The POS Software Blog
News from Tower Systems about locally made POS software for specialty local retailers.
Here is advice any small business retailer in and specialty channel could rely on when considering POS software:
This video is another in the series of educational videos from Tower Systems to help small business retailers be more informed in the choices they make.
The latest release of the Tower Systems POS software includes more than 130 changes with the majority of these suggested by users looking to evolve the software they use as they evolve their own businesses.
Our democratic and transparent process for considering software enhancements is paying off for our customers and for us as we work together to ensure our software evolves with customer businesses.
Here are headline enhancements in the latest update:
Layby Receipts
This new feature brings our Layby Receipts into line with the recently revamped Sale and Invoice Receipts. The new format contains clearer and more discernible information as well as the ability to customize. We have also made sure the new receipts meet any TRS requirements.
As part of this work we have also added Layby Notes which will allow users to add notes on a per item basis for use in things such as storage locations.
Eftpos Receipts
This new feature allows users to prompt for receipt printing for sales where EFTPOS was used as the payment type. This is an optional setting and is available for those using our integrated EFTPOS platform with Tyro, DPS, PC EFTPOS etc.
Enhanced Shopify Website Integration
This new feature gives users a tight link between Retailer and their Shopify based Webstore. Including integration of Stock, Customers, Sales and Product Images. The key feature is the time saving of not having to double entries in multiple platforms.
Special Customer Orders
As a result of extensive customer feedback and Software Ideas submissions we have made further improvements to the Special Customer Orders module to provide a cleaner and more coherent approach. For a detail list of the changes made to Special Customer Orders please see below.
Multi-Store Ordering, Order by Sales and Multi-Store Transfers
As a result of extensive customer feedback and Software Ideas submissions we have made significant improvements to these modules to provide a cleaner and more coherent and retailer friendly approach. For a detailed list of the changes made to Multi-Store Ordering please see below.
Custom Menus
Users now have the ability to show which items show in the Customer menu and the Payment menu. For example if you wanted to only show the Pay Specific Invoice and the Pay Layby options all the others can be easily hidden. This feature can be accessed by double clicking on the blue menu bar at the top on the menu screen.
All Tower customers are being advised the full site of enhancements in advance of them deciding if they would like the update installed for their business.
We are thrilled with the response to the school booklist management software we released for newsagents to use. Newsagents are loving the cloud based software, the subscription model and the evolution of the software since release.
Our new web based school booklist facility is now available live.
Once you have had a look around, if you want to proceed and use Booklist in your business, please sign up for a year access and you are good to go.
Built from the ground up, this facility will provide all we outlined in our earlier email. The cost will be $795.00 (inc. GST) a year.
Using the site you will be able to:
In addition to the per year fee there would be a small card processing fee, on a cost recovery basis, for payments made online.
Of course we would say small business retailers are better off using the Tower Systems POS software. We are Tower Systems and so you would expect us to back our own product.
But our claim is more than marketing spin. The claim has its roots in what we stand for as a business, it has its roots in our relentless support of small business retailers.
We only sell our POS software to small business retailers. We serve well over 3,000 of them. We are growing. Our commitment is in our own numbers.
So, considering these points, here are Five ways small business retailers are better off using Tower Systems POS software … based on what small business retailers tell us they love about our software and about us.
While there are plenty of reasons Tower Systems is a better POS software partner for specialty retail businesses, this list is the top five based on needs small business retailers explain to us.
Small business retailers integrating their POS software with Xero and Tyro unlock for themselves a beautiful partnership from which they can leverage valuable business benefits.
Tower Systems offers integration from its small business POS software with Tyro and Xero.
We are proud to be listed as partners of Xero and Tyro on their websites. This listing is key to building trust with retailers as it demonstrated respected partnerships.
Whereas software integrations are usually between two software products, the Tower Systems / Xero / Tyro integration leverages all three products into a comprehensive whole of business solution. Many retailers are already leveraging this for their benefit. Indeed, Tower Systems itself leverages the benefits in retail businesses we own and operate.
