If you're still managing building access with physical keys, you already know the problems. A key gets copied without your knowledge. An employee leaves and you can't be sure they returned it. A lock-out at 7 AM means a 20-minute detour before your day even starts. For small and mid-sized businesses, traditional keys create a security gap that grows with every employee, contractor, and vendor who passes through your doors.
Surety Business is built to solve this — with access control options that range from smart locks managed through the Alarm.com app all the way up to full commercial access control with keycards, mobile credentials, and door-by-door scheduling. Whatever your business needs, it all lives in one system alongside your cameras, sensors, and alarm.
What "Access Control" Actually Means for a Small Business
Access control is the practice of managing who can open which doors, and when. At its simplest, that's a keypad on the front door. At the enterprise level, it's a networked system managing hundreds of doors across dozens of locations. For most small businesses — an office suite, a medical practice, a fitness studio, a warehouse — the needs fall somewhere in between.
The good news: you don't have to choose between a consumer product and an enterprise system. Surety Business offers both smart lock integration and full commercial access control on the same Alarm.com platform, so you can start where it makes sense for your business and grow from there.
The Problem with Physical Keys (and Basic Keypads)
Physical keys have no audit trail. You can't know whether a key was copied, or whether an employee let someone else borrow it. When someone leaves your organization, rekeying locks costs money and time — and it's often skipped.
Basic standalone keypads are only marginally better. A shared PIN code can be passed along just as easily as a key. There's no per-user identity, no log of who entered when, and no way to grant temporary or time-restricted access. If a contractor needs access for one week, your only options are to give them a permanent code or be there in person every time.
Option 1: Smart Locks — A Great Starting Point for Many Small Businesses
Not every small business needs a full commercial access control system right away. For many — a small office, a boutique retail shop, a studio — smart locks managed through Surety Business are the right fit and a significant upgrade over physical keys.
Surety Business's Business Plus plan includes support for Z-Wave and PowerG smart locks integrated directly into the Alarm.com platform. This means your locks aren't just smart — they're part of your complete security system. Here's what that looks like in practice:
Per-user PIN codes. Instead of a shared code, each employee gets their own PIN. You know exactly who unlocked the door and when. Removing access is instant — delete the code, done.
Time-restricted access. A contractor's PIN code can be configured to work only during a specific time window — say, Monday through Friday, 8 AM to 5 PM, for the next two weeks. When that window expires, the code stops working automatically. No need to remember to revoke it.
Automation with the rest of your system. This is where Surety Business smart locks go far beyond a standalone smart lock. Lock the front door and arm the alarm with a single tap. Have the door automatically lock when the alarm arms at closing time. Get a notification any time a door is unlocked outside of business hours. Trigger a camera clip when a specific user's code is used.
Remote lock/unlock. Unlock the door for a delivery or a late employee from your phone, from anywhere. Check live video first to confirm who's there.
For businesses with one or two entry points and a small team, smart locks through Surety Business deliver most of the benefits of commercial access control at a fraction of the cost and complexity.
Option 2: Commercial Access Control — For More Doors, More Users, More Control
When your business outgrows smart locks — more doors, higher traffic, stricter audit requirements, or a need for keycards and mobile credentials — Surety Business also offers full commercial access control powered by Alarm.com's Smarter Access Control platform.
With commercial access control, each user gets their own credential — a keycard, fob, PIN, or mobile credential on their smartphone. The door controller is connected to your network and managed through the Surety Business portal and Alarm.com app. Every access event is logged: who, which door, what time. Denied attempts are logged too.
Adding or removing a user takes seconds. You can restrict a part-time employee to only certain doors or certain hours. A contractor can be given access only during a specific time window — their credential automatically stops working when that window ends. None of this requires you to be on-site.
Access Plans: Scheduling Who Gets In and When
One of the most powerful features of commercial access control through Surety Business is Access Plans — the ability to schedule exactly when each user or user group can access specific doors. A cleaning crew might have access only on Tuesday and Thursday evenings between 6 PM and 9 PM. A manager might have 24/7 access. A part-time employee might only be able to enter during their scheduled shift hours. These rules are enforced automatically, without any manual intervention, and continue to function even if the controller temporarily loses network connectivity.
