Our POS software sales team is local and ready to listen
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Retailers: You choose when to update your POS software
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At Tower Systems we give local specialty retailers agency. We think you should decide when to install a software update. We don’t push it onto your counter on our schedule.
We release updates regularly. Many of them include improvements our customers asked for. When an update is ready, it’s up to you when it goes in.
It sounds like a small thing. Independent retailers tell us it isn’t.
Why forced updates hurt independent retailers
Plenty of software companies update on their own schedule. The update arrives whether you are ready or not.
For a small retailer, timing matters. Nobody wants a change to their POS in the week before Christmas, in the middle of a stocktake or on a busy Saturday morning. A new screen layout or a changed workflow can slow the counter at exactly the wrong moment.
You know your business. You know when it’s quiet, when your experienced staff are rostered on and when you have time to learn something new. That knowledge should decide when an update goes in.
What goes into our updates
Our updates are shaped by the people who use the software. Through our Software Ideas platform, customers suggest improvements and every customer can vote on them. Those suggestions guide what we build.
So an update from Tower Systems usually includes something a retailer like you asked for. It might be a faster way to process a supplier invoice. It might be a new report or a tweak to a screen you use a hundred times a day.
We want you to have these improvements. We just think you should choose when they arrive.
Why we do it this way
I’ve run retail businesses and built software for them for more than 40 years. Independent retailers are business owners. They make hundreds of decisions every week about stock, staff, pricing and the shop floor. I think it’s odd for a software company to take one of those decisions away from them.
Giving you control over update timing is a matter of respect. It’s your business and your counter. It should be your call.
Independent retailers tell us they value this. Some update the day a release is available. Others wait for a quiet Monday. Both are fine with us. If you’d like help, our local help desk team can talk you through what’s in an update before you install it.
Ask before you choose
If you’re comparing POS software, ask each company one question: who decides when updates are installed? The answer tells you a lot about how they see their customers.
To talk with us about Tower Systems:
Australia: 1300 662 957
New Zealand: 0800 444 367
Email: sales@towersystems.com.au
Contacting a human is easy.
The Sunday reset: four questions every retailer should ask
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Most small retailers spend the week reacting. A delivery arrives, a staff member calls in sick, a customer needs something now. There’s rarely time to step back and look at the business as a whole.
That’s why we like the idea of a Sunday reset. Set aside 30 minutes, ideally away from the counter, with a coffee and your numbers. Look back at the week just gone and decide what you’ll do differently in the week ahead.
It doesn’t have to be Sunday. What matters is the habit. A short, regular review beats a long one you never get around to.
What’s working?
Start with the good news. Which products, categories and suppliers did well this week? Was a particular day or time of day stronger than usual? If a display or a promotion lifted sales, note it so you can repeat it.
It’s easy to skip this question. Don’t. Knowing what works tells you where to put more stock, more space and more of your team’s attention.
What’s not working?
Now the harder one. Look for stock that hasn’t moved in weeks, categories losing ground and margins that have slipped. Dead stock ties up cash and shelf space you could use for something that sells.
The answer might be a markdown, a better position in the shop or a decision to stop reordering. The point is to make the call rather than let slow stock sit.
What am I missing out on?
This is the question most retailers never ask. Are there products customers keep asking for that you don’t carry? Lines that sell well in similar shops but not yours? Times of the week when you could do more with the foot traffic you already have?
Missed opportunities don’t show up as a loss on a report. That’s why they’re easy to overlook, and often worth more than fixing what’s broken.
Is theft an issue?
Behind the scenes, in a quiet and secure way, we track keystrokes and let you know if we think theft may be an issue. We show you where to look. This has saved local indie retailers tens of thousands of dollars.
Most weeks you’ll find nothing. Checking regularly is what lets you spot the week when something is wrong.
Where the answers come from
The trouble with a Sunday reset is the preparation. If you have to pull reports, export spreadsheets and work through the figures yourself, 30 minutes quickly becomes three hours. Most owners give up after a few weeks.
For Tower Systems customers, that work is already done. The Insights Dashboard is an AI-facilitated tool that gives you answers to all four questions, ready when you sit down. There’s nothing to prepare and no report to build. It works around the clock, so the insights are there on Sunday morning or any other time that suits you.
Every Tower Systems customer gets the Insights Dashboard free. It isn’t an add-on or a premium tier. We include it because we think every independent retailer should be able to see clearly how their business is going.
If you already use Tower Systems, open the dashboard this Sunday and try the four questions. If you don’t, we’d be happy to show you what it would reveal about your shop. Call 1300 662 957 (0800 444 367 in New Zealand) or email sales@towersystems.com.au.
Contacting a human is easy.
