The POS Software Blog
News from Tower Systems about locally made POS software for specialty local retailers.
Tower Systems is grateful for the opportunity too pitch our produce business software and pet shop software to members of the AIRR and Tuckers Pet group today and tomorrow at their national conference in Adelaide.
The latest release of our specialty software is on show as is our personal, local, service … helping local businesses grow. We’re here to help…
In the AIRR pet and produce space all eyes are on Adelaide this weekend as the best of the best gather to talk business. Tower Systems is grateful for the opportunity to be there, to be working with AIRR on helping its members grow stronger and healthier businesses.
Tower Systems is an Australian software company that develops, sells and supports software for selected specialty marketplaces including pet and produce businesses, like the businesses of the AIRR group.
We only serve independent retail businesses, including businesses just like yours.
Using our pet and produce software it is easy to:
What makes us different is how we engage.
Here are seven steps we suggest to cut the cost of shopper theft in your retail business. While there are other steps you could take, these seven are most valuable from our years of working with retailers.
The more likely people are to be caught the less likely you are to experience shopper theft.
Tower Systems has many years of experience in helping independent small business retailers mitigate em ploy theft and shopper theft. We leverage this experience for our customers through excellent POS software, free training, group training workshops, data analysis and expert witness support for authorities in specific cases.
Our advice to retailers is that you can cut the cost of theft if you manage your business to achieve this goal. Sadly, too many small business retailers do not do this because they do not see theft until it is too late. We say be on the front foot, manage to cut theft even when you cannot see it.
Choosing POS software for a retail business is a daunting task. The software companies usually make it difficult to compare.
Tower Systems is a software company. Our goal is to make it easier for you.
We don’t want you to choose our software if our software is not the right fit for your business.
This is why our first advice is to make this decision about the software first. Make sure that you compare what each software package does. However, before you do this, ensure you know what you want out of software for your business and the amount you are prepared to pay for what you want.
Knowing what you want is as important as is knowing what you are prepared to ay for what you want.
The reality is there are cheap POS programs out there. You get what you pay for, every time. The cheapest product is the cheapest because they have either not invested as much in the development of the software or because they do not back the software with the same level of service.
Yes, you get what you pay for. This is why you haver to be realistic about the amount you are prepared to invest.
In considering software, start with the functionality. Look at each software package. Compare how it works against what you want from software you purchase.
Once you have a list of software packages that do what you want, dive deep into support coverage. Look carefully at how support is delivered, how you can access this, the training opportunities and how your business can be helped with the training and support.
If you are not sure what to look for in support, consider this wish list:
Ultimately, only you can know the best POS software for your type of business and your business. The value of the decision you make will reflect the approach yo7u took in making the decision. The old maxim of measure many times and cut once is true here.
Small business retailers are in business to make money for it is money that feeds the family, allows the business to support the local community and adds to the value of the business when it is time to sell.
It stands to reason that small business retailers want to take steps appropriate to the business making more money.
This is where the Xero POS software link from Tower Systems helps. It helps small businesses make more money. By money, we mean bottom line profit.
How we do this is through wonderful software that provides a seamless, safe and structured flow of data between the in-store POS software and Xero and through training and advice on what a small business retailer can leverage from the data that flows through the link.
Tower Systems is not your average software company. We are retailers too. We use this software, including the POS software Xero link, ourselves, in our won retail businesses. We can speak from experience when we help. We can guide in a way that a usually POS software company cannot.
We help small business retailers make more money through:
Tower Systems provides business management advice to back its software. This can see small business retailers gain more from a Tower relationship than they might have through a relationship with another POS company. We have accounting skills, at CPA level, in-house. This enables us to provide advice and guidance beyond that is unusual for a POS software company. We call this the Tower Advantage.
We are thrilled to welcome new customers using our small business POS software. We have a welcome page on our website, which is part of our structured approach to welcoming new customers.
