More shops are renting out storage for customers’ own guns, for people who are moving, traveling, or just want their collection somewhere safer than a hall closet. It’s steady monthly income from space you already have. But a gun in your building that isn’t yours raises real questions: who has custody, whether it goes in your bound book, how you collect rent, and what happens when the rent stops coming.
The Storage tab in MFS Exchange answers all of those. It runs the whole rental, from check-in at the counter to the day the customer picks their gun back up, and keeps custody, the bound book and the money straight along the way.
Two kinds of locks, two sets of rules
Who holds the key changes who has custody, so the Storage tab treats the two cases differently:
- Store-keyed lockers. You hold the key, so you have custody. The gun is recorded as an acquisition from the customer in your bound book when it checks in, and as a disposition back to them when it leaves.
- Customer’s own lock. Only the customer can open it, so there’s no bound book entry. The gun still shows on your custody report, because it’s still in your building.
You choose the default for each locker or have staff ask every time, and you decide when guns go in the book: store-keyed only, always, or never. If you pick never, the settings keep warning that store-keyed guns missing from the book can be an inspection finding. Bound book entries go through FastBound, Orchid or a paper book, the same as every other compliance step in MFS.
Check-in and check-out at the counter
Checking a gun in takes a minute. Find the customer, choose the lock type and the locker, and enter the gun’s details. You decide what’s required before a check-in can go through: photos, condition notes, a verified ID, a signed storage agreement. Those rules are enforced by the system, not just shown on the screen. A claim ticket with the customer, the gun, its locker and a storage number prints when you’re done, and the customer can get an email receipt.
Customers take guns out for a day at the range and bring them back, so a temporary release and return are quick to record and go in the item’s history. Checking a gun out for good goes back to the person who stored it. Releasing it to anyone else is off by default. When a manager turns it on, the release records the transfer paperwork reference and goes in the bound book as a disposition to that person.
Every move on the record
Each stored item has its own custody history, and every check-in, release, return and check-out is written to it at the same moment the item’s status changes, so the two can never disagree. If a bound book entry fails, the item shows it, and a manager can close it out once it’s been recorded another way.
The custody manifest lists every item on your premises with its locker, customer, lock type, bound book status and days in storage. You can print it or export it to CSV, so the answer to “whose guns are in the building right now” is always one page away, including on inspection day.
Rent that collects itself
Billing is optional and fully configurable:
- Monthly or prepaid rent, with rates by locker size, a grace period, a flat late fee and a setting for whether rent is taxed.
- Lockers included with memberships, so a membership tier can come with a locker at no extra charge.
- Collect at the register from the item’s charges panel, with managers able to waive, void or adjust a charge.
- Pay online, if you turn it on, from the customer’s own account on your website.
- Reminders that go out before rent is due and keep going while it’s overdue, on a schedule you set.
Every charge, payment, waiver and refund is recorded once against that exact event, so a retried payment can’t collect the same month’s rent twice, and a payment can’t quietly go missing.
When the rent stops
After rent has gone unpaid for a number of days you choose, the item is flagged for a manager to review. Nothing happens automatically from there. Only a manager can mark an item abandoned, with a reason, and you can let them convert an abandoned gun to a consignment so it can be sold while keeping its original bound book record. The rules for abandoned property vary by state, so the system records, flags and hands off, and leaves the decision to you.
A Storage page for your customers
When you turn it on, customers get a Storage page in their account on your website. They can see what they have in storage, their locker, what they owe and their past charges, and pay rent online if you allow it. They see that their gun is on file with you, without any of your bound book details.
Getting started
Storage lockers are part of MFS Exchange. Turn on the Storage tab, set up your lockers, choose your rules and, if you’re charging rent, your rates. If you’d like help deciding on lock types, bound book policy and pricing for your shop, book a time with us.