The POS Software Blog

The POS Software Blog

News from Tower Systems about locally made POS software for specialty local retailers.

CategoryEmployee Theft

A retail theft story that does not end well

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I DON’T BELIEVE YOU.

That’s what a retail business owner told us years ago when we told them that employee theft had cost their business more than $100,000 in the previous 12 months.

When we asked who worked four specific shifts each week and who had two weeks off a month prior, they knew we might be on to something, but since th person in question was family, they trusted them more than they trusted us.

The thing is, data are facts, they don’t lie.

PROVE IT.

They told us to prove it.

We asked for more data, dug deeper, and proved it, expect that the amount that had been stolen went up the further back we looked. We showed them that $350,000 had been stolen from the business through systematic actions and because they had given the employee full security access and because they id not use the theft tracking tools in the software – and the employee knew this.

This all started because of what they thought was a bug in our software. There was no bug.

It ended with the police laying charges.

Our POS software collects data that can be analysed to look for patterns of use that could indicate theft behaviour.

In a typical independent retail business, theft costs between 3% and 5% of turnover. Our software backed by our Theft Check service seek to reduce the financial imp[act on the businesses owned and run by our 3,000+ customers.

We are grateful to help independent retailers reduce the cost of theft in their shops.

Helping local small business retailers discover and manage theft situations is just one way we help our retailer community.

Our Australian sales number is 1300 662 957.

Our NZ sales number is 0800 444 367.

WE’RE NOT YOUR AVERAGE POS SOFTWARE COMPANY AND HERE ARE 3 EXAMPLES WHY:

  • Dead stock often represents between 5% and 12% of stock on hand in local indie retail businesses. Our software proactively helps retailers identify dead stock and stop making decisions that lead to dead stock.
  • We provide a free theft check service where we look at data patterns that can indicate theft. Our evidence has been used by police, prosecutors and accepted ax expert evidence in court.
  • Copying big retailers is not smart. Our software offers genuinely unique, and successful, ways you can differentiate to nurture deeper baskets per purchase and more frequent return of shoppers.

Sure, we do the usual of scanning products, tracking sales, supplier electronic invoice import, linking to Xero for accounting and linking to Shopify (and more) for online sales. It’s what we do outside the usual where our retailers can leverage real value, like our insights dashboard.

Tower Systems helps local small business retailers cut employee theft in 2024

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From the data captured from Point-of-Sale software from my software company being used in their business, I was able to show Harry and June that their business was being stolen from to the tune of at least two thousand dollars a week, that it had been going on for two years and that it was only happening four days a week.

We were sitting in a coffee shop near their business. They brought the shop employee roster with me as I asked. There was only one person who worked the days and specific hours indicated by the Point-of-Sale software.

‘It can’t be, they’re family,’ June said looking across at Harry. ‘She’s my niece,’ said Harry, ‘she’s amazing in the shop. Customers love her’. ‘We couldn’t run the business without her,’ June chipped in. ‘Yeah, it’s got to be a mistake,’ Harry said looking at the roster.

Harry had reached out to me a couple of weeks earlier as their accountant had advised him that the business was not making the type of money that it should. The accountant had said to him ‘something’s not right’.

Harry thought there was something wrong with the software. That’s why he called me.

I asked for a copy of their data and did a deep dive into a hidden set of encrypted sales records stored by the software to enable this type of investigation of possible employee fraud.

Having done this type of research many times in the past and having worked with police and prosecutors as an expert witness, I knew for certain that Harry and June were being stolen from by their niece.

They left the coffee shop meeting certain that the problem was with the software. It was another year before Harry and June followed my advice, installed hidden cameras and got the evidence to implicate their niece.

The day they confronted their niece she walked out. They never recovered the money. They feared a split in the family and didn’t pursue criminal charges.

In all, Harry and June lost over three hundred thousand dollars. They sold the business soon after.

Employee theft can be a high cost to indie small business retailers. Different studies in Australia and elsewhere coupled with our own knowledge of theft in indie small business retail indicates that employee theft costs a business around 75% of the total cost of theft.

The quantum of  employee theft is often under considered by small business retailers. We think  this is because of denial. However, given that the amount that can be taken in one hit or in micro amounts over a long period of time can be considerable once toted up.

Employee theft can be traced and as a result of this stopped. Our small business POS software helps retailers do this. We back the theft mitigation facilities in our software with training, advice and even data analysis to uncover possible instances of theft that may have hitherto gone undetected.

Here is some of the small business retail theft mitigation advice from our POS software retail experienced team:

  1. Track your stock. Receive all stock into your business through your computer system so you know exactly what sock you have.
  2. Scan everything you sell.  Do not use department keys as this makes it easier for employees to steal since they know there is no trackback to stock on hand. Using department keys is an invitation to steal.
  3. Track every sale by employees. Give your employees a card with a unique barcode or have them enter a code – to track every sale they make back to them. Change the code every six months or so.
  4. Do your end of shift through your software and have a zero-tolerance policy on being over or under. Reconcile banking to your computer software end of shift. One business where this was not done was being skimmed regularly for $200 a day.
  5. Do spot cash balancing. Unexpected checks can uncover surprises. One retailer needing to do a banking during the day uncovered a $350 discrepancy that lead to discovery of systematic theft.
  6. Change your roster. Sometimes people work together to steal. One retailer found a family friend senior and their teenage daughter stealing consistently.
  7. Setup a theft policy.Put this on a noticeboard in the back room. Get staff to read it and sign up to it. See the last page of this advice.
  8. Keep the counter clean. An organised counter reduces the opportunity for theft. It makes detection easier.
  9. Have a no employee bags at the counter policy. This makes it harder for them to hide your cash.
  10. Beware employees who carry folded paper or small notepads. These can be used for them to keep track of how much cash is in the register that is theirs – i.e. not rung up in the software.
  11. Advise all job applicants that you will require their permission for a police check. From the outset this indicates that you take your business seriously. In many situations applicants who have been asked for permission to do a police check advise they have found a job elsewhere.
  12. Do not take cash out for your own use in front of employees. If they see you take cash for a coffee or lunch some will see this as an invitation.

At the start of a new year is a good time to take a close look at whether employee theft is an issue in your retail business. We’d love to help you with that.

Almost every survey of local small business retailers lists cashflow as their #1 challenge

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Having access to the cash you need when you need it is critical in business.

Here are some obvious but too often ignored hacks to help improve the cashflow position of a business.