The welcome is sincere and personal:
Welcome to Tower Systems. This page welcomes new customers to our business, small business retailers switching to our POS software.
Thank you for your business, for your faith in our software and our services. We appreciate it.
Our goal is to help you make your business more valuable and more enjoyable through your use of our POS software.
Here in our website you have access to a knowledge base, available 24/7, which contains excellent advice and articles about how to use the software. It is like a live and evolving user manual – but searchable. Log into the customer side of the site and you can immediately access the knowledge base.
Our help desk is based in Melbourne Victoria. There we have a team of skilled IT professionals, with good retail experience, available to help with your queries. You can contact them through our national help line – 03 9524 8000 – of through your local Tower office number or by email: support@towersystems.com.au
We release software updates every few months. We announce by email when these are available. You choose when you wish to install each update. This gives you control.
If you have suggestions on changes you would like to see in our software, please use our Software Ideas page on this website. Through here other customers using our software can vote on your idea.
Every week we will send you a customer email with tips, ideas and inspirations. This is another touch point designed to help you get more from the relationship.
As a customer, you have access to free training. To schedule free one on one training, please email bookings@towersystems.com.au.
Welcome as a new customer of Tower Systems. Our motto is we’re here to help. Please, let us know how we can help your business.
Thank you for reading.
Mark Fletcher
Managing Director
0418 321 338
There is also a video welcoming our new customers:
Older employees can being terrific value to a retail business that is keen bring change to the business. Young employees cost less and this is a common appeal among retail business owners.
An older employee could bring more value to the business, they could leverage a better return on labour investment for the business. Here are other benefits that can be available depending on the background, skill set and work interest of the older employee:
When you are looking to fill a vacancy or a new role in the business, consider older person for these and other reasons you can think of. The could bring to the business skills and interest the you can leverage more valuably than the skills and interest of a younger lower cost employee.
Of course, the value of any employee depends on your hiring, training, management and motivation of them.
The post of this post is to suggest that next time you hire you think about an older employee.
Note: The federal government jobactive restart program can help Australian businesses that hire older employees financially:
Restart is a financial incentive of up to $10,000 (GST inclusive) to encourage businesses to hire and retain mature age employees who are 50 years of age and over.
Older employees can bring new insights and energy to a business. The right hire could be just want the business needs to explore new traffic opportunities.
With more pet retailers and produce stores joining our user community we are confident that Tower systems delivers the commercial outcomes that pet and produce retailers want.
Our pet shop software and our produce business software are world-class.
We are an Australian software company that develops, sells and supports software for selected specialty marketplaces including pet and produce businesses.
We only serve independent retail businesses, including businesses just like yours.
Using our pet and produce software it is easy to:
What makes us different is how we engage.
At a store level, here are some of the benefits you can expect from using the Tower Systems software in your business:
It can be tough for a small business to compete with big business. Those who do so successfully have access to excellent quality up to date business data. They leverage this to fuel quality business decisions.
The best business data is that which flows immediately between POS software and accounting software. Tower Systems provides to small business retailers a beautiful, easy to setup and easy to use link between its POS software and the cloud based Xero accounting solution.
The Tower Systems Xero POS software link is ideal for small business independent retailers. It helps small business retailers compete through:
The most effective ways small business retailers can compete with big businesses and online is through efficient operation, accurate data and customer service touch-points that add appreciated value.
Tower Systems only sells its POS software to small business retailers.
We believe in small businesses, their importance to local communities and their broader economic value.
Through our software, our personal in-store training, 24/7 human and locally based help desk service, regional user meetings, weekly online workshops and other touch-points we help small business retailers beyond what is usual for POS software companies.
Our company motto is we’re here to help. We take this seriously. Everyday, out motto challenges us to help our customers in ways they do not expect, ways beyond the software itself.
Founded in 1981, Tower Systems has evolved as technology has evolved. The software we sell today is generations away from where we started. We are proud to have served some of our customers for decades.
