The POS Software Blog

The POS Software Blog

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

Categorynewsagency software

Comprehensive new POS software training opportunities for small business retailers

July 4, 2016
3 Min read
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We are proud to have scheduled the following free live online training workshops for users of our POS software. Click here for easy, fast and free online booking:

JULY
Meeting Name: Stocktaking in Retailer
Date: 06/07/2016
Time: 2pm
Description: Missed EOFY? Catch up now. – Doing a stocktake in retailer and what option works best for you.

Meeting Name: Increase Sales Now! Start using Discount Vouchers.
Date: 13/07/2016
Time: 2pm
Description: Start using Discount Vouchers to grow your business. A great introduction to this great feature.

Meeting Name: How to handle non EDI invoices to keep stock accurate.
Date: 20/07/2016
Time: 2pm
Description: See how easy it is to process invoice’s manually for suppliers that do not send electronic invoices to help keep your stock figures accurate.

Meeting Name: Free Up Cash in Your Business Today
Date: 27/07/2016
Time: 2pm
Description: Find stock that isn’t selling and turn it into cash quickly.

AUGUST

Meeting Name: Reports that will change your business
Date: 03/08/2016
Time: 2pm
Description: Reports in retailer that will help you drive sales and increase profit.

Meeting Name: Understanding the End of Shift Reports.
Date: 10/08/2016
Time: 2pm
Description: Why is the End of Shift important? How do I check my settings are correct? What do the reports mean? And what parts of the report do I need to use for my accounting.

Meeting Name: Loyalty Programs. What works best for you.
Date: 17/08/2016
Time: 2pm
Description: There are 4 ways to do loyalty in retailer. Find out which will work best for your business.

Meeting Name: Trouble free handling of Cartons and Boxes in your retail business using Tower Systems
Date: 24/08/2016
Time: 2pm
Description: Handle Cartons and Boxes of stock simply and easily. Especially useful if you sell singles and cartons of stock.

Meeting Name: How to discount easily for Seasonal Sales
Date: 31/08/2016
Time: 2pm
Description: Quickly and easily setup automatic discounts for seasonal sales using catalogues

SEPTEMBER

Meeting Name: Using Targeting Marketing in Retailer
Date: 07/09/2016
Time: 2pm
Description: Use marketing to target specific types and groups of customers.

Meeting Name: Retailer software settings you will be shocked you have access to.
Date: 14/09/2016
Time: 2pm
Description: Help desk expert Colin Harris will show you settings you most likely don’t know exist that can help your enjoyment of the software

Meeting Name: Increase Sales Now! Start using Discount Vouchers.
Date: 21/09/2016
Time: 2pm
Description: Start using Discount Vouchers to grow your business. A great introduction to this great feature.

Meeting Name: Re-Ordering stock with Retailer
Date: 28/09/2016
Time: 2pm
Description: Make Retailer work for you. Re-order based on solid data and spend less time on re-ordering.

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Small business retail advice: make every day your pay day

July 3, 2016
2 Min read
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There was a time when small business retailers could rely on selling their business for a handsome increase on the price they paid thereby providing a good pay day, when businesses sold for a good multiple of net earnings.

No more. Today, the best way to extract value from our businesses is to make every day your pay day, to not rely on your pay day being the day you sell the business.

The challenge is how do you do this?

Retailers need to look at their businesses differently. This starts with the mindset of every day being your pay day. Each decision needs to be considered in this context.

Focusing on profit today will give you a better result today and make your business more valuable tomorrow.

Here are some suggestions for making every day your pay day:

  1. Run with the leanest roster possible. Just about every retail business we review has capacity to lower labour costs.
  2. Have your best people working the floor, helping customers spend more.
  3. Have stunning displays that attract people from outside the shop.
  4. Have compelling displays in-store that encourage people to browse beyond their destination purchase.
  5. Always have impulse offers at high traffic locations.
  6. Charge more every time you can. Loyalty programs such as discount vouchers, bundling into hampers, multi buys such as 2 for 3 and other opportunities enable you to do this by blocking price comparison.
  7. Buy as best you can.
  8. Grab settlement discounts every time you are able.
  9. Promote outside your store using online and social media opportunities.
  10. Leverage adjacency information. Chase a deeper basket – people purchasing more each visit.

Be responsible for the profitability of your business. Don’t blame your suppliers, your landlord, your employees or some other external factor … it all comes down to you – the decisions you make and the actions you take.