  1. Quit dead stock. In every retail business we work with we find that at least 20% of stock in the business is dead. That’s cash, space and time being wasted. Identify it. Quit it.
  2. Buy better. Buy stock based on evidence from your POS software. This will result in less dead stock and less out of stock situations – a third of all retail businesses we’ve looked at lost revenue by not having in stock products when shoppers wanted.
  3. Compare suppliers. If you have multiple suppliers for a product category. Compare their performance and act on the evidence. POS software can make this easy. We did this in two of our own shops last year and added $25,000+ in high gross profit revenue to each.
  4. Make shopping easier. Do this and people will spend more: make navigating the shop easier, use signs sparingly – ensure every sign is helpful, offer bundles of products to make occasion purchasing easier, include how to sheets with products as appropriate.
  5. Roster to revenue. Labour is usually the second or third highest business cost. Have your best people selling. Make sure every costed hour adds value to the business.
  6. Pass on actual EFTPOS costs. Use your POS software to auto-calculate the actual cost of a card presented and surcharge this per transaction. Shoppers have been educated now to accept this.
  7. Know the cost of theft. Between 2% and 5% of turnover is the cost of theft (shopper and employee) in indie retail in Australia and New Zealand. Use your POS software to know your stats, and act to reduce this.
  8. Attract more shoppers. Yes, this sounds easier said than done. But … a stunning and unexpected front window or street display will catch attention, fun social media posts will catch attention, a relationship with a community group will catch attention, being online will catch attention.
  9. Get current shoppers buying more. A smart loyalty program with the right settings for your business should achieve this for you. Too often local retailers run points-based loyalty that does not differentiate their business.

This list is a start. There is no one thing you can do to improve cashflow. It takes discipline – we learnt that ourselves for our own shops.

We make POS software used by thousands of local retailers. We use our own software in our own physical shops and our consumer-facing websites.

We’re not your average POS software company. To discover more: email sales@towersystems.com.au or call 1300 662 957.

We make software for bike shops, garden centres, jewellers, gift shops, pet shops, landscape supply businesses, repairs businesses, bookshops,
fishing and outdoors shops, newsagents, produce / farm supply businesses, fabric shops, sewing shops, music shops, computer shops, firearms dealers, charity & op. shops, community enterprises and more.

Advice for small business retailers on dealing with increasing retail theft

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We know from the news that retail theft has increased. Shoplifting, stealing, retail theft, call it what o=you like, has a financial cost as well as an emotional cost. It can debilitate business owners, managers and team members, multiplying the total cost to the business.

Employee theft is easier to uncover, track and address than shopper theft.

Good POS software will offer proven tools for indicating potential employee theft and do this in a way that empowers business owners to act before the cost to the business is out of control.

The challenge is that many small business retail owners and managers do not use theft discovery and mitigation tools in POS software. We know because our Tower Systems POS software is well resourced in theft detection and mitigation and too often in talking with customers it is discovered later rather than earlier.

Our advice for retailers on employee theft is to use your software, check regularly, act on the indicators to see if there is something concerning there. In our case here at Tower systems – call or email – one of our senior theft mitigation specialists will help. These are people who have worked with the police and insurance companies on such situations. They will Bring that experience to the table for you.

Shopper theft, shoplifting, stealing of products is best discovered by a regular process of what we call spot stock takes. Choose several high interest product categories and every week check stock on hand. This will indicate if there is an issue. If there is not, choose another.

Having a consistent approach to spot stock takes if key to the discovery point of shoplifting.

The best deterrent is your action. Here is our advice to be known as a shop not worth stealing from:

  1. Greet people when they enter the shop. Them seeing you see them, eye to eye, will deter some people planning to steal.
  2. Have systems to collect evidence: CCTV and, when appropriate, matching POS software data.
  3. Always report people caught to the police.
  4. Write about reporting it to the police on social media.
  5. If you have camera evidence of theft but no knowledge of the name, use the photo to try and figure out the identity.

If the problem in your shop is serious and at a point where it is distressing you, consider bringing in a uniformed security guard for a week or two. While there is a cost with that, it makes a physical statement about your approach to the security of your space.

Complaining about theft is not action.

Catching someone and getting your goods back is inadequate action.

Not acting on a hunch because of a fear for what you might discover is not action.

Theft requires action. Typically in local small business retail it is costing the business somewhere between 3% and 5% of turnover. In our experience, retailers trend to not act because they are not sure where to start.

Here at Tower Systems we offer guidance to retail business owners on what to do, actions to take, processes to establish to at least get a handle on what might be happening. That is the best place to start if the business has not been acting consistently up to that point.

Small business retail advice: The indicator of employee theft that too many retailers ignore

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Take 2 minutes and read this advice for local small business retailers. It’s about employee theft. Most retailers do not consider or engage with employee theft as a topic until they have seen or felt the cost of employee theft, until after the event.

We know that employee theft in retail usually costs more than customer theft and that it is less likely to be detected

If the cash draw is open from the previous sale, the staff member can scan the items for the next sale, let the customer know the amount, receive payment (and give change if needed) and cancel the sale. They then keep a note of how much of their money is in the register.

Now while growth EFTPOS means less cash passes through a business. For someone wanting lunch money on the business each day they can achieve that. 5 days a week, 48 weeks a year and it could be close to $5,000 a year.

We have seen this often in retail businesses we have helped.

In our POS software there is a secret audit log that only the owner can access. This tracks a bunch of stuff, like cancelled sales. Spotting a questionable pattern is easy. This could be the thread that leads to discovery of theft.

Already in 2023 we have helped retailers detect theft. We have provided evidence to police to assist in prosecution. We have provided retailers irrefutable evidence so they can deal with recovery and / or an insurance claim. It’s the POs software, the business data and our retail data analysis skills that combine to help local small business retailers confront employee theft.

We have helped police and prosecutors deal with employee theft and ensured our software can help small business retailers in this area.

It’s not glamorous and not the key reason to consider Tower Systems. But it is a valuable reason. What you might save in a year could easily pay for the right POS software.

Find out more:
www.towersystems.com.au
1300 662 957
sales@towersystems.com.au

Too often small business retailers will not want to know about employee theft. Data don’t lie.

Tower Systems will work with you confidentially, quietly, providing the evidence., The steps you take are 100% up to you. It all starts with knowing.

There is never a good time to talk about theft with local retailers

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There is no good time to write to local retailers about theft.

It’s a topic many of us in business don’t want to hear about, we don’t want to contemplate it.

But this happened.

We were checking the data for a local retail business that uses our specialty retail POS software. We noticed some anomalies in their data, in transaction sequences actually.

After digging a bit deeper we had evidence of employee theft.

From data covering three months we had enough evidence to put a value of $25,000 on the theft.

On our advice, the business asked for a meeting with the employee to discuss their concerns. The employee resigned immediately. They never returned to the business.

The business has the evidence police can use for a criminal investigation and, we expect, charges being laid. As we have done previously, we are prepared to be called as an expert witness.

Tower Systems is not your usual POS software company. Our help desk does the usual help desk stuff, and they go the extra mile – to help you maximise the value of the power of our Aussie made and supported POS software.

Our software has theft tracking tools, hidden away from everyday users, tools that can provide the evidence needed by police, and prosecutors to make their case in court.

Here is best practice advice which, if followed, will reduce the cost of theft in any retail business.