The Independent Retail Markets We Serve at Tower Systems
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Tower Systems is a vertical market software company. We don’t make one generic POS system and hope it fits. We build software for specific retail channels, and we work only with independent, specialty and small business retailers in Australia and New Zealand.
Today, thousands of local retailers use our software. Here are the markets we serve.
Gifts, fashion and lifestyle
Toys, games and hobbies
Garden, outdoors and rural
- Garden centres
- Produce and rural supplies stores
- Pet shops
- Fishing and outdoor stores
- Swimming pool parts and care
- Bike shops
- Firearms dealers
Everyday local retail
Technology and mobility
Community retail
Why this matters
Each of these markets trades differently. A bike shop needs serial number tracking and repairs. A health food shop may need scale integration. A garden centre has seasonal peaks. A charity shop handles donated, one-off stock. A newsagent juggles a mix of categories with very different margins.
Because we focus on specific markets, our software, training and support are shaped around how these businesses actually work. The people who help you understand your type of shop.
Don’t see your market?
If your business isn’t listed, talk to us anyway. Many other independent retailers use our software successfully. We’re always happy to have a conversation about what you need.
Talk to us
AU: 1300 662 957
NZ: 0800 444 367
Email: sales@towersystems.com.au
Contacting a human is easy.
Too Much in “General”? How a Cleaner Department Structure Makes Small Business POS Data Work Harder
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Open your Tower Systems Retailer POS and look at your departments and categories. If you see duplicates, vague names, or a “General” or “Miscellaneous” category holding hundreds of products, you’re not alone.
It happens in almost every business over time. A new supplier arrives and someone creates a category in a hurry. A staff member adds a department that already exists under another name. Products that don’t obviously fit anywhere end up in a catch-all.
None of it seems like a big problem on the day. But after a few years, your data becomes hard to trust and harder to use.
Why it matters
Your department and category structure is the backbone of your reporting. When it’s messy, the reports are messy too.
You can’t see which categories are growing if half the products sit in “General”. You can’t compare gross profit across departments if the same products are split between two of them. And staff waste time hunting for the right place to put a new item.
Clean data makes your business easier to manage. It helps you make better decisions about stock, space and buying, because the numbers reflect how your shop actually trades.
How our service works
Our Department and Category Restructure service is a careful, practical clean-up, tailored to each business. This is a small business focussed service that’s helping retailers achieve a clean dataset.
We start with an AI assisted review of your full product database. From that, we create a proposed department and category structure that suits the way you sell.
We then send you a spreadsheet showing the proposed structure. You review it and either approve it as supplied or tell us what you’d like changed. Nothing is updated in your POS until you’re happy.
Once approved, we rebuild the structure in your Tower Systems Retailer POS. Duplicates are merged. Vague categories are replaced with meaningful ones. Every product ends up in the right place.
What to know before you start
Two things sit outside the service.
If you use an accounting link, you may need to update its setup after the restructure. We’ll guide you through this, but the accounting changes themselves need to be made by you or your accountant.
If you have a website, menu links that point to departments or categories may need updating. We’ll help you identify what needs to change. If you’d like us to make the website menu changes for you, we can quote on that separately.
The result
You end up with clean departments, clear categories and a logical product hierarchy. Your staff find things faster. Your reports make sense. And you have a dataset you can actually use to manage your business.
The Department and Category Restructure is currently $499, down from $999.
Find out more and book at store.towersystems.com.au/products/department-and-category-restructure, or reach out to support.
Why Tower Systems does not charge for extra POS terminals
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Ask a POS software company what an extra terminal costs. The answer tells you a lot about how they price.
Some companies charge for their software based on how many terminals are connected to it. Add a terminal and you pay for more than the hardware, you pay more for the software too.
Tower Systems does not charge per terminal
Here at Tower Systems, adding a terminal costs nothing extra. A retailer running the software on one computer pays the same as a retailer running it on 8 computers in one location.
The price is published on the Tower Systems pricing page. Anyone can check it.
Tower also does not charge fees based on transaction volume or transaction value. Sell more, and your software cost stays where it is.
Our approach to POS software pricing is transparent and easy to follow. We’ve always taken this approach.
Why Tower prices this way
With a fixed price, retailers know exactly what the software costs. Tower is also not taxing retailers for the growth they achieve.
There has been a commercial benefit as well. Not charging for extra terminals has kept Tower price competitive. That helps local small business retailers get more financial value from the software.
We benefit from this approach too. It brings more retailers to our community – all small business retailers, independent retailers. Having a large community of locally owned businesses using our software means the costs of us doing business are spread – this is a way we can offer the pricing we do offer.
If you are comparing POS software, ask two questions of companies offering software that serves your business needs.
- What does an extra terminal cost?
- Do the fees go up as your sales grow?