Our POS software Xero link is best practice offering a seamless integration between our POS software and the leading cloud based accounting solution.
Our Tyro broadband EFTPOS integration is also best practice with an extraordinary number of retailers using it with success and happiness at the time saving and mistake reduction being achieved.
Put the two together and you multiply the benefits considerably as we can demonstrate.
The mission of small business retailers to cut operational overheads and run their businesses to a higher level of efficiency is important as big business competitors muscle up themselves.
Tower Systems offers not only beautiful integrations with Tyro, Xero, Shopify and Magento, the company backs these with personal service and advice and retail smart training based on our own many years of experience as retailers. This is the difference, we speak from current personal experience, making our advice more relevant and understandable in small business retail circles.
The integrations are available in the Tower desktop products as well as the Tower cloud based products that are accessed through software as a service models for retail businesses in a variety of specialty retail channels.
Tower Systems offers specialty software for: gift shops, jewellers, toy shops, fishing/outdoors businesses, garden centres/nurseries, pet shops, bike shops,produce stores, firearms businesses and newsagents.
Our sales team can show you our software: Please call our sales team at 1300 662 957 or email them at sales@towersystems.com.au.
Managing Director: Mark Fletcher. 0418 321 338.
We are thrilled to partner with Xero through our Xero POS software integration. because of the seamless link to the cloud based accounting solution. We are also thrilled because Xero continues to lead the market. here is news out just yesterday:
The dominant player in the Australian market, Xero, saw its Australian subscriber numbers grow 54 per cent to 312,000 in the year to March.
Xero is the product more accounts and small business retailers are preferring.
A couple of weeks ago start-up Blueshyft mishandled communication with small business newsagents – saying POS software companies were responsible that Blueshyft ought be responsible for. The result was many POS software help desk calls that caused use to spend money on calls that were 100% the responsibility of Blueshyft.
Here at Tower Systems we did the work, provided the service. Then, we took a look at what Bluieshyft did and wrote to our customers:
Poor communication from Blueshyft disrespects you and us.
Blueshyft emailed newsagents today asking them to call their POS software company for a file update.
Blueshyft had not told us about the update, we did not have the file, we had not seen the file and could, therefore, not help.
But the support calls came. In huge number. Newsagents calling us because Blueshyft told them to. Some customers were rude to Tower employees, saying we were fools for not knowing about this.
This all happened when Gavin Williams, our COO, and I were on a flight from there Gold Coast back to Melbourne. We had been on the Gold Coast on business.
Our help desk was slammed – all because Blueshyft had kept us in the dark and because some newsagents didn’t believe that we had no knowledge of this new file.
I spoke with Blueshyft CEO Kain Warwick 45 minutes ago and expressed by frustration at what is, in my opinion, appalling communication from Blueshyft and a lack of respect for what Tower Systems does for them.
We get no compensation for any work related to Blueshyft. XchangeIT is paid to do what they do. I suspect Blueshyft pays VANA for their support and kind words. Yet the POS software company with the most newsagents is expected to be mind readers and know about a file we have never seen.
What happened today is ridiculous.
I have told our help desk we will not take calls on this new file. Instead, we have updated our online advice. This has all the instructions you need to load the file. Click here for our advice.
Had Blueshyft been professional, they would have provided the file, let us test it, let us provide them with advice on loading and then communicated with you. Instead, they dumped the heavy lifting on companies like ours for no compensation at all.
But on the file, it has 2,700 stock items. It does not make sense they want to bloat your system with all these but that is a separate issue.
Yes, I am frustrated as it is things like this that divert our attention from providing support individual customers of ours call us for – calls from the businesses that pay for our support services. Blueshyft is freeloading at my expense and, ultimately, at your expense.
Mark Fletcher
Managing Director
0418 321 338
Join Tower Systems for a one of our free seminars in Australia and New Zealand (in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch) where we will show our latest Australian developed POS software for specialty independent small business retail.