If you relentlessly pursue profit with a clear focus you are likely to see profit grow. That’s better than waiting to make money when you sell because that’s less likely to happen in this market.

Doing all this relies on your measuring the performance of your business. The Tower software helps with this. It is easy.

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Q2 newsagency benchmark study launched for small business newsagents

July 1, 2016
2 Min read
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Tower Systems this morning launched its latest newsagency sales benchmark study:

Q2 2016 NEWSAGENCY SALES BENCHMARK STUDY.
I am preparing a fresh benchmark study for the newsagency channel to look at the latest sales trends overall and in key product categories. This quarterly newsagency sales performance study will help newsagents see the future based on the data trends. It will also reveal the difference between emerging newsagency model changes. Click here for my last report.

I see many newsagency businesses embracing tremendous change already in 2016. In the sea of change are wonderful opportunities. These opportunities are revealed in the business data in each business and in the benchmark results I publish.

How to participate.

  1. Please run a Monthly Sales Comparison Report for 01/04/2016 – 30/06/2016 compared to 01/04/2015 – 30/06/2015.
  2. Tick the category box. IMPORTANT.
  3. Tick to exclude home delivery and sub agent data.
  4. DO NOT tick the supplier box.
  5. Preview the report on the screen. Save as a PDF and email this to me at mark@towersystems.com.au.

I will email the results to all participating newsagents and publish the results on the Australian Newsagency Blog as a community service.

Tower Systems serves in excess of 1,750+ newsagents with best practice newsagency software.

Note: the study reflects performance as reported by a range of newsagency businesses trading under a range of brands.

The results of each study are backed up by circulation results published later by the Audit Bureau.

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Disaster planning: advice to help small business retailers trade manually

July 1, 2016
2 Min read
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While we never want it to happen and know it is extremely rare, we regularly remind our POS software customers they ought to be prepared to trade manually should they not have access to their POS software for some reason. Here is our advice, which has not changed in many years.

If you lose power, have a major hardware failure or have some other unexpected problem, your computer system on which you rely to record sales may not be available for some time. Here is our advice on how to handle such a situation:

  1. Track all sales. Write down the barcode of every item you sell and the price. When you are back up and running, enter these in. This maintains an accurate stock on hand count. When you are back online, enter the barcodes, ring up the sales.

Yes, that is it. Very simple. Also, very easy to not do and thereby compromise your business data.

To prepare you for this, do the following:

  1. Create a ruled sheet to use. Two columns: barcode, price.
  2. Copy the sheet a few times and setup on a clipboard. With a clipboard made up for each register you have.
  3. Tie a pen to each clipboard.
  4. Place the clipboards in an easily accessible space.
  5. Take out the clipboards and place next to each register in the event of your system being down and you needing to transact.
  6. You are good to go.

Recording sales on scraps of paper is not good business management. It invites error and fraud.

While no one wants your computer system to be down, being prepared for this is important business planning.

Footnote: knowing a competitor as we do, they are likely to point to this post as us identifying a weakness in our software. This would be untrue. This advice is an example of our POS software company providing whole of business advice for any contingency. It is what we do and for which we are appreciated.

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GIFT SHOP SOFTWARE ON SHOW AT GIFT HQ IN BRISBANE NEXT MONTH

June 25, 2016
1 Min read
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Tower Systems is thrilled to be bringing its latest small business gift shop software to the Gift HQ trade show in Brisbane in a couple of weeks. At this event we will be demonstrating new software, fresh and exciting software designed specifically for small business gift retailers, to help them drive better business outcomes, compete more effectively and run a business that is more valuable.

The Gift HQ opportunity for small business retailers is excellent and exciting.

We will not only show off our POS software we will also be showing off:

  1. EFTPOS integration.
  2. Cloud backup.
  3. Cloud based business intelligence tools.
  4. Smart reporting.
  5. Xero integration. MYOB integration.
  6. Quicken integration.
  7. FlyBys integration.
  8. Authorised scale integration.
  9. Magento integration.
  10. Shopify integration.
  11. PayPal integration.
  12. Hosted options.
  13. Cloud based solutions.

We will also be showing off the latest supplier integrations that will serve small business retailers in the gift and homewares spaces – through which they can save time and money.

We are grateful for the opportunity to be part of Gift HQ.

