The POS Software Blog
News from Tower Systems about locally made POS software for specialty local retailers.
Here is advice any small business retailer in and specialty channel could rely on when considering POS software:
This video is another in the series of educational videos from Tower Systems to help small business retailers be more informed in the choices they make.
The latest release of the Tower Systems POS software includes more than 130 changes with the majority of these suggested by users looking to evolve the software they use as they evolve their own businesses.
Our democratic and transparent process for considering software enhancements is paying off for our customers and for us as we work together to ensure our software evolves with customer businesses.
Here are headline enhancements in the latest update:
Layby Receipts
This new feature brings our Layby Receipts into line with the recently revamped Sale and Invoice Receipts. The new format contains clearer and more discernible information as well as the ability to customize. We have also made sure the new receipts meet any TRS requirements.
As part of this work we have also added Layby Notes which will allow users to add notes on a per item basis for use in things such as storage locations.
Eftpos Receipts
This new feature allows users to prompt for receipt printing for sales where EFTPOS was used as the payment type. This is an optional setting and is available for those using our integrated EFTPOS platform with Tyro, DPS, PC EFTPOS etc.
Enhanced Shopify Website Integration
This new feature gives users a tight link between Retailer and their Shopify based Webstore. Including integration of Stock, Customers, Sales and Product Images. The key feature is the time saving of not having to double entries in multiple platforms.
Special Customer Orders
As a result of extensive customer feedback and Software Ideas submissions we have made further improvements to the Special Customer Orders module to provide a cleaner and more coherent approach. For a detail list of the changes made to Special Customer Orders please see below.
Multi-Store Ordering, Order by Sales and Multi-Store Transfers
As a result of extensive customer feedback and Software Ideas submissions we have made significant improvements to these modules to provide a cleaner and more coherent and retailer friendly approach. For a detailed list of the changes made to Multi-Store Ordering please see below.
Custom Menus
Users now have the ability to show which items show in the Customer menu and the Payment menu. For example if you wanted to only show the Pay Specific Invoice and the Pay Layby options all the others can be easily hidden. This feature can be accessed by double clicking on the blue menu bar at the top on the menu screen.
All Tower customers are being advised the full site of enhancements in advance of them deciding if they would like the update installed for their business.
Of course we would say small business retailers are better off using the Tower Systems POS software. We are Tower Systems and so you would expect us to back our own product.
But our claim is more than marketing spin. The claim has its roots in what we stand for as a business, it has its roots in our relentless support of small business retailers.
We only sell our POS software to small business retailers. We serve well over 3,000 of them. We are growing. Our commitment is in our own numbers.
So, considering these points, here are Five ways small business retailers are better off using Tower Systems POS software … based on what small business retailers tell us they love about our software and about us.
While there are plenty of reasons Tower Systems is a better POS software partner for specialty retail businesses, this list is the top five based on needs small business retailers explain to us.
Small business retailers integrating their POS software with Xero and Tyro unlock for themselves a beautiful partnership from which they can leverage valuable business benefits.
Tower Systems offers integration from its small business POS software with Tyro and Xero.
We are proud to be listed as partners of Xero and Tyro on their websites. This listing is key to building trust with retailers as it demonstrated respected partnerships.
Whereas software integrations are usually between two software products, the Tower Systems / Xero / Tyro integration leverages all three products into a comprehensive whole of business solution. Many retailers are already leveraging this for their benefit. Indeed, Tower Systems itself leverages the benefits in retail businesses we own and operate.
Our POS software Xero link is best practice offering a seamless integration between our POS software and the leading cloud based accounting solution.
Our Tyro broadband EFTPOS integration is also best practice with an extraordinary number of retailers using it with success and happiness at the time saving and mistake reduction being achieved.
Put the two together and you multiply the benefits considerably as we can demonstrate.
The mission of small business retailers to cut operational overheads and run their businesses to a higher level of efficiency is important as big business competitors muscle up themselves.
Tower Systems offers not only beautiful integrations with Tyro, Xero, Shopify and Magento, the company backs these with personal service and advice and retail smart training based on our own many years of experience as retailers. This is the difference, we speak from current personal experience, making our advice more relevant and understandable in small business retail circles.
The integrations are available in the Tower desktop products as well as the Tower cloud based products that are accessed through software as a service models for retail businesses in a variety of specialty retail channels.
Tower Systems offers specialty software for: gift shops, jewellers, toy shops, fishing/outdoors businesses, garden centres/nurseries, pet shops, bike shops,produce stores, firearms businesses and newsagents.
Our sales team can show you our software: Please call our sales team at 1300 662 957 or email them at sales@towersystems.com.au.
Managing Director: Mark Fletcher. 0418 321 338.