Holiday schedules can pause door unlock routines on days your business is closed — so you don't have to remember to manually lock down for a holiday weekend.
Automation: Doors, Alarms, and Cameras Working Together
Whether you're using smart locks or full commercial access control, Surety Business connects everything into one automated system. A few examples:
Swipe to disarm. When the first employee arrives and presents their credential at the front door, the security panel automatically disarms. No more rushing to the keypad. This rule can be restricted to specific users and time windows so it only works during normal opening hours.
First person in. The first valid credential presented at a door in the morning can trigger that door to remain unlocked for business hours — no manual step required. A schedule or Scene locks it back up at closing time.
Arm to lock. When you arm your security system at the end of the day, all controlled doors automatically lock. One action secures your entire building.
Scenes for open and close. A single tap on your phone triggers a "Close" scene: front door locks, back door locks, stockroom locks, the thermostat sets back, the lights turn off, and the alarm arms — all at once. This is particularly useful when multiple staff members are responsible for opening or closing on different days.
Video tied to access events. Every door event — successful entry, denied access, door held open, door forced open — can trigger a video clip from the nearest camera. If a credential is used at an unusual hour, you get a video clip alongside the access log entry. This combination is far more useful for incident investigation than either system alone.
Mobile Credentials: No More Lost Keycards
With commercial access control through Surety Business, employees can use their smartphone as their access credential. There's nothing to lose, nothing to copy, and nothing to reissue. If an employee's phone is lost or stolen, you revoke the credential from the Alarm.com portal in seconds. For businesses with frequent turnover or a rotating roster of contractors, mobile credentials significantly reduce the administrative overhead of managing physical cards.
Remote Management: Unlock a Door Without Being There
Anyone who has managed a small business has gotten the call: someone is locked out, a delivery arrived early, or a vendor needs access and the keyholder is 20 minutes away. With Surety Business, you can unlock any door remotely from your phone — after confirming via live video that the right person is standing there. No more unnecessary trips. No more leaving a key under a mat.
Access History and Reporting
Every access event is stored in a searchable log. If something goes missing from a stockroom, you can pull up exactly which employees accessed that area and when, cross-referenced with video clips. For businesses subject to compliance requirements — healthcare, financial services, certain retail environments — having a tamper-evident access log is often a regulatory necessity, not just a convenience. Surety Business makes this available to businesses of any size, without enterprise-level complexity or cost.
Multi-Location Management
If you operate more than one location, the Alarm.com enterprise portal lets you manage all of them from a single login. Push access changes across all locations at once, view access history from any site, and manage users in bulk. A regional manager can have visibility across all locations while individual site managers see only their own. This kind of hierarchical access management is typically found only in enterprise-grade systems — Surety Business makes it available to any SMB.
Works with Industry-Standard Hardware
One concern many business owners have about upgrading their access control is the cost of replacing existing hardware. Alarm.com's commercial access control is designed to work with industry-standard Wiegand and OSDP readers, most common card formats, and any relay-controlled locking hardware. In many cases, existing readers and door hardware can stay in place — only the door controller needs to be added or replaced. This makes the upgrade path considerably more affordable than starting from scratch.
Which Option Is Right for Your Business?
Here's a simple way to think about it:
Smart locks through Surety Business are a great fit if you have one or two entry points, a small team, and want a meaningful upgrade from physical keys without the complexity or cost of a full commercial system. The Business Plus plan includes smart lock support, and the integration with your alarm, cameras, and automation rules gives you capabilities that go well beyond what any standalone smart lock can offer.
Commercial access control through Surety Business makes sense when you have multiple doors that need independent control, higher traffic that warrants keycards or mobile credentials, a need for detailed per-door access logs, or stricter compliance requirements. It's also the right choice when you want to scale — adding doors and users as your business grows, all managed from the same Alarm.com portal.
Either way, you're not locked into a contract, and you're only paying for what you need. Surety Business gives you professional-grade access control you manage yourself — at prices that make sense for a small business.