how the work itself is shaped.
Security and data handling- Nothing is written back without permission
- Changes reach the PMS only through rules you have set or approvals a named person has given, and are checked against the PMS afterwards.
- Done means evidenced
- A check can be configured so it cannot close without its photograph, readings or checklist. ‘Done’ stops being a matter of opinion.
- Every change has a name and a time
- Outcomes, approvals, overrides and writebacks are recorded with who, when and why, and kept as history rather than overwritten.
- Authority follows role
- Directors, managers, staff and maintenance see and do what their role allows. Directors adjust access per role without a developer.
- Your data is yours alone
- Each operator's records are isolated in the database itself, with row-level security on every table, not only in the interface.
- Hosted in the United Kingdom
- Data is stored in the London region. Photographs and documents sit in private storage, not public links.
See your own operation in it.
A walkthrough is a conversation, not a pitch. Bring a real week — the enquiries, the move-outs, the maintenance — and we will show you where each piece would sit in StowOS, and be straight about where it would not.