The right software at the right price is a big win for any business.
Too often we see retailers who have gone for software solely based on price only to find that the price they thought it was in not the price they are paying. This is why we also p[itch transparency. Top your homework, make sure you understand the price of the POS software you are considering.
We make our pricing accessible to anyone as a demonstration of our approach to transparent accountability.
In business since 1981, with POS software made for today
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We have been in business since 1981. Some people hear that date and picture old software with a fresh coat of paint.
The software we sell today was made for today.
Retail has changed enormously over the decades. People shop differently and pay differently. They expect different things from a local business, and the way stock is bought and managed has shifted too, sometimes quickly. Our software has kept pace.
It has been completely replaced many times, rebuilt from the ground up so it meets the needs of retail businesses now. Each rebuild was a chance to start fresh, keeping what we had learned and dropping what no longer served retailers well.
Between rebuilds, every software update brings more enhancements, and many of them start with our customers.
Customers suggest improvements through our Software Ideas platform, which you can reach from our website. The process is transparent and driven by customers, which keeps our development focused on what retailers actually need.
The people using the software every day know where it could be better. A shop owner who notices a step that takes too long, or a report that could be clearer, has something valuable to tell us. The Software Ideas platform gives them a place to tell us.
What our history does give you is experience. Over four decades we have watched retail change and worked through those changes alongside local businesses. We understand the pressures independent retailers face because we have been listening to them for a long time.
Still, a long history and good software are two different things. Our longevity shows we have stayed around and kept investing. Only the software itself can show whether it suits your business today.
So when you look at any POS software, judge it on what it does now. It is fair to ask a supplier how often their software is updated and how customer feedback shapes it. It is also fair to ask whether they have rebuilt their software over the years or kept adding to something old.
We are happy to answer those questions and show you the software as it stands today.
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To reach us, call 1300 662 957 (AU) or 0800 444 367 (NZ), or email sales@towersystems.com.au.
Generic POS Software Fits Everyone Loosely. Vertical Software Fits You.
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Walk into any specialty retail business and the specifics jump out. A garden centre manages living stock that changes with the seasons. A newsagency juggles hundreds of magazine titles on sale-or-return terms. A jeweller tracks repairs. A produce store sells by weight, by bag and by unit, sometimes for the same product.
Generic POS software treats all of these shops the same. That is its nature, and its weakness.
Tower Systems is a vertical market software company. It makes software for specific needs and specific retail channels. Not generic software with a settings page, but software shaped around how particular types of shops actually trade: their stock structures, their supplier arrangements, their seasonal rhythms, their customer habits.
The difference shows up everywhere. In a vertical product, the workflows a retailer needs are built in, not bolted on through third-party add-ons that each carry their own fee and their own point of failure. Reports speak the language of the channel. Support staff understand the business, not just the buttons, because they work with that channel every day. And when the channel itself changes, the software changes with it, because the software company has no choice but to stay current in the niches it serves.
Generic platforms make a different bet. They aim for the broadest possible market and rely on retailers to adapt themselves to the software. Some businesses can live with that. Specialty retailers usually cannot, and they discover it months in, when the workarounds pile up and the “flexible” platform turns out to be flexible for everyone except them.
There is a useful test for any retailer comparing options. Ask the software company to name the retail channels it serves. A vertical company answers in seconds. A generic one answers with the word “everyone”, which really means no one in particular.
Tower Systems develops and supports POS software for local specialty retailers in Australia and New Zealand. The focus is only on indie retailers, not franchises or chains. Specific software, for specific shops, is the whole idea.
Learn more at www.towersystems.com.au.
At Tower Systems, we’re here: 1300 662 957 or sales@towersystems.com.au. If you’re in NZ, call 0800 444 367. Contacting a human is easy.
The Next Tower Systems Update Is Coming, and Customers Wrote Much of the Brief
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Work is well advanced on the next Tower Systems POS software update.
The update, for small business retailers across Australia and New Zealand, delivers new facilities requested by customers, along with other refinements designed to help retailers save more time. Time is the currency that matters most in a small shop, and every update is measured against it.
What makes a Tower Systems update different is where the ideas come from.
Plenty of the suggestions in this update arrived through the company’s Software Ideas platform. It is a proprietary, transparent system that works simply. Any customer can suggest an improvement to the software. Every suggestion is visible to every other customer. And all customers can vote for the ideas they want most. The suggestions with genuine support across the customer base rise to the top, and they shape what gets built.
Customers guide the software development. Not a product committee guessing at what retailers might want. Not a sales team promising features to close a deal. Actual retailers, describing actual needs, voting in the open.
The transparency is the point. When a retailer can see what has been suggested, what is popular and what is coming, the relationship with their software company changes. It stops being a black box and becomes a shared project. Retailers also learn from each other’s suggestions, because a fix requested by a gift shop in Bendigo often helps a garden centre in Nelson too.