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THE TOWER SYSTEMS POS SOFTWARE SHOPIFY LINK

June 24, 2016
3 Min read
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The direct link between our POS software and the Shopify e-commerce solution is valuable for small business retailers keen for a beautiful and easy to operate online business platform. Here is all you need to know on what we have delivered – note, delivered, yes this is live and available now.

The Retailer to Shopify Link uses the cloud-based best-practice Tower Advantage Link platform to connect or link Retailer directly to Shopify. The Tower Advantage Link platform is a subscription-based service that acts as an intermediary between Retailer and the Shopify API.

The link works by using the Shopify API allowing the TALink platform to connect to Shopify and synchronising on a periodic interval or request basis. Below is a outline of what is transferred.

Retailer becomes your master stock database. You flag what stock items you want to appear on your web store. Descriptions and extended descriptions are added as your product names and descriptions in Shopify.

Your Retailer Departments and Categories become Categories and Sub-Categories in Shopify. If you choose to link these, your existing structure will be mirrored and managed in Shopify automatically. If, however, you decide not link your Department and Categories in Shopify, you can allocate Categories manually to products once they are added. Only Departments and Categories that have flaggged as websotre items are added to Shopify.

Retailers Classifications are treated as Attributes in Shopify. If you choose to link these in Shopify your existing Classifications will be mirrored and managed in Shopify automatically. If, however, you do not want this to occur you can manually manage your own Shopify Attributes.

You have control over your webstore pricing from within the Retailer Stock Screen. Bulk updates of the webstore price can be performed in Stock Manager. Once new prices are set, your web store is updated automatically. Quantity of hand is also managed automatically, when your sell or arrive an item into stock these adjustments are sent directly to Shopify. If the quantity on hand of an items drops to 0, the item is marked as out of stock in Shopify.

The images you set against stock items in Retailer are automatically uploaded to your website. If images change, the old one is removed and the new one is added. You can upload as many images, as you like per stock item.

Customers that purchase off your webstore are added as customers in your Retailer database, allowing you to track what they buy and market to them if you desire. Existing customers with an email address will also be added to your web store to facilitate easy sales.

These are downloaded into Retailer. These are imported into our Customer Invoice Maintenance facility allowing you to place orders and print invoices. Once sales are imported it reduces your quantity on hand so you maintain accurate stock control. Sales can be allocated to a specific location or merged added to you main sales data, giving you excellent control over how you report on your webstore sales.

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The visual deck helps small business retailers see business data differently

June 23, 2016
3 Min read
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vdeckA couple of months ago we announced the launch of the Visual Deck, a cloud based business intelligence platform we developed here at Tower Systems for small business retailers. The visual deck gives small business retailers a visual insight into business performance and from this flows a brighter future based on data evidence from the business itself.

The visual deck is a game changer in the small business POS space as it delivers to small business retailers a set of tools that provide easy access from anywhere to elegant representation of business performance data.

This new platform is a completely new product from the Tower development team. It leveraged data cultivated by the Tower Point of Sale software and makes it available anywhere, in a stimulating visual form and in a way than encourages the discovery of business performance insights.

Introducing the Retailer Visual Deck.

Retail business performance, seen differently.

The Visual Deck is a platform through which you can see the performance of your business, visually. Graphs replace reports, making trends obvious and a path ahead clearer to follow. Graphs that change with time and through which you can dive deeper into what is happening in your business.

Why did we call it the Visual deck? It is visual because, well, your business data is presented in a visual way. It is a deck because it is a platform off of which you can see far and wide. It is a perfect place to see what you cannot see when you are on the ground.

Retailers can access the Visual deck from anywhere, anytime, and through this access their business data in a way not previously accessible ninth small business retail world. You can compare periods, graph using a broad selection of formats, dive deep into the data as well as focus on data points that matter including transactions, revenue, grow profit and more.

Better still, the visual insights can easily be shared with colleagues.

The Retail Visual Deck is a fresh approach to sharing business intelligence and business performance insights with small business retailers. It is mass retailer computing in a small business retailer’s hands. This is the tool join which you can rely to grow your business.

This is 100% Tower Systems innovation.

Having been tested with data from a range of businesses and trialled for months on many different platforms, the Visual deck is ready for small business retailers to engage, to use it to better manage and grow their businesses.

Footnote: If things go as usual, at least on competitor will claim they had this before us and that we copied them. Such a claim is not true. Prior to our launched last week we checked all our competitors in each specialty marketplace in which we live and not one has a product like this.