  1. Establish a theft policy and stick to it.
  2. Check references of prospective employees.
  3. Ask candidates if they would agree to a background check.
  4. Only sell what you arrive, bring into the store, through Point of Sale software. If you track it you can know if it has been stolen or not. If you do not track it who knows if it is stolen.
  5. Track ALL sales – by scanning, touch screen button or PLU (product look up code), a hot key on your computer screen.
  6. Stop all department sales, sales where the employee gets to enter the amount of the item.
  7. Scan out ALL products are returned to suppliers.
  8. Undertake regular spot stock take throughout the business. The discrepancy between what you have and what the system has reflects theft.
  9. Reorder stock using your software. This stops poor buying decisions. It also identified stock theft and employee fraud around stock.
  10. Use employee codes against each sale. Yes, this adds time to each sale. The benefits far outweigh the time cost.
  11. Set an end of shift balance target of $5.00. Many retailers achieve this – it takes discipline.
  12. Change your system passwords regularly. Make it a condition of employment that these passwords are never shared.
  13. Do random, during the day, register balance checks. Check that the cash your computer system thinks should be in the cash drawer is what is actually in the cash drawer.
  14. Use your software to check and report on behaviour which could indicate employee theft.

Retailers tend to worry more about shopper theft than employee theft yet, in our experience, employee theft has the higher cost to the business.

The mental health challenge of theft in local small business retail

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Beyond the money, theft in local small business retail is a mental health challenge.

There is the situation of the person stealing, the customer, the supplier, the co-owner or the employee. Often there can be mental health challenges associated with or leading up to their actions.

Then, there is the mental health challenge for the business owner(s) following the theft.

In our work with local small business retailers dealing with theft from their business, we have seen mental health affected.

we have seen retailers so affected that they quickly sell their business, opting for a lifestyle change as a result.

Theft is personal. We get that there are plenty of ‘experts’ who say theft is not personal. But in our experience, it is. Your business is like your home. Theft is a violation of your home. This why it hits hard, why it hurst so much.

When we discover theft in a retail business we are helping we suggest the owners reach out to professional services for mental health support. Advice we have found useful includes:

Be sure of the facts. How much was stolen and how it was stolen. These specific details can help you draw a line under the situation.

Do something. Take an action, or actions, to protect against a recurrence. Acting on the situation can provide confidence and strength.

Be open with others. Sharing what happened and what it has meant to you can, of itself, nurture support.

Cleanse. The theft situation may have left you with an employee or two you no longer want in the business, a supplier to drop, a customer ti disallow. Take action to shut the door.

Exercise. Plenty off mental health professionals advocate active walking outdoors as a good step for calming and clearing your mind. Find the exercise that works best for you, walking, running, swimming, and engage in that exercise. From what we read and have been told, doing this away from you’re business regularly is key.

Try to not obsess. We have seen retailers become obsessed about theft following an incident. That can be debilitating and take joy from the running of the business. Find a balance that works for you where you can be vigilant, but not obsessed.

While dealing with the practicalities of theft is important in any local small business retail setting, dealing with your own mental health is important too. Work on it. be aware. Take care of yourself. And, be in control, rather than the crime controlling you.

How the Tower Systems POS software helps local small business retailers detect and mitigate employee theft

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Theft is a financial and emotional problem in retail, especially in local small business retail. Too often, it is not discovered until after the event, primarily because of a lack of belief that theft is a problem, particularly theft by employees.

One of the best ways to detect employee theft is to look at your business transactional data.

In our experience at Tower Systems, serving thousands of local small business retailers with our specialty retail POS software, we often find evidence of questionable behaviour indicating theft – behaviour that could have been observed in the business much sooner.

Our professional and based on experience advice to local small business retailers is to use the theft detection and mitigation tools in your POS software. learn about them. Use them. But don’t tell others what you are doing.

Cases of employee theft in local small business retail in which we have been involved have ranged in theft cost from $5,000 to $245,000. In every single instance, using the secret tools we have mentioned here could have detected the theft sooner and reduced the financial an emotional impact on the business and others.

If you have read this far, thank you and well done. Most will not, because theft is not an interesting topic – until they are personally impacted.

Recommended steps any retailer can take to reduce employee theft in retail:

Theft is something to be managed in any retail business. Retailers are  stolen from by employees. Good management is about reducing the opportunity for and instances of theft.

  1. Value employees. Experts say this is the top step to take.
  2. Share information. Often, theft can be driven by a misconception about the profitability of the business. Sharing accurate business performance data can educate against theft.
  3. Do your end of shift through your software and have a zero-tolerance policy on being over or under. Reconcile banking to your computer software end of shift. One business where this was not done was being skimmed regularly for $200 a day.
  4. Change your roster. Sometimes people work together to steal. One retailer found a family friend senior and their teenage daughter stealing consistently.
  5. Check GP by department. If GP is falling outside what you expect, research it further.
  6. Demand the cash drawer be closed after every sale. A drawer left open is an opportunity.
  7. Keep the counter clean. A better organised counter reduces the opportunity for theft as it makes detection easier.
  8. Have a no employee bags at the counter policy. This makes it harder for them to hide your cash.
  9. Beware employees who carry folded paper or small notepads. These can be used for them to keep track of how much cash is in the register that is theirs – i.e. not rung up in the software.
  10. Beware of calculators with memories at the counter. One retail business employee used the memory function to track how much cash had to be stolen prior to balancing for the day – cash from sales not rung up.
  11.  Enter new stock as it comes in, scan all sales and only reorder based on what you software says. Every month do a stock take. Popular daily items such as tobacco stock discrepancies are an indicator of theft. Had one retailer we work with been doing this they would have caught their $250 a day employee theft months earlier.
  12. Scan everything you sell. Do not use department keys as this makes it easier for employees to steal since they know there is no trackback to stock on hand. Using department keys is an invitation to steal.
  13. Do spot cash balancing using your PO)S software. Unexpected checks can uncover surprises. One retailer needing to do a banking during the day uncovered a $350 discrepancy that lead to discovery of systematic theft.
  14. Check your Audit Log in your POS software.
  15. Setup a theft policy. Put this on a noticeboard in the back room. Get staff to read it and sign up to it.
  16. Do not let employees sell to themselves. If they want to purchase something make them purchase it from the other side of the counter.
  17. Be professional in your management of the business. The more professional your approach they less likely your employees will steal as they will see the risk of being caught as high.
  18. Advise all job applicants that you will require their permission for a police check. From the outset this indicates that you take your business seriously. In many situations applicants who have been asked for permission to do a police check advise they have found a job elsewhere.
  19. Do not take cash out for your own use in front of employees. If they see you take cash for a coffee or lunch some will see this as an invitation.

These steps work – based on decades of helping small business retailers to reduce and manage employee theft.

12 steps to cut employee theft in any retail business

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Employee theft in retail tends to cost more than customer theft. It is also the type of theft in retail that is less likely to be uncovered and accurately costed.