This approach only works because of who Tower Systems serves. The company develops and supports POS software for local specialty retailers in Australia and New Zealand, and the focus is only on indie retailers, not franchises or chains. Indie retailers know their businesses intimately. Give them a genuine channel to shape their tools and the software gets better in ways no head office roadmap could predict.
The update will roll out to customers as part of their existing coverage. Details will be shared with customers as release nears.
Learn about the Software Ideas platform at www.towersystems.com.au.
At Tower Systems, we’re here: 1300 662 957 or sales@towersystems.com.au. If you’re in NZ, call 0800 444 367. Contacting a human is easy.
What’s the difference between vertical market software and bespoke software for your business?
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POS software update out now
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Tower Systems has released a POS software update that delivers many customer requested enhancements along with three new facilities in the software01NEW FACILITY
Returns Authorisation
Return stock to your suppliers in a controlled, traceable way – all from one screen.
• Start a returns request against a supplier from Returns Authorisations on the main menu.
• Add items by supplier recall, arrival dates, invoice, or manually – with live stock info including Last Sold Date.
• Send the request and record the supplier’s response, including part-authorisations.
• Quarantine the stock so it can’t be sold, then finalise to book it out and print the paperwork.
Licensed add-on – talk to us if you’d like it enabled.
QIM Dashboard (Quote & Invoice Management)
One screen for every open quote and proforma, so you can see what needs attention without opening quotes one by one.
• KPI tiles for outstanding value, payments secured, lost revenue, orders at risk, fill rate and invoiced totals – click any tile to filter the list.
• Charts showing quote and proforma aging, plus a conversion funnel.
• Alerts for quotes expiring, expired, or paid and waiting on stock.
• Search and filter the list, drill into any quote, record a payment, print in bulk, or export to Excel.
• Settings for your reporting window, refresh interval and “expiring soon” thresholds.
Pay a Proforma from POS
★ From our Software Ideas program – suggested by a Tower Systems customer
Take a payment against a proforma order straight from the Point of sale.
• Look up the customer, open Customer Payment, and use the new Pay Proforma button.
• Pick the order from their list – balance, fill rate, expiry and status all shown, with expiring orders flagged.
• Enter a deposit, part-payment or the full balance (you can’t overpay).
• Tender through POS as normal. The payment applies to the proforma automatically.
Available when the sale is empty and the customer has a proforma awaiting payment.
These are just some of what has been delivered in this latest POS software update, which is now available to all of our customers. And, as noted, on top of these three headline new facilities we have delivered many other changes following requests from ur customers across 20 different specialty retail channels.
Our Tower Systems POS software does not stand still. Kit continues to evolve to meet the evolving needs of local small business retailers.
Transparent POS software pricing: choose the right level for your store
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Shopping for POS software can all too often mean hidden fees, vague quotes and pricing you can’t get without a sales call. The question we’re asked often is the simplest: how much does it cost? We’re happy to answer.
Our pricing is published at towersystems.com.au/pricing. No sales call required. We don;t need to know who you are.
Our pricing is the same for everyone. This matters because it builds trust.
We offer four tiers: Startup, Standard, Advanced and Ultimate. A new pop-up shop has different needs and cash flow than a multi-lane, high-volume store, so you choose the level that fits.
Every tier, including Startup, includes:
- No transaction fees. We never take a cut of your sales.
- Unlimited products, unlimited customer records, unlimited turnover.
- Full point of sale: fractional and decimal quantities, catalogues and promotions, laybys, gift cards and store credit vouchers.
- Customer accounts: invoicing, delivery dockets, picking slips, loyalty tools, key-event tracking, purchase reminders and credit limits.
- Integrations: Xero, EFTPOS, and rostering with Deputy and Tanda, plus customer statements and reporting dashboards.
- Stock control: stocktaking, returns processing, reorder automation and customer special orders.
Higher tiers add specialist modules without a new installation. Advanced unlocks kitting, for businesses that bundle stock items into sellable packages or gift sets. Ultimate unlocks dispatch management, for high-volume shipping and delivery operations. AI retail tools are also available as you move up the tiers.
Why publish pricing when most of the industry hides it? Because hidden pricing wastes everyone’s time, yours most of all. If our software isn’t in your budget, you deserve to know that in two minutes on a web page, not after three phone calls and a demo you sat through out of politeness.
Watch for per-transaction pricing elsewhere in the market. A small percentage of every sale looks harmless until you multiply it across a year of turnover. Flat subscription pricing means your software cost doesn’t grow just because you had a good month. Your good months are yours.