This will be a truly interactive learning opportunity for small business retailers, an opportunity to see under the hood of website development, to discover is this is something any retailer could do for their business.
We will show you how to setup up a Shopify store that can be live in hours. Plus, there will be a Q&A opportunity so you can explore your specific needs. Book now by clicking on the city location you prefer.
We will share our experiences in the small business POS and e-commerce areas and outline what we learned when creating sites for our own retail businesses. This seminar could save you thousands in web developer fees.
If you have questions, please email mark@towersystems.com.au or call 0418 321 338. If you are in New Zealand, please call toll free on 0800 444 367.
Tower Systems is an Australian small business focussed POS software company based in Hawthorn Victoria with sales and support nationally. Our software is available to run locally or in the cloud and can be purchased, leased or rented for a few dollars a day. Our phone number is 1300 662 957.
The cost of labour is one of the top three costs in any retail business, usually coming after cost of goods and retail space. Yet small business and independent retailers often do not manage labour cost to be a s low as practical.
Based on years of helping small business retailers run more successful and valuable retail businesses. here are out top five tips for cutting the cost of labour in any retail business.
Here are our top five tips:
We have plenty more suggestions than these five. They are a starting point of the advice Tower Systems can provide.
Advice like this is provided as part of our weekly advice and assistance to small business retailers.
The link between our small business POS software and Xero cloud based accounting is helping small business retailers eliminate time-consuming and error prone bookkeeping steps … and this is money in the bank for small business retailers.
Our POS software Xero link runs in the background, delivering data to Xero so it is working for you rather than you being a slave to it as is often the case with older approaches to accounting software use in small business retail.
Using Xero ourselves in our own retail businesses, shops we own as live test beds for what we do here, we know the benefits, we see then and bank the benefits.
We have an in-house accountant who oversees our various businesses and he delights at the time saving from the PO software to Xero link. He also delights over the mistake elimination by cutting out what were manual processes.
This is the key of the link to Xero.
And when you overlay the Tyro broadband banking solution for small business retail you have an even better solution cutting more processes, freeing up more cash and empowering small business retailers for better outcomes.
End of Shift based department-level sales are transferred to Xero via a sales invoice. Each department can be assigned its own Xero account.
Invoices received into Retailer are transferred to Xero at department level. No individual stock items are transferred.
These are transferred to individual expense accounts depending on the transaction reason chosen.
An option on sales exporting is to export Cost of Sales. While not a full implementation of COGS it does transfer over the cost price of items sold each day to reduce the value of Stock On Hand in Xero. If you use this option you will export Write offs, not as expenses, but as adjustment to your Stock on Hand. This makes processing stock adjustments for the End Of Month much easier.
Join Tower Systems for a one of our free seminars in Australia and New Zealand (in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch) where we will show our latest Australian developed POS software for specialty independent small business retail.
See the POS software to Magento and Shopify links that get you online. See the POS software Xero link that saves time and money. See a new approach to loyalty shoppers love and big businesses cannot copy.
We will show you how to setup up a Shopify store that can be live in hours. Plus, there will be a Q&A opportunity so you can explore your specific needs. Book now by clicking on the city location you prefer.
We will share our experiences in the small business POS and e-commerce areas and outline what we learned when creating sites for our own retail businesses. This seminar could save you thousands in web developer fees.
If you have questions, please email mark@towersystems.com.au or call 0418 321 338. If you are in New Zealand, please call toll free on 0800 444 367.
Tower Systems is an Australian small business focussed POS software company based in Hawthorn Victoria with sales and support nationally. Our software is available to run locally or in the cloud and can be purchased, leased or rented for a few dollars a day. Our phone number is 1300 662 957.
Tower Systems offers specialty software for: gift shops, jewellers, toy shops, fishing/outdoors businesses, garden centres/nurseries, pet shops, bike shops,produce stores, firearms businesses and newsagents.
Our sales team can show you our software: Please call our sales team at 1300 662 957 or email them at sales@towersystems.com.au.
