The POS Software Blog
News from Tower Systems about locally made POS software for specialty local retailers.
Next time you have a task for someone, use Send My task. It’s a free online service for sending tasks and handling easy notification on completion. It’s from Tower Systems.
Task management just got easier.
Our POS software customers are loving the access to our help desk through our private Facebook user forum. They love the easy access, transparency and easy search of past discussions.
We introduced the Facebook support service as another channel through which our customers can engage with our support services. We are grateful for the active embrace by our customers.
On the Facebook page we are happy to answer anything. Where a query needs specific site research we take the matter offline and connect direct with the customer in their business to do this.
We also use the Facebook page to share information, advice and knowledge base article access to keep customers informed abut enhancements to the software and the support resources available to them.
Access to the private Tower Systems user forum on Facebook is available to any of our customers.
Here at Tower Systems we understand that in independent and small retail businesses, time is precious. That’s why, though our POS software, we focus on helping you save time.
We have shared practical advice with our small business POS software customers this weekend to help them protect their businesses from the global ransomware attack that started two days ago.
Our advice is comprehensive and consistent with international best-practice. Our messaging is being repeated to ensure maximum reach in our big user community.
WARNING RE GLOBAL CYBER ATTACK.
The global cyber attack story has been dominating news services over the last 24 hours. The best way to ensure you are not hit is to follow our computer use advice. The fastest way to recover is if you use our Tower Systems cloud backup service. Be careful. Be proactive. Make sure everyone who uses your computers are aware.
We share the advice by email and are supporting it with personal advice through our help desk and business management teams.
Any internet computer is vulnerable. Here at Tower Systems we have been on the front foot with advice for our small business retail customers on steps to take to reduce the opportunity of attack and harm to the business.
Small business retailers are benefiting form the faster and easier access to our POS software knowledge base.
Leveraging dynamic searching techniques and offering natural loan gauge searching the knowledge base offers non-tech retailers easy access to support.
The Tower Systems knowledge base is like a living online manual, expanding regularly, accessible from anywhere including mobile devices.
The latest enhancements are live now and being enjoyed by the 3,500+ Tower Systems customers. They are making a difference based on the feedback we are receiving. This is thrilling as helping retailers enjoy their software the benefits that flow from it is an important part of what we live for here at Tower.
A feature of the knowledge base is the feedback people can leave for each article. This is transparent to all customers, benefiting the wider community.
We are grateful to our customers for their help in evolving the knowledge base resources.
In life and in business we support each other. Learning and growing is the reward. here at Tower Systems, we support our customers like family.
Tower Systems has more free POS software training opportunities this month as part of its regular weekly training commitment. These sessions help small business retailers leverage more from their IT investment … at no cost.
Xero continues to be the accounting system of choice for small business retailers.
Tower Systems is proud to partner with Xero and offer a truly direct integration solution.
Plus, we have a list of Xero skilled accountants we are proud to list.
Thanks to our partnership with Xero we have brought plenty of small business retailers to the world of integrated accounting to our POS software. This cuts keystrokes, saves time and makes managing small retail businesses easier and faster., It improves the quality of business data on which the small business retailers can rely.
Retailers in many channels can use the Xero link to our POS software.
We develop software for: gift shops, jewellers, bike shops, toy shops, fishing/outdoors businesses, garden centres/nurseries, pet shops, produce stores, firearms businesses and newsagents. We have customers around Australia and New Zealand as well as in several other countries.
Developed for specialty retail channels, the Tower Systems Xero link delivers seamless integration for jewellers, garden centres, bike shops, gift shops, homewares stores, toy shops, garden centres, produce stores, fishing and outdoors business and more.
The Xero POS software link is best-practice and backed by our own in-house CPA who manages our own retailer businesses where we use the Xero link ourselves. Yes, as a POS software company we walk in your shoes.
It is our personal experience with our POS software and with Xero linked to our POS software that provides us with a level of personal experience on which we can rely when we work with our small business retail customers. This takes us beyond what is usual about being a POS software company.