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FREE STOCKTAKING TRAINING FOR POS SOFTWARE USERS

June 16, 2016
1 Min read
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Our end of financial year stocktake training for our small business retail customers is proving to be popular. Even the additional events we are hoping are filling up.

Screen Shot 2016-06-11 at 7.53.18 AM

These live training workshops are supplemented with our one on one free training for individual situations as well as training through our training videos plus our training through advice sheets accessible from our online self-serve knowledge base.

We are grateful to our customers for supporting the free training opportunities. Our experience is that participating in the free training helps people get more from their POS software and makes them less reliant on our help desk for assistance.

Our free EOFY stocktake training covers all a retailer needs to know to prepare for and undertake an end of financial year stocktake.

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SUNDAY RETAIL MANAGEMENT TIP: HOW TO CHOOSE LOCAL COMMUNITY GROUPS AND CHARITIES TO SUPPORT

June 12, 2016
5 Min read
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Local small business retailers are asked to support local schools, community groups and charities on an almost daily basis. While community groups and charitable organisations beat a path to the doors of local businesses, so do individuals engaged on personal fundraising of their own for a cause or for an other individual.

It is tough making the call about which organisation to support or not for there is a real fear that declining will hurt the business. Often, small business retailers do not look for an uptick in business from a charity support decision but they do worry about a decline.

So how do you choose which local business you support?

Requests from schools, charities and other community for donations can be a challenge for any size business. If you do not take a structured approach to this you will find yourself giving away plenty for little or no return.

Requests are often loaded with guilt. People can be passive aggressive in their approach. Often, people requesting help leverage pester power. It can be hard to say no. There are too many stories of retailers giving a gift as a prize, receiving the Thank You poster and achieving no benefit for the business.

Our advice is to manage your philanthropy as you would any business activity.

THE PRIZE / GIFT

Decide the amount in cash or product value or both that you are prepared to donate in a full year, calendar year or financial year.

Our recommendation is you give away cash, but in the form of a voucher to spend in your business. This ensures that value of the gift or prize is greater than the cost of it to your business.

The best mechanism for giving away cash or an amount to spend in-store is to do it by way of a gift voucher. Use your software to manage this as any manual approach is dangerous and time-consuming.

YOUR PITCH, NOT THEIRS

Get on the front foot and write to local community groups outlining that you budget a year in advance. Seek their submissions. With this advice sheet we have included the text of a suggested letter. Please read the letter as it outlines the approach we suggest and why. It is important you communicate this with all community groups.

On the page after the letter is a suggested notice for use in-store when you are asked for donations.

HOW TO PICK GROUPS TO SUPPORT

Focus on community groups that support you. That is, groups with members who support you. The more they support you the better you are able to support the community.

Be prepared to ask where people shop for the items you sell in your business. Ask if they will change in return for your support.

Asking these questions underscores to you the importance of approaching the decision as a business decision.

Be thoughtful and deliberate. Support the groups that support you. This is important as it helps you stay within a budget.

LET YOUR SHOPPERS CHOOSE

If you run discount vouchers and if customers say they don’t want the voucher, invite them to contribute the voucher to a local group – one of three you setup for in the business. Every month, two months or three months, tote up the vouchers and give the group a parentage of the total voucher value ‘voted’ for them.

This idea could be in addition to any giving program you run in the business. It offers a daily reminder of your commitment to local giving.

Grill’d burgers run a program kind of like this where each shopper is given a bottle cap, which they place in a tub to vote on a group to receive a cash donation for the month. The process of groups submitting to be considered is onerous. You can find out more about that program with this link – it is a good place to research what others do: https://www.grilld.com.au/localmatters/

REWARD ENGAGEMENT

In addition to any direct gift, consider an offer whereby anyone who is a member of the group who shops with you accrues an amount you donate to the group. You could manage this through your software. It could be you offer a discount to the shopper as well as accruing a value for the group.

This type of program could also be in addition to your core giving program as the value here is driven by sales – hopefully, incremental sales.

EDUCATE GROUPS ABOUT GOOD ENGAGEMENT

Here are things groups you support can do to help your business. You should ask them to do these things:

  1. Tell members to buy from you.
  2. Write about your business on their Facebook page.
  3. Distribute flyers of your offers.
  4. Have you speak at a meeting.

WRITE ABOUT YOUR ENGAGEMENT

Once you have a decision on which groups you will support, write about this in your newsletter and on Facebook. Not just once but multiple times. Invite them to provide you with content to publish too. Talk about their good works.