Bricks and mortar retailers are doing it tough in the fight for sales with online businesses. You are often sought out for face to face advice but lose the sale to an online operation when it comes to price comparison.
We have put together advice for small business retailers, independent retailers, to offer guidance on the future direction and management opportunities where competing with online businesses is a challenge. We offer this advice here for free to any retailer to consider, regardless of the POS software they use.
Given the different cost bases for an online business serving a country or the world compared to a retail shop serving a local community, you can’t win on price, not in the long term.
In working with thousands of small business independent retailers in Australia, New Zealand and other countries over many years we have seen some excellent successes and some epic failures.
Success in competing with online competitors begins and ends with making good decisions based on sound facts and structuring the business for success at every possible point.
This is business
For many retail shop owners, the retail shop is part lifestyle, part sport and part business. This can complicate the decisions that need to be made to make the business successful.
Running your retail shop as a business has to come first. Get this right and you can enjoy the sport and have the lifestyle you want. If business does not come first, the other two will usually not follow.
So, competing with online begins with your headspace, it begins with committing to getting the business right and relentlessly pursuing its success.
In practical terms, this means that every business decision is based on careful consideration of sound data. If the data does not support a business decision, you don’t do it. Simple.
Five ways you can compete with online
Here are five ways you can differentiate your business from online, ways that leverage personal, human, contact.
The difference between a bricks and mortar retail shop and a website selling the same products online is that your business, the bricks and mortar business, is real, it can be visited, it’s personal. Everything you say and do needs to reinforce this and build trust based on this.
Be open about price
Don’t be afraid to say that online businesses can sell for less. That’s because they do less and care less. You could do this too but that’s probably not the business you want to run.
Competing on price really comes down to changing the game. This is where a properly structured and consistently run loyalty program offering an amount of cash off the next purchase based on the current purchase can make a difference for you.
Being consistent
Online businesses through the software behind their websites are consistent if nothing else. This is where good retail shop software can help a retail shop compete. It can drive consistency in the bricks and mortar business on pricing, loyalty rewards, customer marketing, buying, pricing and employee performance tracking and motivation.
Good retail shop software is designed specifically for retail shops to leverage the difference retail shops offer over online retailers. When used to the fullest, it can drive sales and bring customers back more often. It can play a key role on competing with online.
Tower Systems is thrilled to announced the advanced beta release of the latest version of its smart POS software. Developed in-house bbq the Tower Systems retail software development team, this latest release of the Retailer software delivers many enhancements. here are just some of the enhancements:
As noted, these are only some of the enhancements to the POS software delivered in the latest update delivered by Tower Systems.
Enhancements are sourced from user suggestions and developed in close consultation with users of the software.
Each update is tested in house, alpha tested in several retail stores and then released to the beta community prior to release to all customers. This process results in stable and enjoyed software.
Tower Systems leftists customers choose when they install any software update. Small business retailers love this.
The deep and seamless link between the Tower Systems POS software and Shopify e-commerce sites is proving to be popular with small business retailers keen to transact online in a smart and current technology way.
The now released Shopify POS software link is racking up sales as shoppers shop for what they love with product fulfilled from a high street retailer using the link.
Being able to run one stock file between online and offline is vital for retail businesses.
With the Shopify site being live in a few days and using inventory data from the high street store, Tower Systems has devlieverd a best-practice POS Software / Shopify solution that any small business retailer could use.
WHY SHOPIFY?
Shopify is an easy to use e-commerce platform. We think anyone can setup a Shopify site for themselves. Linking the site to our retailer software is also easy. Shopify is a great place for a business to start on their online journey. You can control pages, products, look and plenty more. Shopify is not as complex as Magento and other more comprehensive website platforms.
WHAT TOWER SYSTEMS OFFERS.
For a modest fee, Tower Systems offers a live Shopify site linked to a retailer’s business with plenty of facilities and functionality:
For ease of reference and clarity, below is a numbered list of all work and tasks included in the above quote. This is the complete list.