The tiers also protect you from paying for capability you don’t use. A pop-up shop doesn’t need dispatch management, so it shouldn’t fund it. When the business grows, the upgrade is a subscription change, not a migration.
Have a look at the pricing page, compare the tiers side by side, and talk to us when you’re ready. Not before.
How to use your POS software to navigate tough trading conditions
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When trading is tough and foot traffic slows, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed. One of the most useful tools you already own is your POS software.
Retailers ask us: how can I use my POS software to navigate hard times? Even though we are a software company, a question like this is common for us, and we are glad to help were we can.
Our advice is to start with the green shoots.
Even in a slow patch, almost every shop has categories, products or customer groups still performing. Your Tower Systems reports will show you what’s working right now. Find those pockets and shift your marketing, merchandising and inventory budget toward them. Small wins, built on, become a turnaround.
Then deal with dead stock. When a retail business is under financial pressure, the problem is usually in inventory: cash locked up in stock that isn’t selling.
This is emotional territory. Shop owners chose that stock themselves, so admitting a line isn’t selling can feel like admitting a mistake. That’s why dead stock sits on shelves gathering dust while it drains cash.
Your POS software has no feelings about your buying. The reports show what’s turning and what has sat untouched for months, with dates and numbers. That’s all it shows, and that’s exactly what you need.
Once you can see the dead stock, clear it: promotions, bundles, discounts. Yes, some of it will go out below cost. That’s still better than the alternative, because stock on a shelf is not money in the bank. Get the cash out and put it into stock that turns.
Then use your sales history to buy better. The same reports that exposed the dead stock will show you what has proven demand, at what price, in which seasons. Let that guide the next order rather than gut feel or a rep’s enthusiasm. Preventing the next slow-moving line is worth more than clearing the last one.
A practical tip: put a monthly appointment in your diary to run the same two or three reports. Turnaround decisions get easier when you’re looking at the numbers regularly instead of once a year at stocktake.
You don’t have to do this alone. If trading is tough, call the Tower Systems helpdesk. We’ll point you to the exact reports to find your green shoots and clear your dead stock.
What is ERP software, and does Tower Systems offer it?
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People evaluating software for a growing business run into the term ERP: Enterprise Resource Planning. We get asked, does Tower Systems offer ERP software?
No, we don’t offer WRP software and here’s why.
ERP software is built to run every part of a large organisation from one central system. You’ll find it in banks managing accounting across international divisions, in corporate HR departments running payroll and benefits, in factories tracking raw materials and production schedules, and in businesses coordinating global freight across multiple warehouses.
That scope is the point, and it’s also the cost. ERP suits mid-sized and large companies. It needs serious capital, dedicated IT people and a long onboarding.
We make POS software for local independent specialty retailers. That focus is deliberate.
Rather than building a generic tool for big corporations, we build for specific retail channels. Our workshop module, for example, is used by jewellers and bike shops to manage repairs, by trophy businesses to manage engraving jobs, by doll hospitals and specialty toy shops for restoration work, and by irrigation and rural supply businesses to assemble components into packages for farm and trade customers.
The distinction matters when you’re comparing quotes. An ERP vendor will sell you a platform and then a long implementation project to configure it for retail. We sell software that already understands retail, because retail is all we do. There’s no army of consultants between you and a working system.
Some of this looks like ERP in miniature. It isn’t. The workshop module manages repairs; it doesn’t try to run your payroll. The stock tools manage a shop, not a container terminal. If you need a corporate ERP system for international supply chains or multi-tiered HR, we’re not the right fit, and we’ll tell you so.
There’s another practical difference: cost of ownership. ERP platforms carry licence fees, infrastructure and specialist staff. Our customers run their software with the people they already have, supported by our helpdesk. For a local shop, that gap is the difference between software that pays for itself and software that becomes its own project.
Our software is for independent small business retailers. It helps them manage inventory, build customer loyalty and improve the bottom line, without the expense and complexity of a corporate ERP platform.
We think it’s important we know what we do and who our ideal customer is. Sometimes, this means saying we’re not for you and wishing you all the best. We do want customers for sure, but we don’t want to waste your time saying we can help if we know we can’t.
What Is Actually Included With Your POS Software?
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Before You Sign For POS Software, Read the Contract
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POS software integrations from Tower Systems
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Our POS software connects with the tools retailers use every day. These integrations are included at no extra cost.
But before we get into the integrations, be sure to check what is current as this list is evolving regular as more opportunities emerge and shits occur within the companies with which we integrate. It’s a dynamic world out there.
We have integrated our POS software with: OpenAI, Google Gemini and Anthropic’s Claude into our software. There are image background removal tools through remove.bg and Removal.AI.