Ask them to write about you too.

Your giving has to serve your heart and serve your business. Going about it in a structured way will ensure you meet your objectives.

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FREE POS SOFTWARE TRAINING FOR SMALL BUSINESS RETAILERS

June 10, 2016
1 Min read
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We are proud to offer this free POS software training as part of our weekly free training for small business retailers. For years we have delivered training like this and more, helping our customers to leverage their software investment.

  1. Getting Ready for EOFY. Date: Wednesday 15th June. Time: 2:00PM. Description: Get ready for End of Financial Year now. What you need to do and the reports you need to run. http://www.towersystems.com.au/free-training/book-free-training?id=1230
  2. Stocktaking for EOFY. Date: Thursday 16th June . Time: 2:00PM. Description: Doing a stocktake in retailer and what option works best for you. http://www.towersystems.com.au/free-training/book-free-training?id=1231
  3. Increase Sales Now! Start using Discount Vouchers.. Date: Tuesday 21st June. Time: 2:00PM. Description: Start using Discount Vouchers to grow your business. A great introduction to this great feature. http://www.towersystems.com.au/free-training/book-free-training?id=1232
  4. Getting Ready for EOFY. Date: Wednesday 22nd June. Time: 2:00PM. Description: Get ready for End of Financial Year now. What you need to do and the reports you need to run. http://www.towersystems.com.au/free-training/book-free-training?id=1233
  5. Stocktaking for EOFY. Date: Wednesday 29th June. Time: 2:00PM. Description: Doing a stocktake in retailer and what option works best for you. http://www.towersystems.com.au/free-training/book-free-training?id=1234
  6. Getting Ready for EOFY. Date: Thursday 30th June .Time: 2:00PM. Description: Get ready for End of Financial Year now. What you need to do and the reports you need to run. http://www.towersystems.com.au/free-training/book-free-training?id=1235
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HELPING SMALL BUSINESS RETAILERS COMPETE WITH ONLINE

June 9, 2016
2 Min read
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There is no doubt that every retail business, large and small, needs on online strategy. This is mission-critical to their success given the usage of online sites and tools in the shopping process, even the everyday shopping process.

Small business retailers can be part of this, they can connect with shoppers who are online and searching online by leveraging the valuable data in their in-store POS software into appropriate searchable and locatable online platforms.

The challenge is small business retailers often don;t know where to turn. Some engage a business consultant, others a web developer, others a friend with some geek-speak skills while others go it alone.

Given that successful online engagement starts with beautiful data, starting with a professional POS software company in your retail channel niche it most likely going to deliver the best outcome for your specific type of business.

The best way to do this is to partner with a POS software company with an established and successful online strategy. But this is more than a bit of tech speak and slick marketing, it has to be real, being used today and established with relationships with search engines and other valuable online platforms.

Small business retailers can grow their businesses with a smart online strategy.

Tower Systems has success in the online space, helping small business retailers to leverage local shoppers and shoppers interstate and even overseas. We do this work through several divisions in our company from desktop to web to marketing. Our approach is whole of business here and for our small business retail customers.

The outcomes we deliver are helping small business retailers to reap rewards they previously were not pursuing. In addition to the tech that makes this happen for small business retailers, we offer the business play, the why and how of business activity to help a small business retailer to find new customers, achieve net new revenue and build new connections in the wider world online.

Tower Systems has excellent success storing bring small business retailers to the engaged and exciting online marketplace locally and overseas. It is what we do everyday for our customers in a diverse mix of retail channels.

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POS SOFTWARE SUPPORT FOR MULTI-BUY HELPS RETAILERS DRIVE SALES

June 7, 2016
2 Min read
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13346543_10156929025490142_4340173502081084002_nOne of the most valuable ways a retailer can differentiate from a competitor is to change how items are sold. Through the Tower Systems POS software, retailers have multiple ways of doing this. One successful way is the transactional multi-buy, where a customer can save money by purchasing more of an item in one transaction.

We see the transactional multi-buy approach working well in toy shops, pet shops, newsagencies and gift shops. Retailers in each channel use it differently and with different products. This is a beauty of the facility – it is easy for a local retailer to setup such a campaign and then flip to another. It enables the small business independent retailer to be flexible and constantly change their approach.

Changing your pitch in store around what the shopper purchases is important. It differentiates you from others with the same product. It speaks to your local offer and enables you to own your value proposition.

This is smart for small business retailers. we are proud our software makes it easy to setup and simple to manage and insightful in the post activity reporting.