The powerful Tower Advantage Link platform allows Tower Systems’ specialist retail software to connect directly to Xero, one of Australia’s most popular and streamlined accounting services. Linking Retailer to Xero saves you precious time by completing the majority of your day-to-day accounting for you. We are experts at bringing independent retail businesses and Xero together and pride ourselves on connecting business owners with such an innovative, useful service.
Any retailer looking for a POS software accounting system link should consider the Tower systems POS software Xero accounting link partnership. We have runs on the board.
The online appointment software facility released by Tower Systems is another tool on which retailers who run businesses requiring appointments can rely to better manage services and grow appointment business.
Developed in-house by the Tower Systems web development team and initially for dog groomers and bike repair service providers, the online appointment facility developed by Tower Systems now serves a inroad mix of specialty retail and services businesses.
The online appointment software is another product from the m ix of cloud based products from Tower Systems designed to equip small business retailers and service providers to be more competitive in a changing and competitive marketplace.
Accessible as a stand alone cloud based service. The Tower Systems appointment facility can be accessed and used immediately.
Customers can sign up and start right away and then stop at the end of the month if they wish.
There is no software to purchase, no software to install. The appointment facility lives 100% in the cloud, on a secure s river with appropriate redundancy and progressional da a backup.
Offered with the full support of the Tower Systems help desk and development teams, the online appointment facility is another way small business retailers can use technology to drive business efficiency and improve customer service.
Located at www.makemyappointment.com.au this online appointment facility offers a full suite of appointment facilities including:
Make My Appointment is a cloud based appointment facility for small businesses. Using this site you can easily offer your customers the ability to make appointments. Track people equipment and rooms through your own management dashboard. Sign up and be live right away. It’s easy.
Jewellers, bike retailer, fishing goods retailers, pet store retailers and firearms retailers are some of the specialty retail niche businesses that can benefit from POS software integrated serial number tracking tools.
Tower Systems offers integrated serial number tracking tools within its Australian developed and supported POS software.
Developed initially for jewellers, the serial number tracking facilities have evolved to serve a broader range of specialty retail requirements.
The serial number tracking tools track each serial numbered inventory item. This helps businesses provide better warranty services. This can also be useful should a customer have an insurance claim.
Handled with minimum labour involvement, the serial number tracking tools give businesses the means through which they can provide a higher level of service to customers and suppliers.
Including a product serial number on a receipt is important. While many POS software products can do this as a text message, it is vital the number is recorded against the same and, usually, against customer details. It is essential serial number tacking facilities are integrated with the POS software. This is what Tower Systems offers.
Much thought has gone into providing good serial number tracking tools, mature tools that deeply serve the tracking requirements of the retailer, supplier and customer long after the purchase itself. All of our work in this area has been undertaken in close consultation with customers who use serial number tracking. It is important to us and to them that work in this area is done with close collaboration.
Not many POS software products offer integrated serial number tracking tools. It is a differentiator for small business software company Tower Systems.
Long after the sale we make it easy to find a previous sale that includes a serial number. Searching for a sale by serial number can be handy for items which contain a warranty and you need to retrieve the information about the sale.
Here at Tower Systems we develop software for: gift shops, jewellers, bike shops, toy shops, fishing/outdoors businesses, garden centres/nurseries, pet shops, produce stores, firearms businesses and newsagents and we serve customers in Australia, New Zealand and several other countries.
Repairs services can be a differentiating service for small business retailers in a range of niche retail categories. jewellers, bike retailers, fishing and outdoors businesses, garden centres and firearms retailers are all niche or specialty retail businesses that offer repairs services.
The challenge is finding good repairs or workshop management services that are integrated seamlessly to POS software.
Australian POS software company Tower Systems offers repairs management facilities in its specialty retail POS software. These facilities offer job tracking, labour management, costing, accounting, party’s use and external service provider tracking tools.
From the moment an item is brought into the business for repair the software tracks the activity.