Our barcode lookup facility covers more than 1.5 billion items, with product images and descriptions included. This is a facility that our retailers love. It’s used every day. And we fund this use entirely – it’s a paid-for service funded by Tower Systems for our retailers.
On the e-commerce side, we connect directly with Shopify, WooCommerce, BigCommerce and Magento. Our retailers also get free access to findit.com.au, our own marketplace. Bike shops can use our BikeExchange integration for secondary market bicycle sales.
Xero is integrated directly. MYOB connects via ABCIS. For payments, we work with Tyro, Linkly, Shift4, Humm, Zip, Centerpay, Quest, MX51, Windcave and the major banks. For staff rostering, we link to Tanda and Deputy.
Supplier links matter in specialty retail. Newsagents have EDI links with XchangeIT and GNS. Book retailers connect to Pacstream, Nielsen BookScan and TitlePage. Pet shops have supplier links for Kongs, Premier Pet, Masterpet, Just for Pets, and Air & Tuckers. Garden centres connect with Evergreen Connect. In general retail and homewares, we link with Eastern Distributors, Maxwell & Williams, Trek and Specialized.
We also link to Mailchimp, MessageMedia and Slyp, support POStec Fuel and ePay, and handle local delivery management through Allotrac.
Every integration cuts manual data entry and double handling. That saves time and reduces mistakes. It is one of the reasons retailers switch to us.
We add integrations based on what our customers ask for. If there is a supplier or platform you want connected, tell us. Plenty of the links listed here started as a request from one retailer. That is how software made for specialty retail should work.
Find out more at towersystems.com.au.
Who our POS software is for, and who it is not for
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We say no to prospective customers more often than you might expect from a software company.
If your business is a franchise, a big chain, or a cafe or restaurant that happens to sell some retail on the side, we are not the right fit and we will tell you so. A bad match costs everyone, us included.
We’re not rude about this, just practical. We know what we are good at, and what we are not made for.
Our software is made for independent, owner-operated specialty retailers in Australia and New Zealand whose trading is more complicated than a generic till can handle. Maybe you run a workshop and need to track repair jobs. Maybe you sell items with serial numbers, or by weight or length, or you carry age-restricted lines, or you want to remember a customer’s anniversary so you can invite them back at the right moment.
A generic POS system scans a barcode and takes a payment. If that is all your shop needs, cheaper options exist and one of them will probably do. It is when the barcode scan is the easy part of the sale that our software makes sense.
We serve 20 specialty retail channels. Jewellers, bike shops, garden centres, newsagents, pet stores, toy shops, fishing and outdoors businesses, produce and farm supply, firearms dealers and more. Each version is built with retailers in that trade, which is where the useful detail comes from. A haberdashery can sell lace by the centimetre. A garden centre prints watering advice on the receipt, which matters in a business where a paper price tag fails the moment it rains. A jeweller tracks a repair from booking to pickup and gets a reminder out ahead of a customer’s anniversary.
Size of business matters less than people assume.
A first-year micro business starts on our Startup tier and an established multistore operator runs unlimited terminals on a higher tier. The common thread among the businesses we serve best is an owner who makes the buying decision and cares personally how the shop runs.
A few things about how we do business, since they come up in almost every sales conversation. We do not take a cut of your sales, on any tier. You choose your own EFTPOS provider. Monthly rental can be cancelled at any time. Our pricing is on our website for anyone to see, and you do not have to hand over an email address or phone number to see it. We find retailers appreciate that more than any feature.
Every call to our help desk is answered by our own people in Australia and New Zealand, and new customers get one-on-one training tailored to their shop. The features in our three major software updates a year come through our software ideas platform, where customers suggest and vote. Nobody buys their way to the top of our roadmap.
We have also been building AI into the software in-house since 2022, before anyone else in Australian specialty retail POS. Retailers use it most for importing supplier invoices from almost any PDF. It also writes product descriptions for web stores and gives plain-English answers about what the sales data is saying. These tools are on our Advanced and Ultimate tiers.
If this sounds like your business, book a demo, online or in your shop, and bring your hard questions. If we are not right for you, we will say so.
Pricing: towersystems.com.au/pricing.html. Book a demo: towersystems.com.au/pos-software-free-demo.html. Or call 1300 662 957 (AU), 0800 444 367 (NZ).
What local small business retailers have been telling us lately
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Anyone can write nice things about their own software. We do it in our marketing. So, from time to time we like to hand the microphone to the retailers using it, because their words carry more weight than ours.
This feedback arrived in June from Tara and Cody, who run a rural supplies store in Queensland and recently started using the AI invoice import:
“The time savings, 8 hours a week, for our small business have been incredible! While it doesn’t process every single invoice, it handles the majority of them and has made a huge difference to our day-to-day operations.”