Any business selling items shoppers will collect or purchase for collectors would benefit significantly from the transactional multi by facilities in the Tower Systems POS software.

We back the facilities with training, in-store management advice and even post event analysis – helming retailers to understand the full value of the campaign they have run.

Making it very easy, all the retail employee need do is scan items. The software applies any appropriate multi-buy discount. You do not even have to scan all the items after each other. yes, the software is smart enough to detect items at any point in the sale and to grow them together. This is vital to streamlined throughput of shoppers at a busy sales counter.

Beyond the software, Tower Systems is grateful for the support of many retailers in the continual enhancement of the software, to enable us to bring valuable in-store marking tools to retailers with whom we partner.

Transactional multi-buy is an important tool for small business and independent retailers. We have excellent case studies we can share to illustrate the value.

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WHY SMALL BUSINESSES MATTER TO AN ECONOMY – a view from our POS software company

June 6, 2016
2 Min read
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We hear from politicians regularly that small businesses are the lifeblood of the economy, that they are the single largest employer and that they matter in cities and towns across Australia.

Beyond Australia, politicians elsewhere make the same claims. They talk up small business as if them doing this helps the channel.

Sadly, most politicians only talk about small business when they want votes. Once in government, they do too little to support this most vital of economic sectors.

Here at Tower Systems, we only serve independent small businesses. Every one of our POS software clients is a small business owner. We prefer small businesses because we understand them, believe in their importance and provide a type of service tailored specifically to them.

Thinking about our commitment to small businesses recently we engaged in a discussion internally about why we think small businesses matter to the economy. This was interesting as the discussion showed that our belief and commitment go beyond the company position. Deep in the company we believe in small business.

Economically, small businesses make an extraordinary contribution to the economy. They pay a higher proportion of income as taxes than big businesses – because small business owners are less likely to engage in tax minimization or to send income offshore like we see from bug businesses.

Small businesses serve local communities with local employment, local community engagement and local infrastructure support.

Small businesses move quickly. There is less red tape, meaning small businesses can embrace opportunities faster and thereby deliver outcomes sooner than big businesses.

Small businesses are terrific labs for change. We have seen valuable changed in how things are done evolve from small business engagement.

Small businesses foster entrepreneurship. Economic growth comes, in part, from business start ups. Small businesses are excellent incubators for business start ups, keeping this part of the economy moving at a valuable pace.

These are just some of the reasons we came up with on why small businesses matter to any economy. We publish them today to reinforce our commitment and show that our support for the sector is based on firm beliefs and deeply help commitments.

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SUNDAY SMALL BUSINESS RETAIL ADVICE: MANAGING EMPLOYEES

June 5, 2016
2 Min read
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We have helped many small business retailers confront their employee management challenges. Based on years of assistance and advice, we have developed some simple guidelines, which we share here today for others:

You hire, train, manage, motivate and, ultimately, fire your employees. Their performance is on you. Next time you go to complain, first ask: what could I have done as leader to avoid this?

SET EXPECTATIONS BY SHIFT.

Key to good management and leadership is good communication. In a retail situation, good communication starts with setting expectations.

People forget. This is why a checklist is helpful in guiding the tasks you want completed.

It is important to be specific in your delegation – setting tasks for specific people rather than listing generally what you want done.

It is also important to be transparent, so everyone working on any given day knows what is to be done that day. Consider posting the list on a noticeboard or have the sheets in a clipboard at the counter for all to see.

Do not list on here things to keep people busy as they will see through it and be half-hearted. List what is important to the business, tasks against which you will judge your team members.

The more consistent and structured your setting and communication of tasks for and to your team members the easier it is for them to follow your direction and for you to you to measure their performance.

Tips for a good employee task checklist.

  1. Be clear and concise. Ensure that your directions are understood.
  2. Where appropriate, explain why, why a task will benefit the business.
  3. Fairly allocate tasks across the people working on any given day.

On the following page is a checklist you can use as a template. It is in a format you can easily change to serve your needs.

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TOWER SYSTEMS HELPS SMALL BUSINESS NEWSAGENTS WITH NEWS CORP. OFFER

June 4, 2016
1 Min read
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image[1]Tower Systems has published advice for newsagents to work with the latest News Corp. newspaper retail offer that has been timed to run for the last weeks of the federal election campaign.

Our advice is comprehensive and was released to newsagents, after thorough testing, in time for the News announcement to newsagents.