The cost of labour is one of the top three costs in any retail business, usually coming after cost of goods and retail space. Yet small business and independent retailers often do not manage labour cost to be a s low as practical.
Based on years of helping small business retailers run more successful and valuable retail businesses. here are out top five tips for cutting the cost of labour in any retail business.
Here are our top five tips:
We have plenty more suggestions than these five. They are a starting point of the advice Tower Systems can provide.
Advice like this is provided as part of our weekly advice and assistance to small business retailers.
The link between our small business POS software and Xero cloud based accounting is helping small business retailers eliminate time-consuming and error prone bookkeeping steps … and this is money in the bank for small business retailers.
Our POS software Xero link runs in the background, delivering data to Xero so it is working for you rather than you being a slave to it as is often the case with older approaches to accounting software use in small business retail.
Using Xero ourselves in our own retail businesses, shops we own as live test beds for what we do here, we know the benefits, we see then and bank the benefits.
We have an in-house accountant who oversees our various businesses and he delights at the time saving from the PO software to Xero link. He also delights over the mistake elimination by cutting out what were manual processes.
This is the key of the link to Xero.
And when you overlay the Tyro broadband banking solution for small business retail you have an even better solution cutting more processes, freeing up more cash and empowering small business retailers for better outcomes.
End of Shift based department-level sales are transferred to Xero via a sales invoice. Each department can be assigned its own Xero account.
Invoices received into Retailer are transferred to Xero at department level. No individual stock items are transferred.
These are transferred to individual expense accounts depending on the transaction reason chosen.
An option on sales exporting is to export Cost of Sales. While not a full implementation of COGS it does transfer over the cost price of items sold each day to reduce the value of Stock On Hand in Xero. If you use this option you will export Write offs, not as expenses, but as adjustment to your Stock on Hand. This makes processing stock adjustments for the End Of Month much easier.
Join Tower Systems for a one of our free seminars in Australia and New Zealand (in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch) where we will show our latest Australian developed POS software for specialty independent small business retail.
See the POS software to Magento and Shopify links that get you online. See the POS software Xero link that saves time and money. See a new approach to loyalty shoppers love and big businesses cannot copy.
We will show you how to setup up a Shopify store that can be live in hours. Plus, there will be a Q&A opportunity so you can explore your specific needs. Book now by clicking on the city location you prefer.
We will share our experiences in the small business POS and e-commerce areas and outline what we learned when creating sites for our own retail businesses. This seminar could save you thousands in web developer fees.
If you have questions, please email mark@towersystems.com.au or call 0418 321 338. If you are in New Zealand, please call toll free on 0800 444 367.
Tower Systems is an Australian small business focussed POS software company based in Hawthorn Victoria with sales and support nationally. Our software is available to run locally or in the cloud and can be purchased, leased or rented for a few dollars a day. Our phone number is 1300 662 957.
Tower Systems offers specialty software for: gift shops, jewellers, toy shops, fishing/outdoors businesses, garden centres/nurseries, pet shops, bike shops,produce stores, firearms businesses and newsagents.
Our sales team can show you our software: Please call our sales team at 1300 662 957 or email them at sales@towersystems.com.au.
Tower Systems is thrilled to announced the advanced beta release of the latest version of its smart POS software. Developed in-house bbq the Tower Systems retail software development team, this latest release of the Retailer software delivers many enhancements. here are just some of the enhancements:
As noted, these are only some of the enhancements to the POS software delivered in the latest update delivered by Tower Systems.
Enhancements are sourced from user suggestions and developed in close consultation with users of the software.
Each update is tested in house, alpha tested in several retail stores and then released to the beta community prior to release to all customers. This process results in stable and enjoyed software.
Tower Systems leftists customers choose when they install any software update. Small business retailers love this.
Tower Systems offers a level of personal service to small business retailers installing its POS software. The company has multiple roles in the business focussed on the easy and gentle settling in of the software into businesses using the software. The roles have evolved over time to serve the singular goal of helping retailers get to a happy place with their Tower Systems software quickly.
One of the most important benefits of the Tower Systems approach to new customers is the new customer help desk entry point.
New customers of POS software have different needs to long term customers. We have found that by handling the two are different points on the help desk we are able to deliver a better help desk experience to each.
Our new customer specialists make outbound calls, to get to our new customers ahead of them getting to us, to provide them with intuitive assistance prior to them realising they could benefit from then insights being shared.
By separating new customers out from the everyday support call traffic, help desk resources are better managed and customers more satisfied with the different experiences based on their knowledge and needs.
In additional to personal new customer service, Tower Systems helps new customers settle in with terrific user documentation, training videos, follow up training and business management level insights.
Since we own and operate our own retail businesses using our POS software we are able to speak from personal experience. This is a valuable point of difference for our customers and for us. For example, we can talk about how to setup for easy Xero integration or the ideal product category structure or how to deal with suppliers more efficiently. being able to say this is how we resolve this issue in our shop is a tremendous point of difference our customers love.