More than 3,500 specialty small business retailers in Australia and New Zealand use our specialty POS software.
To us, a specialty retailer is one that offers services unique to the channel, services that define the business. We embed in our software for each retail channel facilities that serve needs unique to that channel. We take pride in doing this and enhancing these channel-specific facilities as the needs evolve.
Mistakes can be expensive in small business retail, especially mistakes made in accounting.
The Tower Systems POS software Xero link helps small business retailers cut mistakes. The link eliminates tasks by automating the flow of data from the POS software where data is received into the business in the form of invoices for inventory, returns notes for products going back to suppliers. sales data, LayBy data and plenty more.
Capturing this data at the source, at the point of sale, and flowing the data without additional human intervention to Xero, to the right part of Xero, eliminates time, cuts mistakes and provides small business retailers with more control.
Every error made in accounting has a cost. In fact, there can be multiple costs – labour and financial. This is why it is better to get it right the first time.
The Xero integration designed by Tower Systems, working with the folks at Xero, makes it easy for small business retailers to cut accounting paperwork and thereby tap into time and money saving benefits.
We use our Xero integrated POS software ourselves. This enables us to provide practical advice on how to benefit the most from Xero and our POS software working together.
Our customers have access to our in-house CPA, to provide a professional accounting perspective on the link and how to get the most from it.
Setting up the Xero link is easy. You map the data flow from invoice entry through to the chart of accounts managed by Xero. Once this is done, supplier invoices, sales, credits, LayBys and other everyday business transactions flow from the POS software to Xero.
This makes business accounting easier, more certain, less expensive and more useful to the business.
By cutting mistakes we help bring certainty to business reporting and management. This posts confidence.
Tower Systems is keen to help small business retailers cut mistakes. We know the more we can do this the more our customers will appreciate the practical benefits a relationship between our businesses can deliver. With our software support being optional we know that our customers can switch any time. The best way for us to keep them is for us to deliver practical benefits at each touch point.
Managing operating costs is a key goal for small business retailers in this world of greater competition.
The Tower Systems POS software Xero link helps small business retailers cut costs. It does this in a range of practical ways that small business retailers can leverage without having to spend more money on software or professional services.
Thanks to the Xero POS software link retailers are able to eliminate bookkeeping work and have accounting data flow through accurately from the POS software where data originates to Xero where it is accessed for key business accounting functions.
Developed with careful oversight of CPA qualified accounting experience as well as current small business management accounting experience plus insights from experienced bookkeepers, this link is a true cost saver because of the accounting steps it eliminates and the mistakes it avoids. Both of these have costs to any small business. Eliminating them is a bottom line cost benefit for any business.
Setting up the Xero link is easy. You map the data flow from invoice entry through to the chart of accounts managed by Xero. Once this is done, supplier invoices, sales, credits, LayBys and other everyday business transactions flow from the POS software to Xero.
This makes business accounting easier, more certain, less expensive and more useful to the business.
Your BAS is easier. Your P&L and Balance Sheet are more up to date. This is a big win for any small business retailer.
Tower Systems uses the Xero POS software link itself for retail businesses it owns in the gift and homewares spaces. By using our software, especially the Xero link we are able to draw on broad practical experience when providing advice to our retail business owner customers. It means that our help desk advice is based on us walking in your shores more than is usual for a POS software company.
Tower Systems is keen to help small business retailers cut costs. We know the more we can do this the more our customers will appreciate the practical benefits a relationship between our businesses can deliver. With our software support being optional we know that our customers can switch any time. The best way for us to keep them is for us to deliver practical benefits at each touch point.
Reflecting on 2017, as the year draws to a close, we are grateful for all the new customers who joined us this year.
We are grateful to those installing our software as first time computer users in their businesses.
We are also grateful to those who switched to our software from other POS software – there has been plenty of this in 2017.