The Tower Systems stand at the Reed Gift Fair in Sydney over the weekend and through to today has been busy. We have had plenty of customers stop by as well as potential new customers.
We are thrilled with the mix of people we have seen, from the broad variety of businesses. It is excellent expanding our contacts, showing off the software and connecting with more and more people as a result of this trade shows.
At the Gift Fair this past weekend we have been showing off our latest business intelligence platform, our small business task management software and plenty more including the latest release of our POS software.
Trade shows are wonderful opportunities to get feedback, connect with people and pitch our software.
Being the only specialty retail POS software company has its benefits.
Tower Systems offers a level of personal service to small business retailers installing its POS software. The company has multiple roles in the business focussed on the easy and gentle settling in of the software into businesses using the software. The roles have evolved over time to serve the singular goal of helping retailers get to a happy place with their Tower Systems software quickly.
One of the most important benefits of the Tower Systems approach to new customers is the new customer help desk entry point.
New customers of POS software have different needs to long term customers. We have found that by handling the two are different points on the help desk we are able to deliver a better help desk experience to each.
Our new customer specialists make outbound calls, to get to our new customers ahead of them getting to us, to provide them with intuitive assistance prior to them realising they could benefit from then insights being shared.
By separating new customers out from the everyday support call traffic, help desk resources are better managed and customers more satisfied with the different experiences based on their knowledge and needs.
In additional to personal new customer service, Tower Systems helps new customers settle in with terrific user documentation, training videos, follow up training and business management level insights.
Since we own and operate our own retail businesses using our POS software we are able to speak from personal experience. This is a valuable point of difference for our customers and for us. For example, we can talk about how to setup for easy Xero integration or the ideal product category structure or how to deal with suppliers more efficiently. being able to say this is how we resolve this issue in our shop is a tremendous point of difference our customers love.
There is nothing worse than a help desk person telling you what to do when they do not understand what they are saying in the context of your retail business. Context is everything as they say. We understand the context of POS software in a retail business because we live it. We use this context in helping small business retailers settle into using our POS software.
Thrilled to be at the Sydney Gift Fair this weekend. New software. Personal service. We’re here to help.
We are grateful for the opportunity of participating is a special collector event last weekend at a business using our POS software.
While many elements of our POS software helped make the event run smoothly, it was our Lay-Bys facilities that shone through with professional management of many large Lay-By transactions.
Lay-Bys are important to small business retailers as they enable them to capture sales they might otherwise lose. For them to work, though, they need to be professionally managed.
Our software professionally manages the Lay-By from sale to tules to deposit to payments to collection to safe storage.
On a day like this special event, Lay-By was important to help the retailer achieve sales they might otherwise have missed. Our software helps drive consistency for the retailer and build confidence for the shopper.
We love spending time in retail and seeing first hand how retailers use our POS software.
The Visual Deck business intelligence platform from retailers using the Tower Systems small business POS software has received more kudos from business mentors, advisors and accountants seeing the BI platform for the first time at Xerocon South, the Xero users conference in Brisbane last week.
The reaction was terrific when they saw the easy access to business performance comparison data in visual way, from our cloud based application.
They loved that it was accessible from anywhere including by them in their businesses where they support small business.
They loved the fast year on year comparison.
They loved the KPI focus of the app.
We are proud of what we have delivered in the Visual Deck, that we are offering our customers a platform they can use to see the performance of their business, visually, as our experience is this will guide better business decisions. We are also proud of the elegance of the software.
The syncing between the in-store POS software and the Visual Deck is in the background, non intrusive.
The Visual Deck is particularly useful for retailers who are not in a business often.
Like all good software, the Visual Deck continues to evolve.
The Visual Deck is a platform through which you can see the performance of your business, visually. Graphs replace reports, making trends obvious and a path ahead clearer to follow. Graphs that change with time and through which you can dive deeper into what is happening in your business.
The Visual Deck is only available for Tower Systems customers.
The fastest way for a small business to recover from a ransomware or crypto lock attack is to have immediate access to full backup of data and software from immediately prior to the installation of the malware that led to the attack.