There is nothing worse than a help desk person telling you what to do when they do not understand what they are saying in the context of your retail business. Context is everything as they say. We understand the context of POS software in a retail business because we live it. We use this context in helping small business retailers settle into using our POS software.
The Visual Deck business intelligence platform from retailers using the Tower Systems small business POS software has received more kudos from business mentors, advisors and accountants seeing the BI platform for the first time at Xerocon South, the Xero users conference in Brisbane last week.
The reaction was terrific when they saw the easy access to business performance comparison data in visual way, from our cloud based application.
They loved that it was accessible from anywhere including by them in their businesses where they support small business.
They loved the fast year on year comparison.
They loved the KPI focus of the app.
We are proud of what we have delivered in the Visual Deck, that we are offering our customers a platform they can use to see the performance of their business, visually, as our experience is this will guide better business decisions. We are also proud of the elegance of the software.
The syncing between the in-store POS software and the Visual Deck is in the background, non intrusive.
The Visual Deck is particularly useful for retailers who are not in a business often.
Like all good software, the Visual Deck continues to evolve.
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.
The Visual Deck is only available for Tower Systems customers.
The fastest way for a small business to recover from a ransomware or crypto lock attack is to have immediate access to full backup of data and software from immediately prior to the installation of the malware that led to the attack.
A smart cloud based backup service is the very best protection. It is also the most cost effective.
While many small business retailers prefer the cheaper alternative of manually backing up each day, invariably these backups are either not done every day or they can be faulty.
Some business owners use free cloud backup services but as is the case with anything in life, you get what you pay for.
The Tower Systems smart cloud backup service costs $2 a day and can be stopped at any time. It is fast, continuous, local and off site in a secure server farm.
How Does Tower 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. Tower 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 Tower 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.
As we prepare for the next semester of our free online training workshops we are inviting our customers to suggest topics they would like covered. Each time we do this we discover topics of interest – usually in the business operational space where software interfaces with business management.
We are proud to be resourced sufficiently and to have sufficient interest in our weekly online training workshops for us to continue with these.
It is hard work running the sessions, handling the follow up, providing the infrastructure and doing this week in week out. The work is worth it as it provides a valuable point of difference for us.
Years on, our free online training is resource from the company. We love the customer interaction every week.
We are thrilled with the covering of Tower Systems and our POS software across several pages of XU magazine, the magazine sought after by Xero accounting software users.
The latest issue of XU magazine, released at the Xerocon conference in Brisbane this week, is packed with practical business advice and support for small business owners, accountants and bookkeepers. It is a must read for anyone using Xero or connected with the Xero community.
We appreciate the opportunity to be part of this respected publication.
Using our POS software, small business retailers are able to save rostered hours in their businesses, be smarter in selling and marketing and be more informed in business decisions. These benefits are enhanced through the Xero link.
The latest article in XU magazine explains the benefits and presents Tower Systems as the professional software company it is.
Being at Xerocon South is proving to be a wonderful experience. Spending all day talking with accountants and bookkeepers who help small business retailers run more successful businesses.
The discussions are detailed about small business challenges and opportunities, specific to specific niche retail channels that we serve such as toy shops, jewllers, garden centres and pet stores.
Talking business, talking Xero and talking smart cloud based software – we are loving it, loving the detail, loving the learning and loving the optimism.
This is an exciting and motivating event, especially for those of us serving the small business retail space.
What this event mean for us is ne connections, with accountants and bookkeepers – people like us who serve small businesses to help them run more successful businesses. This shared goal brings is close together.
We are the only vertical market POS software company here, enabling is top delve deep into our specialisation with accountants to help them be more specialist with their clients.
We took the photo early this morning before the doors opened at 8am. We love the green look.
We are thrilled to be participating in Xerocon in Brisbane this week. As a parter of Xero, we are among a small group of approved connected POS software companies here at the conference.
Yesterday we met with plenty of accountants, bookkeepers and integrators who stopped by our stand. It was the busiest day at a trade show for us this year.
We are showing off our POS software that offers a SAAS model, cloud based through to desktop models for specialist retailers in a range of small business channels including newsagents, jewellers, got shops, bike shops, produce stores, toy shops, garden centres, pet shops and more.
The first day of xerocon yesterday was terrific. We are excited for what today will bring.
Here is a video we have just shot in-house introducing the Tower Systems sales team. Each has worked through the ranks of the company from the help desk to installations to sales. They all have retail experiences in their blood and appreciate the importance of small businesses in Australia.
Tower Systems has been running an intensive engagement program for small business retailers keen to clean up their business data. This service is part of our POS software help desk service yet it goes beyond the traditional help desk work.