To help new customers settle in with our software and our customer support we have a structured welcome process, with assistance provided outside the usual help desk – until new customers reel well settled in their use of our software.
We understand the challenges small business retailers face and do all things possible to ensure their settling in with our POS software is gentle and useful.
For many, years Tower Systems has offered small business retailers access to professional help in detecting, reducing and prosecuting employee theft. In our small business POS software we have excellent services that support this.
In our management team we have skilled professionals who have helped police, prosecutors, insurers and others in situations of employee theft. Our approach is evidence based, professional, discrete and thorough.
Our theft mitigation and theft management services are handled at the leadership team level of the Tower Systems business as this is where the experience lies through helping retail businesses in a variety of retail sectors.
In our decades of experience, it is essential the business draw a line in the sand on the issue of employee theft. This is best done by the establishment of a theft policy. This is best done as a document that employees sign. We provide our customers with a template theft policy. We share this here today for anyone to see and consider for their business.
THEFT POLICY
PLEASE SIGN AND DATE YOUR ACKNOWLEDGEMENT:
Small business retailers using the Tower Systems POS software Shopify link are reporting terrific engagement with shoppers they may not have otherwise found.
Thanks to a direct link between the POS software and Shopify, retailers have one place for managing inventory that is in-store and online. This saves time, reduces mistakes unbend makes management of the online presence easier.
The Shopify link is one of three direct POS software / e-commerce platform links in the Tower software. These three are in addition to a weblink that helps the POS software connect to any website.
Through the Shopify link, data is transferred – inventory and sales – in a structured standard way required by Shopify and in line with the requirements of that business. It is fast, easy and powerful.
Tower Systems is proud to have brought plenty more small businesses online thanks to its work with the folks at Shopify.
In plenty of time f0or Christmas, Tower Systems has commenced beta release of a beautiful POS software update that delivers access to three completely new facilities through which our customers can expand the reach of their businesses.
his update, like all of our POS software updates, will be available for o0ur customers to install when they choose. We don’t believe in surprising people with an unexpected update. hence, our process is advance-noticed, structured and considerate.
This latest update is a thrill for us thanks to the new tech areas we cover that we know will be loved by plenty of our customers as they seek to expand their small businesses.
The update is available to all Tower AdvantageTM customers at no extra cost.
Every Christmas, retail businesses see more shoppers in-store, buying gifts and items for seasonal celebration. However, the shops are usually too busy for the retailer team members to engage with traditional loyalty programs that require sign up.
This is where our amazing discount vouchers loyalty program options work a treat.
Without any sign-up overhead, the vouchers work all by themselves, bringing shoppers back or, better still, getting them to spend more than expected in that visit.
Stores that want to connect with shoppers and understand who they are can do so with our discount vouchers, because they are smart and can work with card based loyalty. In fact, shippers who sign up and go that extra step for the business can get an extra reward as a result, if you wish.
Simply by offering discount vouchers this Christmas you will get a boost with monomial cost and zero labour overhead. You can enjoy the traffic, love the traffic, and do well with a loyalty offer that works brilliantly to make the most of Christmas.
Tower Systems offers the tech and business practices to back the tech into real revenue growth for small business retailers.
Xero does not permit all POS software companies to partner with them. This can get those who miss out offside, talking their product down. Tower Systems has been a Xero partner for years, delivering a beautiful easy-to-use PO software Xero link.
Xero POS Software Integration
Save time, eliminate bookkeeping costs, cut mistakes and make better business decisions sooner with the Tower Systems POS software Xero integration.
The Xero integration designed by Tower Systems, working with the folks at Xero, makes it easy for small business retailers to cut accounting paperwork and thereby tap into time and money saving benefits.
We use our Xero integrated POS software ourselves. This enables us to provide practical advice on how to benefit the most from Xero and our POS software working together.
Our customers have access to our in-house CPA, to provide a professional accounting perspective on the link and how to get the most from it.