Here are 12 steps to cut employee theft in any retail business:

  1. Scan everything you sell.
  2. Spot stock take items in high demand.
  3. Use your POS software to balance at the end of shift every day.
  4. Have a security camera over each register.
  5. Check GP by department. If GP is falling outside what you expect, research it further.
  6. Have a no employee bags at the counter policy. This makes it harder for them to hide your cash.
  7. Beware employees who carry folded paper or small notepads. These can be used for them to keep track of how much cash is in the register that is theirs – i.e. not rung up in the software.
  8. Beware of calculators with memories at the counter. One retail business employee used the memory function to track how much cash had to be stolen prior to balancing for the day – cash from sales not rung up.
  9. Do spot cash balancing. Unexpected checks can uncover surprises. One retailer needing to do a banking during the day uncovered a $350 discrepancy that lead to discovery of systematic theft.
  10. Setup a theft policy. Put this on a noticeboard in the back room. Get staff to read it and sign up to it.
  11. Do not let employees sell to themselves. If they want to purchase something make them purchase it from the other side of the counter.
  12. Be professional in your management of the business. The more professional your approach they less likely your employees will steal as they will see the risk of being caught as high.

Of course, there are more than 12 steps you can take. These are, in our opinion, the best. We say this based on years of experience helping local indie retailers, especially helping to reduce employee theft.

Tower Systems helps retailers reduce shoplifting through its smart POS software

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Shoplifting is a curse in retail, especially in small business retail where the emotional toll of shoplifting can be debilitating for the retail business owners, even more so than the financial toll on the business itself.

What is shoplifting? Shoplifting is the theft of inventory or other items or even cash from a business by a shopper.

Tower Systems offers smart POS software that is helping retailers reduce shoplifting. The software works by tracking inventory and sales data, which helps store owners to identify patterns and trends. This information can then be used to loss prevention strategies.

The Tower Systems software has been proven to be an effective tool in reducing shoplifting. In one case study, a retailer who installed the software was able to reduce shoplifting by 50%. The POS software does this by helping retailers to understand what is being stolen and to narrow the time window of the theft. This information is key to reducing the cost of shoplifting.

In most instances, what is being stolen through shoplifting is different to what retailers thing is being stolen. Shoplifting data is key here.

This data-driven approach to reducing shoplifting is helping retailers save money and increase margins. In one case study, a retailer who installed Tower Systems’ smart POS software was able to reduce shoplifting by 25%. That’s a significant improvement that can have a big impact on the bottom line—especially for small businesses.

The smart POS software is easy to use and can be installed on any computer or mobile device. It is also reasonably priced, making it a good option for small businesses.

Retailers lose billions of dollars every year to shoplifting, but there is hope. The Tower Systems smart point-of-sale software offers a retail security solution that can help retailers reduce shrinkage (the industry term for lost inventory due to shoplifting).

If you are a small business owner, you should consider using Tower Systems to help reduce shoplifting.

Using cutting-edge technology, the system tracks inventory in real time and sounds an alarm if someone tries to leave the store with an unpaid item. The solution has already helped hundreds of retailers reduce shrinkage.

The software is easy to use and an effective way to track inventory and sales data. This information can then be used to develop loss prevention strategies.

Note: employee theft is a form of shoplifting, but considered differently to shoplifting itself.

Retail business advice: when an employee steals from your business

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The harm to a retail business from employee theft can be far reaching, debilitating for the business and those who work in it. The keys for moving on from the crime starts with confronting the situation.

Through our POS  software company we have been engaged in helping retailers deal with employee theft for many years.

In this post, we offer straightforward steps to help you get through as it is on the other side of this where you can find the opportunity to move on from the feeling of violation that often accompanies employee theft in small business.

  1. Be sure of the facts, gather the evidence. Evidence could include, video footage of cash being take from the business, business records being modified to cover tracks, stock being stolen and more. Evidence does not include gossip, feelings and opinions. Without evidence you have nothing to proceed with.
  2. Once you have all available evidence and if this clearly implicates one or more employee, work out what you want.
    1. If you involve the police, they and, subsequently, the courts, will control the process including getting your money or goods back, an apology and more.
    2. If you don’t involve them, think about if you want the money or goods back, an apology, the person to stop working for you without negative impact on you – or a mixture of these.
    3. Check your insurance policy. Be sure you understand what you might be able to claim and in what circumstances. For example, your policy may require a police report. This could determine your next steps. If you are not sure what your insurance policy says, call the insurance company for advice. Knowing your insurance situation early is vital.
  3. If the person committing the crime is a minor:
    1. Once you are sure, advise their parents or guardian by phone. Invite them to the shop or an independent location to see what you have. Have someone else there with you, as an observer. This meeting needs to happen quickly.
    2. Present the evidence.
    3. Listen to their response.
    4. If they (their parents) ask what you want, be clear.
    5. If agreement is reached, put it in writing at the meeting and have all involved sign it.
    6. If agreement is not reached you need to decide your next steps and engage them.
    7. A return of the money, likely by the parents, should be in a lump sum, immediately. We have seen a parent pay $22,000 where a uni student studying psychology stole and out their career at risk by being caught. We have seen another situation where a 75-year-old mum repaid the $12,000 stolen by her adult daughter so the daughter did not have to tell her husband about her gambling problem.
  4. If the person committing the crime is not a minor:
    1. Speak with them face to face, privately, with another person there as a witness.
    2. Tell them you have evidence of them stealing from the business.
    3. Ask if they would like to see it. If they say no, ask what they propose.
    4. If they do want to see the evidence, show it and ask what they propose.
    5. If there is an offer of a full refund, an immediate resignation and never entering the business again it could be a good practical outcome. The challenge is you may not know the value of what has been stolen. Experience indicates that someone stealing cash will understate the amount considerably. I was involved in one case where they said they stole $10,000. The irrefutable evidence showed it was $75,000.
    6. Get any agreement in writing. If there is an offer to repay, our advice is to only accept an immediate lump sum. If the proposal is payment of, say, more than $10,000 over time, involve the police.
    7. If the person denies any wrongdoing, go to the police immediately.
  5. If you have suspicions and do not have the evidence, put in place opportunities to gather the evidence without entrapping the target, without setting them up. I have seen situations where local police have provided advice and support for this. It could be worth asking them if you are in a regional or rural situation.

If you are nervous about meeting the person or their family, write down what you plan to say. Keep it short. To the facts. No emotion. Having a script prepared can be useful even if you do not read it.

If there is any risk of violence, do not have a meeting. Go straight to the police.

Time is of the essence here. The longer you know about the situation and the longer you do not act the less useful the outcome is likely to be.

If you are not sure what to do, we can share our experiences.

Advice on how to deal with theft in local retail businesses

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Theft is a scourge in retail businesses. beyond the financial cost is a considerable motional cost to those in the business from employees to owners.

We shot a brief video a few months ago in which we discussed theft in retail, leveraging our years of experience helping local retailers to reduce theft.

