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Frequently Asked Questions

These questions are about the sheltermanager.com site. We also have specific frequently asked questions about ASM2 and ASM3

We give the software away, you can install it on your own computers free of charge. We charge a fee to host an installation of the software on our servers. It means we manage everything for you, including backups, administration, support - you can just connect with any internet enabled device.

A comparison of hosting vs open source.

You will receive an email in the next few minutes that confirms your login details and how to access your new database.

See the Pricing page for details.

We do everything we can to keep our overheads as low as possible so we can offer our services to shelters at the cheapest price possible. We also give away our software under an open source licence if you want to do-it-yourself.

Yes, if sheltermanager.com is not working for you within 30 days of signing up, then let us know and we'll refund your money, no questions asked. Please note that we cannot refund credit card processing and currency exchange fees, which typically amount to around $10 on a 12 month subscription.

No. Our software comes complete with full accounting package, word processor and report editor - there's nothing else to buy.

Email support is provided. Support requests are typically fulfilled within an hour during support hours of 10am to 6pm GMT

Yes. We can import data from your existing ASM installation, Excel spreadsheets, Access databases and many other shelter databases including AdoptAFriend, Anilog, AnimalShelterNet, Ark, Barrk, iShelters, PetFinder, PetPal, PetPoint, PetStablished, PetWhere, ShelterBuddy, ShelterLuv, ShelterPro and Trackabeast.

If you have an existing ASM2 installation, then there is a guide here on what files you need to send to us.

We can also undertake bespoke conversions from any system, spreadsheets, etc.

24 hours after your renewal date, your account will be put into read only mode. You have 7 days to take a copy of your data if you wish to run it offline with the open source version of the product. After that, your data will be removed from our servers.

You will get email reminders 2 weeks, 1 week, 2 days and 1 day before your renewal date with instructions on where/how to pay. You can use UK bank transfer, PayPal or any major credit card. The renewal URL can be given to donors if you would like someone else to pay the fee.

This is a very common problem with US issued credit cards. Card issuers will block payments to us due to us being a UK company. The only fix is to call your card issuer and explain that the transaction is legitimate so that they allow it through next time you try.

There are no limits on your database. You can create as many users as you like, as many records as you like and have as many people accessing the system at once as you like. There is a restriction on media file storage. We offer the first 10GB for free with your account with each subsequent 10GB attracting a 10% surcharge on your subscription fee. If you are storing photos and full scans of all animal paperwork, 10GB is around 5 years of media. If you are only storing animal photos then 10GB is approximately 20 years of media.

The sheltermanager.com servers are held in secure data centers. Backups are taken every Monday morning at 4am local time. Transaction logs are then tracked for the week, allowing for full Point-In-Time recovery to any point during the week. You can also download and take a complete snapshot of your data at any time from the SQL interface screen within the program. Each week, we rotate the snapshots into longer term, encrypted off-site storage, which we retain for 7 days.

We operate servers in data centers in the United States, United Kingdom, Singapore and Australia. We will put your account on a server located closest to you geographically. We choose how close you are based on the locale you select when signing up.

We use industry-standard SSL for all communcations between your browser and our servers, servers are locked down with only public key SSH and HTTPS access available, we use a highly secure 10,000 iteration PBKDF2 algorithm for password storage and we regularly conduct pen-testing for SQL injection, XSS and CRSF attacks.

Where possible all data is encrypted at rest with industry standard AES-256 encryption.

Our server provider is Akamai, compliance certificates for ISO27001 and other security certifications can be found here

We have professional indemnity and business insurance in the event that we make any mistake that could damage or severely impact your organisation. We take excessive care when it comes to security and since we started offering our service in 2007 we have never had a single security breach or lost anyone's data.

Yes, download a copy of our current W8-BEN-E form

If you have access to the email address we have on file for your account, you can use this link to get a copy of the master password sent to that email.

Otherwise, please let us know and we'll send a transfer request to the existing account holder.

sheltermanager.com has minimal overheads and good cashflow, it's extremely unlikely we'll be going out of business. The directors built this business carefully and responsibly, and have no plans to sell the business or change the current successful formula.

In the highly improbable event of the business not being around at a future date, you can download your data from our servers at any time and continue to use and access your data with our open source software (or with Excel and other spreadsheet tools). Since our software is open source, other developers could continue to work on it and you can still get support from local IT professionals. We think this is as future proof as an online service can be and a much better guarantee than you will receive from our competitors.