Tower Systems is a unique POS software company. In addition to serving 3,500+ small business retailers, we own and operate several retail businesses as live test sites. Our in-house CPA manages the accounts for these retail businesses.
Find out more, watch this video:
We are frustrated with the world is ending type reporting relating to the arrival in Australia of Amazon. More stories have been published recently. Most stories are not reporting. Rather, they are ignorant fear-mongering. Unfortunately, the wrong people are often quoted, like the ever-shrill Gerry Harvey.
We shot this video to provide some thoughts on the arrival of Amazon and to offer suggestions for small business retailers.
At our POS software company we actively help small business retailers who use our software to reduce the opportunity of employee theft. We do this in a range of overt and covert ways, through our software and outside off our software.
As we have decades of experience running different types of retail businesses and through our work with, 3,500+ other retailers with our software we have a deep pool of knowledge and experience on which to draw.
Employee theft is something to be managed. By managed, we mean measured, understood and mitigated.
based on our own experiences and those of others we trust, we offer refined, thoughtful, advice on managing employee theft. Here we share it with all as a free community service for small business retailers. Together, we can cut the cost of employee theft in your retail business:
These steps work – based on decades of helping small business retailers to reduce and manage employee theft.
Theft, employee and customer, costs a typical small / independent retail between 3% and 5% of product sales revenue. Management attention can cut this dramatically. It does not take much time. No, it is more about having professional processes in place that everyone in the business follows.
Tower Systems works with more than 3,500+ small business retailers in speciality retail niches including jewellers, garden centres, bike shops, toy shops, gift shops, newsagents, pet shops, adult shops and more. We offer these ideas as our Christmas gift to you.
Christmas is the perfect time to plan for next year. It is the time to do everything possible to leverage bonus Christmas traffic to benefit your business through next year.
Tower Systems offers Point of sale / retail management software tailored for your specific type of retail business. Our software can help you leverage Christmas traffic for year-long benefits.
We provide you with loyalty facilities that are fresh and small-business focussed, loyalty facilities through which you can pitch a point of difference compared to big business competitors.
One of our retail experts can help: Please call our sales team at 1300 662 957 or email them at sales@towersystems.com.au.
We are frustrated with the world is ending type reporting relating to the arrival in Australia of Amazon. More stories have been published this week. Most stories are not reporting. Rather, they are ignorant fear-mongering. Unfortunately, the wrong people are often quoted, like the ever-shrill Gerry Harvey.
We shot this video to provide some thoughts on the arrival of Amazon and to offer suggestions for small business retailers.
The Tower Systems cloud backup service for our POS software customers is appreciated by the many using it. This service has plenty of advantages:
How Does Safe Backup Work?
The software performs an incremental backup every fifteen minutes. An incremental backup is a backup of files that have changed or are new since the last backup.
These incremental backups are catalogued on your NAS device. They are then collated to create your full system backup. This process allows access to backups from a particular point of time – even at the file level. Because backups are stored on the NAS device you have immediate access in-store as well as being sent to the Tower Systems Data Storage Centre in the cloud where a secure additional offsite copy of your data is kept.
How Does This Differ From My Daily Backup?
Retailer Backup ONLY backs up your Retailer Data leaving your other business data, accounting data, important documents and emails at risk. Safe Backup backs up your entire main PC, meaning all your business data is safe and secure. A copy of your business backup is also securely sent via the Internet to our secure data storage centre, giving you a safe off-site copy for protection.
Once Safe Backup is implemented you will no longer need to perform your daily backup. You or your staff will no longer need to wait for the daily backup to complete. The saving could be in excess of $150 per month if your backup is taking 15 minutes or more to complete.
Does Tower Have Access To My Data?
No. When you sign up for the service you must set a password which is assigned to your backup. We can only access your backup if you give us your password.
Our marketing team is having fun in reaching out to small business retailers:
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