There are things retailers can do to protect against theft as well as to deal with it when it is discovered. This video is a peek inside what Tower Systems offers its local specialty retail POS software customers.

As retailers ourselves we draw on lived experience in providing this advice. The more we all share on this challenging topic the better for all retailers.

Here is an example of some pf the advice we have provided to retailers.

Too many retailers read advice about theft and ignore it. Indeed, the most common trigger for small business retailers to work on reducing employee theft is the discovery of such theft. Here are simple steps you can take to detect and manage employee theft:

  1. Track your stock. Receive all stock into your business through your computer system so you know exactly what sock you have.
  2. Scan everything you sell. Do not use department keys as this makes it easier for employees to steal since they know there is no trackback to stock on hand. Using department keys is an invitation to steal.
  3. Track every sale by employees. Give your employees a card with a unique barcode or have them enter a code – to track every sale they make back to them. Change the code every six months or so.
  4. Do your end of shift through your software and have a zero-tolerance policy on being over or under. Reconcile banking to your computer software end of shift. One business where this was not done was being skimmed regularly for $200 a day.
  5. Do spot cash balancing. Unexpected checks can uncover surprises. One retailer needing to do a banking during the day uncovered a $350 discrepancy that lead to discovery of systematic theft.
  6. Change your roster. Sometimes people work together to steal. One retailer found a family friend senior and their teenage daughter stealing consistently.
  7. Check your Audit Log. Look at cancelled sales, deleted sales and items deleted from a sale. Leaving a cash drawer open from the previous sale, scanning items, taking the cash and cancelling the sale is the most common process used by employees to accrue cash they then take from you. Good software tracks cancelled sales and what was in them. This can be matched with video footage.
  8. Check Gross Profit by department. If GP is falling outside what you expect, research it further.
  9. Setup a theft policy. Put this on a noticeboard in the back room. Get staff to read it and sign up to it. See the last page of this advice.
  10. Keep the counter clean. An organised counter reduces the opportunity for theft. It makes detection easier.
  11. Have a no employee bags at the counter policy. This makes it harder for them to hide your cash.
  12. Beware employees who carry folded paper or small notepads. These can be used for them to keep track of how much cash is in the register that is theirs – i.e. not rung up in the software.
  13. Beware of calculators with memories at the counter. One retail business employee used the memory function to track how much cash had to be stolen prior to balancing for the day – cash from sales not rung up.
  14. Do not let employees sell to themselves. If they want to purchase something make them purchase it from the other side of the counter.
  15. Be professional in your management of the business. The more professional your approach they less likely your employees will steal as they will see the risk of being caught as high.
  16. Advise all job applicants that you will require their permission for a police check. From the outset this indicates that you take your business seriously. In many situations applicants who have been asked for permission to do a police check advise they have found a job elsewhere.
  17. Do not take cash out for your own use in front of employees. If they see you take cash for a coffee or lunch some will see this as an invitation.

These steps work – based on decades of helping small business retailers to reduce and manage employee theft.

Tower Systems helps small business retailers detect and mitigate employee theft

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Theft is a problem in retail. Too often, it is not discovered until after the event, primarily because of a lack of belief that theft is a problem, particularly theft by employees.

One of the best ways to detect employee theft is to look at your business transactional data. Good POS software not only tracks what is sold, it also tracks what is deleted from sales and entire sales that are cancelled, and it keeps this data in a hidden file, not accessible in the usual reporting way of the software.

In our experience at Tower Systems , one out of ten times we have received this secret data for a retailer using my POS software we have found evidence of questionable behaviour. Laying this evidence out with video footage, ideally, and employee rosters, a person of interest emerges, or more depending on the video evidence with a money (in the pocket) shot.

We are not going to share here the incriminating keystrokes but we will note they have been court-tested in cases while providing expert witness for the prosecution.

Our professional and based on experience advice to local small business retailers is to use the theft detection and mitigation tools in your POS software. learn about them. Use them. But don’t tell others what you are doing.

Some retailers think the best approach to reduce the theft opportunity is to lock everything down, making it very hard for people to steal. The thing is, people who want / need to steal will find a way and the harder you make it for them m in a retail setting the harder it will be for you to detect it.

We am not saying tempt them. rather, don’t lock your POS software down, give people reasonable access, and watch what they do – follow the advice of your POS software company on using the data their software collects for you to see if theft could be a problem min your shop.

Cases of employee theft in a newsagency in which we have been involved have ranged in theft cost from $5,000 to $245,000. In every single instance, using the secret tools we have mentioned here could have detected the theft sooner and reduced the financial an emotional impact on the business and others.

If you have read this far, thank you and well done. Most will not, because theft is not an interesting topic – until they are personally impacted.

Recommended steps any retailer can take to reduce employee theft in retail:

Theft is something to be managed in any retail business. Retailers are  stolen from by employees. Good management is about reducing the opportunity for and instances of theft.

  1. Value employees. Experts say this is the top step to take.
  2. Share information. Often, theft can be driven by a misconception about the profitability of the business. Sharing accurate business performance data can educate against theft.
  3. Do your end of shift through your software and have a zero-tolerance policy on being over or under. Reconcile banking to your computer software end of shift. One business where this was not done was being skimmed regularly for $200 a day.
  4. Change your roster. Sometimes people work together to steal. One retailer found a family friend senior and their teenage daughter stealing consistently.
  5. Check GP by department. If GP is falling outside what you expect, research it further.
  6. Demand the cash drawer be closed after every sale. A drawer left open is an opportunity.
  7. Keep the counter clean. A better organised counter reduces the opportunity for theft as it makes detection easier.
  8. Have a no employee bags at the counter policy. This makes it harder for them to hide your cash.
  9. Beware employees who carry folded paper or small notepads. These can be used for them to keep track of how much cash is in the register that is theirs – i.e. not rung up in the software.
  10. Beware of calculators with memories at the counter. One retail business employee used the memory function to track how much cash had to be stolen prior to balancing for the day – cash from sales not rung up.
  11.  Enter new stock as it comes in, scan all sales and only reorder based on what you software says. Every month do a stock take. Popular daily items such as tobacco stock discrepancies are an indicator of theft. Had one retailer we work with been doing this they would have caught their $250 a day employee theft months earlier.
  12. Scan everything you sell. Do not use department keys as this makes it easier for employees to steal since they know there is no trackback to stock on hand. Using department keys is an invitation to steal.
  13. Do spot cash balancing using your PO)S software. Unexpected checks can uncover surprises. One retailer needing to do a banking during the day uncovered a $350 discrepancy that lead to discovery of systematic theft.
  14. Check your Audit Log in your POS software.
  15. Setup a theft policy. Put this on a noticeboard in the back room. Get staff to read it and sign up to it.
  16. Do not let employees sell to themselves. If they want to purchase something make them purchase it from the other side of the counter.
  17. Be professional in your management of the business. The more professional your approach they less likely your employees will steal as they will see the risk of being caught as high.
  18. Advise all job applicants that you will require their permission for a police check. From the outset this indicates that you take your business seriously. In many situations applicants who have been asked for permission to do a police check advise they have found a job elsewhere.
  19. Do not take cash out for your own use in front of employees. If they see you take cash for a coffee or lunch some will see this as an invitation.