Providing newsagents with step by step advice on how to easily handle supplier marketing initiatives is what Tower Systems does across its various vertical marketplaces.

This is another example of the value of the Tower AdvantageTM in action for the small business newsagents we serve.

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TOWER SYSTEMS HEADED TO XEROCON, XERO CONFERENCE

June 3, 2016
1 Min read
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Tower Systems is proud to be headed to Brisbane to participate in Xerocon South 2016, the Xero event unites the network of Xero accounting, bookkeeping and ecosystem partners under one roof for a collaborative and transformative experience. Xerocon has a history of accelerating innovation within the industry and fuelling small business success.

Tower Systems will be showcasing our latest small business POS software and our live and direct POS software Xero integration. We will have software and sales experts on hand to show off our Xero capabilities to accountants and other attendees at what is expected to be a sold out event for the Xero community in Australia.

This is a major event and we are grateful to Xero for the opportunity to participate.

As we get closer to the event we will share more about what we are doing for our growing Xero user community and those who support them.

Exciting times ahead.

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LAUNCHING THE TOWER SYSTEMS POS SOFTWARE SHOPIFY INTEGRATION FOR SMALL BUSINESS RETAILERS

June 2, 2016
1 Min read
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In addition to our well-established webstore facilities linking to many e-commerce platforms and our deeper direct Magento interface, we are proud to announce the release of our POS software Shopify integration.

Like the Magento integration, our Shopify integration is deep and direct. It has been developed in line with the developer partnership advice and standards by the Shopify organisation.

Our Shopify integration was a topic our leadership team discussed with the Shoppify experts at the recent SHOPTALK conference in Las Vegas two weeks ago. This face to face dialogue was helpful in leveraging the Tower Systems POS software Shopify integration to an even more beneficial level for our customers.

Integrations such as what we have achieved with Shopify and Magento do not happen overnight. They require research, planning, coding, testing and close work with the company owning the product with which you are integrating.

The integration work involves our two development teams: in-store and web. These teams work together to deliver a seamless solution on which our small business retail customers can rely.

We have developed for Shopify and Magento as they speak to different retail business situations.

These latest integrations are another Tower AdvantageTM.

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TOWER SYSTEMS HELPS SMALL BUSINESS RETAILERS TRACK PRODUCT SAMPLES AND GIVEAWAYS

June 1, 2016
2 Min read
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A trend is emerging in the leveraging of product giveaways, promotions and samples – that of tracking the movement of these through the retail store, understanding the rate of giveaway, the basket into which they are given and other data about the shopper engaging with the opportunity.

Thanks to smart marketing tools in the Tower Systems POS software for small business we are helping retailers and their suppliers to leverage these opportunities. We are tracking transactional data and facilitating access to this by retailers and their supplier partners.

The result is even more supplier support for these in-store promotions. This, in turn, helps retailers to grow their businesses thanks to the support of suppliers for the campaigns.

Our work is on both sides of the opportunity – with retailers as well as with suppliers. We are proud to be helping to bring both together on this opportunity and are excited by the results we are seeing though this work.

This work is another example of how Tower Systems is not your average POS software company. We are genuinely and actively engaged in helping our customers, small business retailers, to improve the economic performance of their businesses through software innovation as well as business operational innovation.

In a range of retail channels including pet shops, bike shops, garden centres, newsagencies and gift shops we have opportunities for helping retailers to leverage product giveaway opportunities and through this to make their businesses more appealing to suppliers who might otherwise have overlooked their businesses for larger corporate businesses.

The core we can help small business retailers compare with big businesses the better. This is a key part of the Tower Systems POS software mission.

If you are a supplier, please connect with us through our entry portal at sales@towersystems.com.au and one of our retail strategy experts can work with you on guiding the process for connecting with retailers and leveraging product giveaway data so it is useful and meaningful for you and your business.

If you are a retailer keen to have more tools with which to compete against bin business, reach out to us, see for yourself the Tower AdvantageTM and how it could help your independent retail business.

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WEBSTORE / POS SOFTWARE INTEGRATION STRATEGY DRIVES RETAIL SALES FOR SMALL BUSINESS RETAILERS

May 31, 2016
2 Min read
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We are thrilled with feedback from retailers using our POS software webstore integrations. The best feedback of all is the news of sales they are achieving that they would otherwise not have achieved.

Through websites we have developed and connections back to high street retail businesses using our POS software we have helped small business retailers achieve significant sales from shoppers interstate and overseas.