Eight hours a week is a full working day back. And they are right that it does not catch every invoice. We would rather people know that going in than be surprised later.
Switching POS software worries plenty of retailers, understandably. Mel at McLaren Vale Garden Centre made the move in May and told us the transition “has been smooth with plenty of training and support when needed”. The Bookshop Pahiatua in New Zealand went further:
“This is the easiest POS system I have ever used, anything I asked of it it can do! Their online help is amazing and so are the team if you can’t resolve the issue thru the chat.”
Then there are the customers who have grown old with us, in the best sense. Kerrilyn Page bought a traditional newsagency in Mount Morgan back in 2006. Her shop, Wattle Bee Next, looks nothing like it did then:
“With the help of the team at Tower Systems we have diversified to a modern non-traditional store. Tower Systems have been integral in this process.”
We see this a lot. A shop starts in one category and, over years, becomes something else entirely. Software should keep up with that. Too often it is the thing holding a shop back.
Reading back through years of this feedback, the help desk comes up more than anything else. Sheryl Muscat wrote that our team “never make us feel like we have wasted their time and they always seem to come up with a solution”. Jeremy Maitland, director of We Know Pets, put it in commercial terms:
“A piece of software is only as good as the backup that is provided and Tower are first rate in this area. Since installing the Retailer software we have exceeded our growth targets.”
For the record, everyone answering our help desk is based in Australia or New Zealand.
Some of our favourite feedback is the shortest. “We love this system” (John, West Side Newsagency, Port Augusta). “Who knew POS software could be this easy” (Rod, Goolwa Time and Jewellery). “The reports are fantastic” (Leanne, Shepherd Avenue Deli, Port Lincoln).
If you are weighing up POS software, feedback like this is useful but it is not the whole picture. Come and ask us your hard questions at a demo. Call 1300 662 957 (AU) or 0800 444 367 (NZ), or email sales@towersystems.com.au.
POS software pricing should not be a secret
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If you have shopped around for POS software lately, you know the drill. You find a website, you like what you see, you go looking for the price and there isn’t one. There is a form instead. They want your contact details before they will tell you what their software costs. Then the calls start.
We don’t do that here at Tower Systems. Our prices are on our website, in full, at towersystems.com.au/pricing.html.
No fuss. We don’t need to know who you are. The pricing is there for anyone to see.
Our Startup plan is $145 a month including GST. Our Ultimate plan is $298 a month including GST, billed annually. The other plans sit between. The page also shows the things a headline price can hide. We charge 0% transaction fees on EFTPOS. We don’t charge based on your turnover. Optional extras like cloud hosting and our Roam cloud POS have their costs listed too. Anyone can look, any time. No salesperson required.
Why hidden pricing is a problem
When a software company hides its pricing, it has decided the sales process matters more than your time. It wants to qualify you as a lead before you have information. In some cases it wants room to quote different prices to different businesses for the same product.
Think about a retailer doing research after close on a Tuesday night, which is when this research usually happens. Hidden pricing turns a ten minute job into a week of phone tag.
It should feel odd to any retailer. Every product on your shop floor carries a price ticket. Customers can see it, compare it and decide whether to buy. The companies selling software to retailers should extend the same courtesy.
Sunshine is good for everyone
Publishing our prices keeps us honest. They have to stand up to public comparison every day of the year. Every customer knows they paid the same as the next. And when retailers call us, they already know what we charge, so we can spend the call talking about their business.
We would like to see every POS software company serving local small business retailers do the same. If your pricing is fair, showing it costs you nothing. If it is not, retailers deserve to know that before they hand over a phone number.
Our prices are on our website today. We think that is where they belong.
If you’re thinking about building your own POS software, watch this first
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What actually goes into a Tower Systems software update
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We’re deep into building our next update right now, which seemed like a good reason to explain what that actually involves. It isn’t someone sitting down and writing new code for a few days. It’s a process, and most of it happens before a line of code changes.
We start with what customers tell us
Every update begins with a review: ideas submitted through Software Ideas, feedback from customers directly, and what our own support team hears on the phones every day. We look at what’s urgent and what will genuinely benefit customers, not just what’s easiest to build.
This step takes longer than people expect. We test what we’re told against the software itself before we act on it, because a suggestion that sounds right in a phone call doesn’t always hold up once you’re inside the actual system. Thoroughness costs time here, and we spend it.
Planning it properly
Once we know what we’re building, we scope it: what the change actually involves, and what else in the software it touches. A newsagency’s software talks to a lot of different parts of itself, magazines, lottery, gifts, loyalty, so a change in one place can affect something you weren’t expecting elsewhere. Understanding that before we start building saves everyone trouble later.
Building it, then testing it, and testing it again
This is the part most people picture when they think of software development, and it’s the smallest piece of the whole process, by far. After the build comes testing. Then more testing. Then testing again. It’s repetitive by design.