These steps work – based on decades of helping small business retailers to reduce and manage employee theft.

How to reduce employee theft in your local retail business

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Tower Systems has been helping local retailers reduce the impact of theft, including employee theft, for many years. Through its POS software to working with police and to being expert witnesses at trial, the Tower team is skilled and capable of helping local retailers in a variety of situations to reduce employee theft in retail.

The actual financial cost of  employee theft is often under considered by small business retailers. We think  this is because of denial. However, given that the amount that can be taken in one hit or in micro amounts over a long period of time can be considerable once toted up.

Here are steps we have found to be useful in many different retail settings to cut the cost of retail employee theft:

  1. Track all stock. From what comes in to what is sold to what is returned. Track everything. Have clear processes for everyone to follow.
  2. Track each sale by employee. This makes each accountable for their sales.
  3. Use your software. Use it for managing the end of shift balancing. Use it for tracking petty cash out. Feed all your data automatically to Xero or other accounting software. Eliminate all manual processes that relate to cash.
  4. Do spot cash balancing. Unexpected checks can uncover surprises.
  5. Change your roster. Sometimes people work together to steal.
  6. Setup a theft policy. Ensure staff read it and sign up to it.
  7. Keep the counter clean. An organised counter reduces the opportunity for theft.
  8. Have a no employee bags at the counter policy. This makes it harder for them to hide your cash.
  9. Beware employees who carry folded paper or small notepads. These can be used for them to keep track of how much cash is in the register that is theirs – i.e. not rung up in the software.
  10. Advise all job applicants that you will require their permission for a police check. From the outset this indicates that you take your business seriously. In many situations applicants who have been asked for permission to do a police check advise they have found a job elsewhere.
  11. Do not take cash out for your own use in front of employees. If they see you take cash for a coffee or lunch some will see this as an invitation.

All it takes is one organised employee to spot a gap in your processes through which they can get the cash they want for lunch each day or for some other purpose. Your processes determine if this gap exists and the extent of it. Structure and consistency are key to reducing the cost of employee theft in any local retail setting in our experience.

Every retail business needs a theft policy

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Every retail business does need a theft policy. A good theft policy outlines what is acceptable and unacceptable. It is clear about your position on theft.

through Nour work with small business retailers across a range of channels we have developed a theft policy that we offer as a starting point for local store development of a theft policy appropriate to their needs.

We don’t hold this out as a perfect or expert document. rather, we suggest it as inspiration or as a starting point. Here it is, for your consideration:

THEFT POLICY

1. Theft, any theft, is a crime against this business, its owners, employees and others who rely on us for their income.

2. If you discover any evidence or have any suspicion of theft, please report it to the business owner or most senior manager possible immediately. Doing so could save a considerable cost to the business.

3. We have a zero tolerance policy on theft. All claims will be reported to law enforcement authorities for their investigation.

4. From time to time we have the business under surveillance in an effort to reduce theft. This may mean that you are photographed or recorded in some other way. By working here you accept this as a condition of employment.

5. New employees may be asked to provide permission for a police check prior to commencement of employment. Undertaking the police check will be at our discretion.

6. Cash is never to be left unattended outside the cash drawer or a safe within the business.

7. Credit and banking card payments are not to be accepted unless the physical card is presented and all required processes are followed for processing these.

8. Employees caught stealing with irrefutable evidence face immediate dismissal to the extent permitted by local labour laws.

9. Employees are not permitted to remove inventory, including unsold, topped, magazines, unsold cards or damaged stock from the store without permission.

10. Employees are not permitted to provide a refund to a customer without appropriate management permission.

11. Employees are not permitted to complete sales to themselves, family members or friends.

12. Every dollar stolen from the business by customers and or employees can cost us up to four dollars to recover. This is why vigilance on theft is mission critical for our retail store.

PLEASE SIGN AND DATE YOUR ACKNOWLEDGEMENT:

Helping small business retailers cut employee theft

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We are grateful to have been of service in the last week helping another small business retailer address an employee theft situation.

Our POS software provides accurate evidence that police and prosecutors have found helpful in pursuing criminal charges. We have experts in our business who have presented to courts dealing with such matters.

Offering strong theft mitigation tools is something we have done for many years. Seeing them used again recently and in a way that saved a business a considerable sum is a reminder of the value of good back room software serving local small business retailers.

Employee theft in retail can be expensive. Our POS software offers robust tools that help track possible theft and reduce the impact of this theft.

The goal is a safe and profitable business that respects people and makes it easy to transact accurately. Dealing with the theft challenges of customer theft and employee theft is a key part of this.

Thanks to secret tools and secret in our POS software and secure data, we can provide evidence police and prosecutors trust to prove a theft situation. This data can be key to understanding what has happened, when and thew quantum.

This is the beginning, the truth, the evidence of possible employee theft. So, this is where we start, with the data, uncovering evidence and then offering this evidence to the business owner for engagement.

By providing small business retailers with these tools, we are giving them at their fingertips tools vital to cutting the cost of employee theft in a retail business. Using our POS software, a retailer can cut the cost of employee theft.

Let’s be clear though: not all employees steal, not even half, not even a quarter. However, you needs tools for tracking data and engagement with the software to reveal behavioural patterns that can indicate theft. This is key to early detection.

Our hope is that the audit tools in our POS software do not find misbehaviour and that simply having the tools in a business is the most value achieved. However, should they be needed and should they uncover misbehaviour, the audit tools stand strong and tall for the business and those who own it.

5 steps guaranteed to cut theft in any retail business

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Theft in retail costs more than money or goods taken. There is an emotional cost, which can play into an impact on business management.

In our work with thousands of independent retail businesses we have tuned a list of actions that we see work well in cutting theft in retail.

  1. Spot stock take. Allocate time daily to spot check stock on hand. We suggest 15 to 20 minutes a day to different areas of the shop could reveal customer theft challenges. Spot stock takes are fast, easy and guide data accuracy. Most important, they reveal theft.
  2. Track everything you sell. The moment a retailer does not track stock that comes in and goes out of a business is the moment the retailer takes their eye off the ball and allow people who till steal to steal. While it sounds boring, managing stock is key early identification of theft, especially employee theft.
  3. Eliminate manual handling of data. Every time data is handled manually you create a weakness that a thief can exploit. For example, if sales data do not flow automatically from your POS to your accounting software, there can be an opportunity for someone handling cash to skim prior to banking. From receiving inventory invoices electronically to scanning everything you sell to a direct connection between your POS and your accounting software, like Xero, every keystroke eliminated is potential theft avoided.
  4. Look under the hood at keystroke patterns. Smart POS software will maintain, in a secret location and under appropriate security data that could reveal misbehaviour by staff as part of a systematic theft program. This type of analysis has uncovered the deletion of sales to enable the removal of cash from a til by an employee stealing from the business.
  5. Surprise moves like roster changes, spot checks in-store, mid-day cash-outs and more can break a pattern and make it difficult for anyone who seeks to leverage a consistent pattern to engage in theft. We know of one case where the rubbing bins were emptied an hour earlier than usual and by someone who does not usually do this work and in doing so a roll of notes was found, which led to long-term theft discovery.