At the end of the project, when the repair is ready to be collected, the customer is notified by text or email.
The overarching goal of the repairs software if that it tracks progress at each step of the way. This ensures the business never loses sight of the repair, that it properly accounts for all work and that the customer can be informed at any point in time.
Developed initially for specialist jewellers and bike retailers for their workshops, the Tower Systems repairs management facilities have benefited from use by retailers across multiple retail channels. This has helped evolve valuable tools that help retailers using them to trust the management. And, this work is on-going.
Good repairs services can help a local business win local sales. Whereas products can be available in multiple retail outlets, making price the comparison, repairs services are unique to each business. Through the Tower Systems repairs management software retailers can play to their local strengths and pitch their repairs services as differentiating and locally valuable.
We love helping small business retailers grow their repairs service.
The POS software connected repairs management software from Tower Systems continues to evolve, ensuring it is a solution for today and tomorrow, thereby helping small business retailers to evolve their repairs services too.
Hereat Tower Systems we develop software for: gift shops, jewellers, bike shops, toy shops, fishing/outdoors businesses, garden centres/nurseries, pet shops, produce stores, firearms businesses and newsagents. We serve customers in Australia, New Zealand, Fiji and several other countries.
A fun and engaging sing on the footpath in front of your shop can attract people to your business. It can challenge people to consider your business beyond what the shingle above your door may say. The more creative the sign the better.
Go all out creative. Have fun. Be colourful. Shop that shopping with you will be fun. People want fun.
Here are a couple of signs we have seen recently that we love:
Subscriptions are a terrific way for small business retailers to provide shoppers with consistent engagement for products and services that are required on a regular basis.
Tower Systems offers a flexible yet powerful subscription facility in its POS software.
Using our subscription facilities as retailer can schedule to ensure products are kept aside for a customer on a regular cycle. This could be daily, weekly, monthly or whenever the desired product becomes available.
The goods can be kept aside with a unique barcode on the product along with the customer name – providing a level of professional service and attention that is key to further cementing the customer relationship.
Thee customer is advised by email or text message when the subscription item is ready to be collected.
The subscription can be charged to a store account or paid on collection. customers can also pre-pay. Payment information is included on the barcode label for the customer to better handle the collection.
The subscription can be setup for an in-store collection or for delivery to a customer address, with delivery done by the business or by a delivery partner of the business.
The subscription can be created by one customer as a gift for another customer.
The software tracks the number of subscriptions for an item. This helps store management for forward planning an dealing with the supplier of subscription items.
Some product subscriptions are given to the retail business by the manufacturer with the retailer being the local fulfilment centre. Our POS software handles this situation too.
There are many variations on subscription scenarios too. Handling these many subscription options has become a key feature of the Tower Systems POS software as it has evolved in managing subscriptions in retail over many years for many of the company’s 3,500+ small business retail customers.
Also, customers can have multiple subscriptions with different rules and criteria too. See, the flexibility layers and layers to offer a valuable, powerful yet easy to use tool for almost any type of retail business.
So, when it comes to managing subscriptions in retail and doing this through your POS software, Tower Systems ms has software ready to go in this area.
Tower Systems continues to help independent small business retailers reduce the possibility of impact from a crypto locket attack.
The help and service from Tower Systems is preventative as well as recovery focussed should the prevention advice be ignored.
In the Tower newsletter, regular weekly email and other communications the company ensures its thousands of small business retail customers has the information they need to properly an thoroughly deal with an attack.
The assistance from the company starts with the preventative, in the form of plain English computer use advice.
Here is a copy of the rent advice widely circulated by Tower Systems to its POS software customers:
COMPUTER USE POLICY
This is advice we suggest a retailer ives to all employees. It has been written for that purpose.
If you use our cloud backup service, recovering from a crypto locker is easier. Regardless, backing up every day in any method gives you a faster and lower cost recovery option. We offer a professional cloud based backup service. We use it ourselves and are happy to recommend it to our customers.