The service is focused on how the software us used. But not your usual how. This is about decisions that are made in a business that can affect the quality of the data cultivated by the software. Like any tool, software can be used poorly.
The engagement from Tower Systems guides better use of the software with an outcome of better data. Here is one of the communication items we have shared with customers to help drive a better outcome:
This advice has been written for use in businesses where the business data has been found to be useless, faulty and / or of little value.
There is no doubt: poor business data = poor business decisions.
If you ever hope to sell your retail business, accurate business data is vital, it will determine the price you achieve for your business.
Don’t be one of those business owners who only cares about accurate business data when you decide to sell as that could be too late.
Here is all you need to do to ensure you have accurate business data.
The slower way is to manually enter invoices into your software item by item. This is done in Invoice Arrivals.
If you created an order using the software and this order subsequently arrives, you can receive the order – to save time.
Very simple, right?
Accurate business data is up to you. Not your software company, not your suppliers.
Accurate business data is 100% up to you.
Once you have accurate data, track business performance. Use the accurate data to see trends in your business, to guide better quality business decisions.
It is easy to create accurate business data. The operational and financial benefits are extraordinary.
How Tower Systems can help. We have articles in our knowledge base on everything discussed here. We also have training videos that show you what to do. We host weekly online training workshops, accessible from anywhere, where you can ask questions on any topic. Plus, supported customers have access to free one on one training.
We are proud to introduce to some of our small business POS software team in this in-house produced video.
Next week we are hosting a free workshop on targeted marketing for retailers using our specialty retail POS software. This free training is part of our weekly free live training workshop program, training that people can access from anywhere.
Click here for more details on this training and to book.
We are proud to maintain our commitment to training, first established years ago. It is hard work deliver on the marketing pitch. Here at Tower systems we deliver. Plus, we are transparent about it with sessions listed publicly and numbers showing too – so you know it is real.
Small business retailers want certainty from their POS software company. We are committed to providing certainty of access to terrific software backed by accessible and friendly support.
If you are in specialty retail and want to engage in targeted marketing, this free workshop could be ideal for you.
The direct and deep interface between the Tower Systems POS software and Shopify is working brilliantly, transacting saves, managing freight, managing replenishment and providing certainty for a retail store with an online website powered by Shopify.
Thanks to meetings with Shopify experts at the Shoptalk conference two months ago in Las vegas, Tower Systems has delivered an elegant integration that enables physical store retailers to engage online using Shopify quickly and easily.
Our own Shopify experience has helped us deliver a better outcome for our customers as we speak from our own real world experience. This is a key Tower Systems difference as we are users of our POS software too. Not too many POS software companies can say that.
Our Shopify integration is another professional integration from our development team, leveraging our experience in retail and tech to create a valuable whole of business solution through which a retailer can discover new shoppers and leverage above average revenue for their type of business.
Beyond the tech itself we are able to guide and assist retailers to understand opportunities, to use the full power of the internet to help people discover the business who might otherwise not have known it existed.
More and more of the small business retailers using our POS software are using the tags facilities in the software for more efficient management of inventory data managed by the software.
Tags in the Tower Systems Retailer software provide an easy way to manage stock. In the powerful stock manager facility you can select all items with a tag and then:
Tags are a terrific tool in your software for managing stock. We encourage you to use them. We can help.
Small and independent retail businesses can be a challenge to sell even in a strong economy. This is because they are often not understood and not presented well for sale.
One way to make a business more appealing is to be more open about it being for sale.
Put a sign in the window. Yes, this will tell your employees, customers and suppliers that you want to sell up and move on. Own that decision, embrace it. Stop worrying what people will think. Explain your good reason for putting the business on the market and then run the business with more energy and focus than ever before. Your actions will demonstrate that people need not worry.
The sign in the window works on a couple of levels.
First, small businesses are more likely to appeal to people who live locally, people who may not be in the market to buy a business until they see your sign. I know of one small business that had not sold in over a year and then sold in a week following a sign being put in the window. It could be that an employee is interested in buying the business.
Second, the sign is your reminder that the business has to be sale ready every day. Shoppers walking through your door are coming to an open house to see the business for sale. That’s how you should approach it – working your heart out presenting the business perfectly and appealingly every day.
Businesses can take time to sell. Sometimes it takes the right people seeing the ad at the right time for you to find a buyer. The stars aligning aside, the most important barrier to selling any business is that it does not look or feel appealing, manageable and or capable of delivering the level of return a prospective purchaser would want. This is why you have to work hard and relentlessly to make your business look valuable, appealing and enjoyable.
Too often small business retailers think that the economy, retail channel issues or other external factors are slowing or halting the sale of the business. Even if this is the case, reject these thoughts, bring it back to you and your actions. If you want to sell your business then run it as if you want to sell it – every day.
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