Theft hurts retail businesses in many ways. Independent retailers can cut the cost of theft by following steps like those outlined here.

Tower Systems works with small business retailers using its POS software to help them cut employee and customer theft. We have provided expert help to police and prosecutors. We have people in our business who have been used as expert witnesses in court cases.

We are committed to helping small business retailers cut employee and customer theft. Every Tower customer has access to a free theft check service.

Helping small business retailers deal with the challenge of employee theft

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Employee theft can be a challenge to deal with for business owners, work colleagues and those who have perpetrated the theft.

Key to successful resolution is evidence. This is where our POS software plays a vital role. Using our POS software we are able to, often, provide the necessary evidence of an employee theft situation.

Thanks to secret tools and secret and secure data, we can provide evidence police and prosecutors trust to prove a theft situation. This data can be key to understanding what has happened, when and thew quantum.

This is the beginning, the truth, the evidence of em ploy theft. So, this is where we start, with the data, uncovering evidence and then offering this evidence to the business owner for engagement.

By providing small business retailers with these tools, we are giving them at their fingertips tools vital to cutting the cost of employee theft in a retail business. Using our POS software, a retailer can cut the cost of employee theft.

Let’s be clear though: not all employees steal, not even half, not even a quarter. However, you needs tools for tracking data and engagement with the software to reveal behavioural patterns that can indicate theft. This is key to early detection.

We train retailers using our POS software on how to do this, how to leverage the data and information collected and curated by our software to understand if there has been behaviour that could indicate employee theft.

From working with police and prosecutors to working with individual employers, our work on the issue of employee theft is comprehensive and consistent for many years. We have worked in a preventative way as well as after the event, gathering evidence. Our work is in service of our customers, retail business owners.

Using our POS software and following our advice, we think small business retailers can reduce the opportunity for employee theft and thereby cut the cost of employee theft on their businesses. Our engagement with retailers on this is as and when they want, in as much or as little detail as they want. Since we own and run retail businesses, we also share operational suggestions with those interested.

Reducing employee theft can have a significant bottom line benefit in any retail business.

Helping small business retailers cut employee theft in 2020

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Employee theft can be a high cost to indie small business retailers. Different studies in Australia and elsewhere coupled with our own knowledge of theft in indie small business retail indicates that employee theft costs a business around 75% of the total cost of theft.

The quantum of  employee theft is often under considered by small business retailers. We think  this is because of denial. However, given that the amount that can be taken in one hit or in micro amounts over a long period of time can be considerable once toted up.

Employee theft can be traced and as a result of this stopped. Our small business PO software helps retailers do this. We back the theft mitigation facilities in our software with training, advice and even data analysis to uncover possible instances of theft that may have hitherto gone undetected.

We also support our work on employee and customer theft in retail with support and advice to help deal with theft situations once they are uncovered. We do this because we are retailers ourselves and have personal experience dealing with this, experience through which we hope our customers can benefit.

Here is some of the small business retail theft mitigation advice from our POS software retail experienced team:

  1. Track your stock. Receive all stock into your business through your computer system so you know exactly what sock you have.
  2. Scan everything you sell.  Do not use department keys as this makes it easier for employees to steal since they know there is no trackback to stock on hand. Using department keys is an invitation to steal.
  3. Track every sale by employees. Give your employees a card with a unique barcode or have them enter a code – to track every sale they make back to them. Change the code every six months or so.
  4. Do your end of shift through your software and have a zero-tolerance policy on being over or under. Reconcile banking to your computer software end of shift. One business where this was not done was being skimmed regularly for $200 a day.
  5. Do spot cash balancing. Unexpected checks can uncover surprises. One retailer needing to do a banking during the day uncovered a $350 discrepancy that lead to discovery of systematic theft.
  6. Change your roster. Sometimes people work together to steal. One retailer found a family friend senior and their teenage daughter stealing consistently.
  7. Setup a theft policy.Put this on a noticeboard in the back room. Get staff to read it and sign up to it. See the last page of this advice.
  8. Keep the counter clean. An organised counter reduces the opportunity for theft. It makes detection easier.
  9. Have a no employee bags at the counter policy. This makes it harder for them to hide your cash.
  10. Beware employees who carry folded paper or small notepads. These can be used for them to keep track of how much cash is in the register that is theirs – i.e. not rung up in the software.
  11. Advise all job applicants that you will require their permission for a police check. From the outset this indicates that you take your business seriously. In many situations applicants who have been asked for permission to do a police check advise they have found a job elsewhere.
  12. Do not take cash out for your own use in front of employees. If they see you take cash for a coffee or lunch some will see this as an invitation.

Small business retailers advice: helping you cut employee theft

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The theft reduction training video we produced in-house – How To Steal From A Retail Business – is being used by business groups to train their members on measures to take in retail shops to reduce the opportunity for employee theft.

In addition to the YouTube views, this video has been packaged and provided outside that platform for people to embed in conference presentations, one-on-one training and elsewhere.

Using your POS software small business retailers have excellent tools with which to reduce the opportunity for theft. These have existed for years. In addition to our software work, we act as expert witnesses in investigations and proceedings that successfully prosecute employee theft cases.

What matters is that theft can be reduced and even eliminated with good management oversight in any retail business using our POS software.

Audit tools in POS software help small business retailers find out what they do not know

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Secret audit tools in POS software are critical in small business retail for they provide insights into behind the scenes activity in a business that could be harmful to the business. By tracking activities including keystrokes designed to manipulate business data, good POS software is able to help a retail business compare bad behaviour including fraud.

The Tower Systems small business POS software has terrific audit tools that can only be accessed with the most secure password managed by the software, a password only given by the comp0any to business owners.

Using the smart audit tools, we have been able to help retailers to track employee fraud, supplier fraud, customer fraud and what could have been expensive but unintentional mistakes.

The Audie tools and the secret mirror data they have access to represent a valuable asset to any indie retailer as they make the POS software operational smart for and protective of that business.

This area of data curation and management is not often talked abut because it can be construed as a negative given the connection with bad things happening in a business. The reality is that knowing the tools are there creates a positive situation, a comfort, a peace of mind as the POS software is offering a set of eyes and ears watching over the business and providing the business access to insights to help reduce the negative.

The Tower Systems small business POS software provides to indie retailers audit tools that are exemplary in their service of ethical business operation. This is especially useful inn businesses that are run with owners and even senior managers not in a location full  time.