Meet Ben: he is skilled in retail and this is reflected on our constantly evolving small business POS software. Ben is another Tower Systems advantage.
In our Tower Systems POS software we have several facilities you can leverage to help community groups in your local area. These are easy to use and valuable to leverage as you pitch your business as a go-to business helping local groups.
Community is everything to small business. Here at Tower Systems we get that and have encoded in our software tools that help you better serve and connect.
Ask us how, we’d be glad to show you.
Our small business POS software customers are doing the fast dynamic searching facility in our self-serve knowledge base. As you type the knowledge base is listing suggested answers to the query. these could be articles, videos or step-by-step guides. Help is there at your fingertips, as you type. Instantly. No old-school searches. This is genuinely dynamic and directly connected to best-practice peer-reviewed advice.
This post is published by Tower Systems. We think our approach and our software is more appropriate to small business retailers than Vend. However, we have a conflict of interest. Just as Vend has a conflict of interest when they say what they say.
Okay, that’s out of the way.
We have switched plenty of retailers from the Vend software to the Tower Systems POS software. here is what we think makes our solution better, based on what we have learned from these customers.
This list is by no means complete. It highlights the top differences on which you can rely from Tower over a relationship with Vend.
When we say we’re here to help, we meant it through our software our help desk our sales team and our management team.
Serving more than 3,500 small business retailers we are connected and committed to serve the specialist retailers we commit to through our specialist retail software for a range of retail channels.
Here at Tower Systems we are proud to offer a seamless POS software Xero accounting link.
Developed for specialty retail channels, the Tower Systems Xero link delivers seamless integration for jewellers, garden centres, bike shops, gift shops, homewares stores, toy shops, garden centres, produce stores, fishing and outdoors business and more.
The Xero POS software link is best-practice and backed by our own in-house CPA who manages our own retailer businesses where we use the Xero link ourselves. yes, as a POS software company we walk in your shoes.
Represented by Xero on their website as a partner is valuable for Tower Systems and important to our customers and sales prospects. We achieved this a couple of years ago by working with xero and delivering on the requirements they have.
Xero does not allow all POS software companies who ask in as a development partner.
We help our customers migrate to Xero from other accounting software through a free data conversion service.
In addition to our POS software integration with Xero, we use Xero for the retail businesses we own and operate – using the experience to provide us with personal knowledge and experience that we can lev erase in the support were provide to our customers.
We also offer a list of Xero skilled accountants on whom small business retailers can rely for Xero accounting services. We update this list regularly based on information provided by accountants to us.
As employers, as retailers and as small business owners, mental health issues are often not far away from any small business retailer. The challenges confronting our newsagency businesses add to the challenges already there.
Sometimes, we don’t know we are experiencing a mental health challenge while other times it’s obvious and on show for all to see.
How we confront mental health challenges is important for us, our business and those presenting with issues.
While we are not trained professionals in the area, our years of working with small business owners confronted by challenges to their mental health have helped us develop some guiding principles.
Your GP is an excellent person to speak with. Explain to them how you feel and how this impacts on your life. Ask them to prepare a Mental Health Treatment Plan. This is a government recognised plan. It can usually be prepared in a single double visit to the GP. This plan is the trigger to you gaining Medicare supported access to a psychologist for an initial number of visits, which can be extended depending on your situation.
Some people can feel a visit to a GP or psychologist is not warranted in their situation. While the medical professionals are the best to determine this, there are other resources you could explore:
Beyond Blue has published Business In Mind, a useful resource for small businesses on issues relating to mental health in the workplace. This is a good starting point for learning more. In the resource there are links to other resources that can help.
Finding mental health resources for small business owners dealing with mental health issues is not as easy as it is finding resources for managing the workplace for better mental health. It’s tough running any business and sometimes things can feel overwhelming. This is where networking can help as a first step, talking with others.
Small business retailers feeling challenges within themselves need to treat themselves as employees and use the resources available such as:
We at Tower Systems will help in any way possible.
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