The sales success is as much a testament to our search engine work as it is to our web development and POS software / webstore integrations.

What is most interesting is the sales we are helping our customers achieve outside their usual trading hours. A retailer arriving in the morning at 6am to three sales totaling close to $1,000 is exciting. We hear about it because our retail partners like to share with us the success they are having. And we gratefully receive stories of their success because we know their success feeds into our success.

We have wonderful reference sites doing good business online thanks to the technology and backup business strategic advice we have provided.

Small business retailers can compete online, they can achieve sales they otherwise might have missed. They can reach into geographic locations where they are not known. They can easily serve these locations thanks to smart tools that make shipping each, transacting payments easy and providing personal customer service easy.

Helping and independent small retail business add thousands of dollars of gross profit to their bottom line in a year is a result we love here at Tower Systems. It is real thanks to the professional work of teams within our company in pursuit of our mission to help our small business retail customers to make money.

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HOW OUR POS SOFTWARE COMPANY HAS BEEN HANDLING THE WINDOWS 10 CUSTOMER SERVICE SURGE

May 30, 2016
2 Min read
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With more than 3,500 small business retail customers using our POS software we have had to be on top of the push program engaged by Microsoft in the roll out of their Windows 10 upgrade.

The moment we saw the inevitability of the Microsoft roll out, we adjusted our customer service resource allocation to ensure the needs of our customers were well met.

Here is what we did to confront the Windows 10 challenge:

  1. We developed peer-reviewed consistent advice for the most common questions, to ensure that our customers had access to this advice in addition to personal one-on-one advice.
  2. We added to our help desk staffing resources.
  3. We re-allocated help desk time to ensure we had people at the emerging peak times of the day for Windows 10 specific calls.
  4. We doubled our Saturday office-based help desk staffing.
  5. We provided information to our customers via email and snail mail.
  6. We ensured we had Windows 10 knowledgeable escalation points for those with concerns outside those typical and that require management level insight.
  7. As a group we gathered to review progress regularly to take on bard any feedback and leverage any learning opportunities.

Even though many Windows 10 issues are outside providing support for our POS software, we have taken the calls and provided the advice, at no cost.

Indeed, we have processed close to 2,000 Windows 10 calls. That we have done this at no cost to our customers has collectively saved them a considerable sum.

We are proud of how we have handled this and are grateful to our customers for the opportunity to serve them in this Microsoft caused action.

Now if only Microsoft approached their own update roll out with the level of customer care we have shown through our actions.

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INTRODUCING TOWER SYSTEMS – YOUR LOCAL POS SOFTWARE COMPANY

May 28, 2016
2 Min read
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Tower Systems is an Australian POS software company that develops, sells and supports software for selected specialty marketplaces including toy, pet, produce, gift, newsagent, bike, garden and fishing businesses.

We only serve independent small retail businesses. This is important.

Our mission is to help retailers run more successful businesses. Our definition of success is a business that is making money, where the owners and employees enjoy what they do and where suppliers enjoy transacting.

Good software can play an important role in nurturing business success as it sits at the heart of the business: transacting sales, managing stock, tracking customer activity and shining a light on business opportunities.

What makes us different is how we engage. We go beyond what is traditional software company.

  1. We welcome working with product suppliers to create data links that save you and them time, data links that improve data accuracy, data links that feed more accurate business reports.
  2. We provide business insights based on data cultivated through the software – to business owners who ask. This is a free service.
  3. Our help desk provides context for advice. Rather than the turn it off and turn it on advice, our help desk team members explain the why, why from a business perspective the advice they are providing matters.
  4. Our software updates contain enhancements suggested and voted on by customers. You can have a direct say in the evolution of the software.
  5. Our communication is in plain English. While we are a company of IT geeks, when talking with customers we keep it simple. We know technology scares people. We don’t want it to scare our customers.
  6. We are accessible. You get to talk with real people all the time, including our leadership team.

We mention these capabilities today as they reflect what we stand for, what is important to us in our service of small business retail. Most important of all is our focus on small business retail, our commitment to helping small and independent retail businesses thrive as they compete with online a bigger retail businesses.

We take our mission seriously and personally. It is our reason for being in business. We are grateful to be of service to valuable and locally connected businesses.

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HELPING SMALL BUSINESS RETAILERS CUT EMPLOYEE THEFT

May 26, 2016
1 Min read
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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.

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