A smart cloud based backup service is the very best protection. It is also the most cost effective.
While many small business retailers prefer the cheaper alternative of manually backing up each day, invariably these backups are either not done every day or they can be faulty.
Some business owners use free cloud backup services but as is the case with anything in life, you get what you pay for.
The Tower Systems smart cloud backup service costs $2 a day and can be stopped at any time. It is fast, continuous, local and off site in a secure server farm.
How Does Tower Backup Work?
The software performs an incremental backup every fifteen minutes. An incremental backup is a backup of files that have changed or are new since the last backup.
These incremental backups are catalogued on your NAS device. They are then collated to create your full system backup. This process allows access to backups from a particular point of time – even at the file level. Because backups are stored on the NAS device you have immediate access in-store as well as being sent to the Tower Systems Data Storage Centre in the cloud where a secure additional offsite copy of your data is kept.
How Does This Differ From My Daily Backup?
Retailer Backup ONLY backs up your Retailer Data leaving your other business data, accounting data, important documents and emails at risk. Tower Backup backs up your entire main PC, meaning all your business data is safe and secure. A copy of your business backup is also securely sent via the Internet to our secure data storage centre, giving you a safe off-site copy for protection.
Once Tower Backup is implemented you will no longer need to perform your daily backup. You or your staff will no longer need to wait for the daily backup to complete. The saving could be in excess of $150 per month if your backup is taking 15 minutes or more to complete.
As we prepare for the next semester of our free online training workshops we are inviting our customers to suggest topics they would like covered. Each time we do this we discover topics of interest – usually in the business operational space where software interfaces with business management.
We are proud to be resourced sufficiently and to have sufficient interest in our weekly online training workshops for us to continue with these.
It is hard work running the sessions, handling the follow up, providing the infrastructure and doing this week in week out. The work is worth it as it provides a valuable point of difference for us.
Years on, our free online training is resource from the company. We love the customer interaction every week.
We are thrilled with the covering of Tower Systems and our POS software across several pages of XU magazine, the magazine sought after by Xero accounting software users.
The latest issue of XU magazine, released at the Xerocon conference in Brisbane this week, is packed with practical business advice and support for small business owners, accountants and bookkeepers. It is a must read for anyone using Xero or connected with the Xero community.
We appreciate the opportunity to be part of this respected publication.
Using our POS software, small business retailers are able to save rostered hours in their businesses, be smarter in selling and marketing and be more informed in business decisions. These benefits are enhanced through the Xero link.
The latest article in XU magazine explains the benefits and presents Tower Systems as the professional software company it is.
Being at Xerocon South is proving to be a wonderful experience. Spending all day talking with accountants and bookkeepers who help small business retailers run more successful businesses.
The discussions are detailed about small business challenges and opportunities, specific to specific niche retail channels that we serve such as toy shops, jewllers, garden centres and pet stores.
Talking business, talking Xero and talking smart cloud based software – we are loving it, loving the detail, loving the learning and loving the optimism.
This is an exciting and motivating event, especially for those of us serving the small business retail space.
What this event mean for us is ne connections, with accountants and bookkeepers – people like us who serve small businesses to help them run more successful businesses. This shared goal brings is close together.
We are the only vertical market POS software company here, enabling is top delve deep into our specialisation with accountants to help them be more specialist with their clients.
We took the photo early this morning before the doors opened at 8am. We love the green look.
We are thrilled to be participating in Xerocon in Brisbane this week. As a parter of Xero, we are among a small group of approved connected POS software companies here at the conference.
Yesterday we met with plenty of accountants, bookkeepers and integrators who stopped by our stand. It was the busiest day at a trade show for us this year.
We are showing off our POS software that offers a SAAS model, cloud based through to desktop models for specialist retailers in a range of small business channels including newsagents, jewellers, got shops, bike shops, produce stores, toy shops, garden centres, pet shops and more.
The first day of xerocon yesterday was terrific. We are excited for what today will bring.
Recent Comments