So, in addition to accurately and quickly transacting retail sales, the Tower Systems POS software offers retail business owners access to tools through which they can review data that sheds light on behaviour that could compromise the business. This is what a good audit is about.

Our POS software audit tools have been used in legal cases and by business financial auditors and forensic accountants to track potential misbehaviour. the resulting data can be a body of evidence in criminal or commercial legal action. It is data on which expert evidence can be offered as to actions taken in a business that cold be the matter of such a case.

Our hope is that the audit tools in our POS software do not find misbehaviour and that simply having the tools in a business is the most value achieved. However, should they be needed and should they uncover misbehaviour, the audit tools stand strong and tall for the business and those who own it.

Secret tools help small business retailers cut the cost of employee theft

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The cost of employee theft in small business retail is considerable.  It is one of those costs to business that is not known until a business actually looks at the data. Most small business owners, however, do not look at the data until they are forced too. Often, by then, it is too late to recover all of what has been taken from the business.

Retailers can cut the cost of employee theft. Smart POS software makes this easier to achieve.

In the Tower Systems POS software there are secret tools that help small business retailers detect employee theft. detection is the first step to cutting the cost of theft. Knowledge is power as they say. The secret tools cannot be found by any9one unless they know the path and have access to the secret kay.l This information is only provided to business owners – if they want to know, if they want to cut the cost of employee theft.

Using POS software to cut the cost of employee theft in a retail business is, in our view, smart. It saves money, saves time and encourages the business onto a path of greater prosperity.

Tower Systems advises, encourages and guides small business retailers on cutting the cost of theft. We do this using the secret tools embedded deep within our software. We also doo it through our work with the police,  crown prosecutors, private investigators and other who9 are also working to help cut the cost of employee theft in retail businesses, especially in small business retail.

This is critical for businesses for too often we see them come to a realisation abut theft only after the money is long gone.

People can be clever and smart as to how they go abut stealing from a retail business. The secret tools in our POS software help  small business retailers to see the theft early in the cycle, before the damage is too great and in a way that enables the business owner to think about appropriate next steps to get the evidence necessary for police engagement. This is critical.

Small business retailers can cut the cost of employee theft. Tower Systems can help with this. We have people in our company skilled and experienced to help small business retailers achieve this.

POS software from Tower Systems helps small business retailers cut theft

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The Age newspaper last week reported on a surge in theft.

A study of over 9000 Australian and New Zealand retailers has revealed the cost of theft in-store has now reached a “crisis point” for companies as shoplifters have become more brazen in recent years.

While the report focusses on shoplifting, in my experience working eityh retailers, employee theft has a higher cost. This paragraph is telling…

The majority of respondents were large fashion, grocery and department retailers with 300 or more stores. For the 2018 financial year, those companies estimated crime-related losses of $3.37 billion, or 0.92 per cent of the region’s total retail revenue for the year.

The average cost of theft in small to medium business is 3% and more. This, considering the .92% noted above indicates the focus of the report is narrow. But then the report goes on to say employee theft was 22% of overall theft.

Maybe the disconnect is because the report pulled data from medium to large businesses whereas all data I have seen over the years has been from small businesses, single store businesses. In those, in my experience, employee theft costs around 70% of the total cost of theft.

Regardless of this latest report, theft is retail is a high cost for which retailers, customers and others in the supply chain pay.

Read the report. It’s got useful information for any retailer.

Our POS software company helps small business retailers cut the cost of theft. We have proven facilities in the software that achieve this. Better still, we back these facilities with experts who can make a real and positive difference in theft outcomes for small business retailers.

The employee theft challenge in small business retail is real and expensive

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Employee theft is a scourge in small business retail since it often, unfortunately, goes undetected for too long.

Tower Systems make employee theft detection easy in its POS software. However, like any tool, a retailer has to choose to use it. Too often, we see retailers ignore the easy access theft detection tools they have in our software, denying themselves the opportunity to catch theft earlier and thereby reduce the costs for the business.

Outside of the awesome theft m mitigation tools in our POS software, we help retailers with practical advice they can implement to further reduce opportunity for employee theft. We have developed these tools based on years of service in this area including working with police, prosecutors and others in catching and prosecuting cases of employee theft.

Here is some of the small business retail theft mitigation advice from our POS software retail experienced team:

  1. Track your stock.Receive all stock into your business through your computer system so you know exactly what sock you have.
  2. Scan everything you sell. Do not use department keys as this makes it easier for employees to steal since they know there is no trackback to stock on hand. Using department keys is an invitation to steal.
  3. Track every sale by employees.Give your employees a card with a unique barcode or have them enter a code – to track every sale they make back to them. Change the code every six months or so.
  4. Do your end of shift through your softwareand have a zero-tolerance policy on being over or under. Reconcile banking to your computer software end of shift. One business where this was not done was being skimmed regularly for $200 a day.
  5. Do spot cash balancing. Unexpected checks can uncover surprises. One retailer needing to do a banking during the day uncovered a $350 discrepancy that lead to discovery of systematic theft.
  6. Change your roster.Sometimes people work together to steal. One retailer found a family friend senior and their teenage daughter stealing consistently.
  7. Check your Audit Log.Look at cancelled sales, deleted sales and items deleted from a sale. Leaving a cash drawer open from the previous sale, scanning items, taking the cash and cancelling the sale is the most common process used by employees to accrue cash they then take from you. Good software tracks cancelled sales and what was in them. This can be matched with video footage.
  8. Check Gross Profit by department.If GP is falling outside what you expect, research it further.
  9. Setup a theft policy.Put this on a noticeboard in the back room. Get staff to read it and sign up to it. See the last page of this advice.
  10. Keep the counter clean.An organised counter reduces the opportunity for theft. It makes detection easier.
  11. Have a no employee bags at the counter policy.This makes it harder for them to hide your cash.
  12. Beware employees who carry folded paper or small notepads.These can be used for them to keep track of how much cash is in the register that is theirs – i.e. not rung up in the software.
  13. Beware of calculators with memories at the counter.One retail business employee used the memory function to track how much cash had to be stolen prior to balancing for the day – cash from sales not rung up.
  14. Do not let employees sell to themselves.If they want to purchase something make them purchase it from the other side of the counter.
  15. Be professional in your management of the business.The more professional your approach they less likely your employees will steal as they will see the risk of being caught as high.
  16. Advise all job applicants that you will require their permission for a police check.From the outset this indicates that you take your business seriously. In many situations applicants who have been asked for permission to do a police check advise they have found a job elsewhere.
  17. Do not take cash out for your own use in front of employees.If they see you take cash for a coffee or lunch some will see this as an invitation.

These steps work – based on decades of helping small business retailers to reduce and manage employee theft.

Theft, employee and customer, costs a typical small / independent retail between 3% and 5% of product sales revenue.  Management attention can cut this dramatically.  It does not take much time. No, it is more about having professional processes in place that everyone in the business follows.

The POS Software Blog

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