We document it before we release it
Once the change is solid, we write it up properly, so it can be explained clearly to customers rather than dropped into an update with no context. Good software isn’t just software that works. It’s software people understand how to use.
Beta testing, in real shops
Before anything goes to every customer, it goes to a small group of engaged customers in live, trading shops. Real stock, real customers, real Saturdays. That’s a different test than anything we can run in-house, and it catches things our own testing sometimes doesn’t.
Only then do we release it
All of that has to happen before an update reaches your till. It’s slower than just shipping code, but it’s why updates tend to work the way they’re supposed to when they land.
We’re in the middle of this right now, building the next one. It’s the same process every time, because it’s the one that works.
If you’re considering switching to Tower, here’s what happens to your data
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The question comes up in almost every conversation with a retailer thinking about switching software: what happens to everything I’ve already got in my current system?
In most cases, you can bring it across. Not all of it, and not automatically, but the parts that matter most usually make the move.
What we can convert
Stock is the file we convert most often: SKU, barcode, description, buy and sell prices, GST status, tags and variants where they apply. If you can export it from your current system in a form we can read, usually a spreadsheet, we can generally load it.
Customer sales history and loyalty balances are a different story. Every POS system stores that data differently, which makes an accurate conversion hard to guarantee. We’ll do our best with loyalty balances. Sales history, usually not. Outstanding account-customer balances do transfer. Laybys don’t, particularly from older software, so plan on those not coming across.
How it actually works
We assess your data first, free of charge, before you commit to anything. That way you know what will convert cleanly before you decide whether to switch at all.
The conversion itself is a paid, fixed-price service. You’ll know the cost upfront. It’s typically done in about half a day, with no downtime, and it’s ready by your go-live.
Should you bring your old data across at all?
Not necessarily. If it’s clean and reliable, bring it. If it’s messy, out of date, or full of dead stock lines nobody’s looked at in years, a fresh start in the new system can be the better move. Carrying old problems into new software doesn’t fix them. Only you know how good your current data really is.
One more thing worth knowing: we don’t log into your current software and export the data ourselves. You, or your current provider, need to export it. It’s your data, and getting it out sits within your relationship with them. If your current software won’t let you export it easily, that’s worth noticing. Some providers make it difficult on purpose, as a way to keep you. If that’s happening to you, it’s as much a reason to leave as anything else.
Getting started
If you want to talk through what a conversion would look like for your business before deciding anything, we run obligation-free discussions over Microsoft Teams at a time that suits you. If it turns out we’re not the right fit, we’ll say so.
Call 1300 662 957 in Australia or 0800 444 367 in New Zealand, or email sales@towersystems.com.au.
How independent retailers can offset the 2026 cost increases
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Award wages rose 4.75% from 1 July. Rents are tracking 4–5% higher at most renewals. From 1 October, the RBA surcharge ban means processing fees that were passed to customers now need to be absorbed or built into prices.
Together, that is around 1.5% added to the cost base of a typical independent retailer. On a 5–6% net margin, it is worth taking seriously.
None of these are negotiable. But there are five places to look for recovery, and Tower Systems customers already have the tools backed by implementation advice with a foundation in practical management in local small business retail.
Pricing on the products you control
Plenty of supplier-set prices are fixed in different retail businesses. Stationery, gifts, homewares and general merchandise are not. Many retailers have not reviewed margins on these categories in over a year. The stock manager tool in the Tower software updates pricing across a whole category in one pass — worth doing before October. It’s fast, easy and safe.
Invoice processing
Many stores spend 5–10 hours a week entering invoices by hand. AI invoice arrivals imports them directly, cuts that to near zero, and removes the keying errors that come with manual entry. Those hours go back to the counter. Cut mistakes and save time with the AI invoice import tools.
Dead stock
Stock sitting unsold for six months typically ties up 10–15% of inventory value. It occupies shelf space and earns nothing. The dead stock report finds it. Moving it out — clearance, supplier return, bundling — puts that capital back to work.
Stockouts
Sales lost to unavailable stock are invisible in most reporting. The insights dashboard makes them visible, with a dollar figure attached. Fixing the reorder triggers stops the leakage.
Theft detection
Theft accounts for around 5–7% of turnover across independent retail. The volume tends to be customer theft; the larger individual losses tend to be internal. The audit and early detection tools find discrepancies well before a stocktake would. Too many small business retailers ignore theft, at their cost!
Pricing, processing time, inventory, loss — none of these require new investment. They require looking.
Tower Systems customers can reach the support team by phone, email or live chat. New enquiries: towersystems.com.au or 1300 662 957.
Choosing POS software for your local retail business? Ask these questions…
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