How our POS software co. goes beyond POS software in helping small business retailers to find new customers
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How our small business POS software saves small business retailers time on arriving stock
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How employees steal from small business retailers, and how to stop them
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How our small business POS software company interacts with customers
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Why more small business retailers are switching to Xero for their POS software integrated solution
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More small business retailers are switching to Xero for their business accounting solution and choosing the Tower Systems Xero integrated POS software for the retail front end.
Delivering a seamlessly integrated solution offering a whole of business approach backed by two respected IT companies with excellent customer service as the core focus.
We use Xero here at Tower Systems and there is no doubt that it offers an excellent accounting solution. Our experience with the integration helps us help our customers with proper setup as we can speak from experience.
With the POS software / xero integration retailers…
- Save time.
- Reduce mistakes.
- Reduce accounting fees.
- Have faster access to business data.
- Cut duplication.
- Have more time for parts of their business where they can make a more measurable difference.
While we integrate with MYOB and Quick Books, it is the elegant Xero integration we love because of the product itself. We are proud to be showing it off in a couple of weeks at the Xerocon conference in Brisbane.
We have a competition bagging Xero but we think that is because they did not get approved for integration.
Why small business retailers should choose our local POS software
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Small business retail management advice: how to choose POS software for your retail business
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The Visual Deck: Business intelligence software for small business retailers
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Sunday retail management advice: how small business retailers can compete with a big national retailer
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Small and independent retailers often feel helpless when a big national retailer opens up nearby. There is no match for their range, buying power, advertising coverage or even news coverage.
The sheer size of a national competitor is what scares many smaller retailers. This is often enough for them to give up and close the business.
Giving up and running is the easy way out. There is no lesson learned, just an escape from the fear.
The alternative is to find out how to deal with the national retailer.
Here are five tips for small businesses on how to face and deal with a national retailer moving into the area:
- Don’t compete. By not talking about the competitor, pricing against them or pitching your business in any way, you separate yourself. While they may have similar products, it is unlikely that they are targeting your specific business so why target them? Focus instead on your own business. Not competing should include not advertising price comparisons, not focusing on the competitor at staff meetings, not expanding your range to sell more of what they sell and not obsessing about them. We were working with an independent retailer recently who decided to offer a product they sold which is also available in a nearby national retailer for 10% less than the sale price in the national retailer. This move gave the independent retailer a margin of 15%. In discussion I discovered that most of the customers who visited the independent retailer were unlikely to shop in the national retailer. So why compete on price? If you know why customers shop with you, you have the opportunity of not giving up margin out of fear.
- Run a better business. From the moment you hear about a new national retailer coming to town, look at every aspect of your business for opportunities for improvement. From the back room to the font counter fine tune your processes, employee training, stock buying and the look of the business. Dramatically improve your business from the inside out. This will improve your business health and help you weather challenges which may lie ahead. Too often, independent retailers wait until the national retailer is open to react. This is probably a year or two too late.
- Be unique. Look for ways to make your business unique. It could be on product range, operating hours, add-on services or something else. Embrace any opportunity to make your business unique. Even a unique niche range of products can give you traffic a big competitor will not chase. Try and focus on products which require a level of retail skill and knowledge to sell – national retailers have challenges hiring and retaining retail employees with specialist knowledge and skills.
- Engage the community. Connect with the community at every possible opportunity. Support local groups, speak at functions, get known as someone and a business who care deeply about the local community. Subtly make the connection that you are fortunate to be able to help because of your local business. Being smaller and independent you are better able to personally engage with the community. You and your team are the business whereas a national chain will always be the corporate. They can throw money around locally, you can throw time, knowledge and more flexible assistance.
- Tell your stories. Your retail narrative, your stories, connect you with the local community. Tell these through the people you contact, your own blog, a Facebook page and in the pages of the local newspaper. Tell human stories about your business, the people who work in it and the local stories which connect with it. Your stories could be about local community connection, convenience of shopping, commitment to range, personal customer service, product niche knowledge … there are many different narratives with which an independent retailer can connect. It is important that one you have your narrative you stick to is, that it inhabits your decisions, marketing and public presentation.
By acting early and in advance of a national retailer opening, you better position your business to weather their advertising and PR onslaught. Get in early, build a stronger business and understand that through this the new business in town will not be your competitor.
Helping small business retailers compete with our Xero / POS software integrated solution
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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.
We appreciate software cannot stand still. Every year we release significant enhancements, serving the needs of our customers. One such enhancement a couple of years ago was our Xero integration, approved by Xero and listed on their website as a partner.
The Xero integration delivers to retailers a seamless and deep connection between our POS software and Xero. This saves time and reduces bookkeeping costs for any small retail business.
The Tower Systems POS software / Xero link is another Tower AdvantageTM.
Beautiful software leverages POS software data
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Retailers are reacting to the beautiful interactive business intelligence reports available through the cloud-based platform released by Tower Systems.
Small business retailers are loving the elegant reporting, that they can access the reports from anywhere, that they can easily compare trading periods and that vitally important business data points are so accessible.
This software is creating a buzz among retailers hungry for a fresh view of business performance and keen to see how they are competing with their most important competitor – themselves.
Tower Systems is grateful to the encouragement of its small business retail customers and their guidance in developing this and other exciting new software.
Tower Systems leverages Tyro and Xero partnership
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Thanks to the Tower Systems partnerships with Tyro broadband EFTPOS for retail and Xero and our direct integration with the beautiful Xero accounting software, we are thrilled to support the Tyro Smart Account. This has been outlined to our small business retail customers in this week’s customer email:
Our EFTPOS partner Tyro now offers a fee-free bank account that links to Xero and automates your supplier bill payments? It’s called the Tyro Smart Account, and is available exclusively to Tyro merchants.
If you’re using Tyro and Xero and you’d like to activate your Smart Account (it’s free after all), contact banking@tyro.com. Tyro is also offering complimentary Xero training on batch payments to all merchants who activate. The training is conducted by leading online Xero trainer Jet Convert and is valued at $110.
Sunday small business retail advice: everyday marketing for small business retailers
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We get to see many different retail businesses in in our work and along the way we pick up ideas that work particularly well. Here is a selection of everyday marketing tips we see working in almost any business.
- Always have a value-proposition offer just inside the entrance to the business. This should be a double-sided offer, one they see as they enter and as they leave.
- Always have an appealing impulse purchase offer at the counter. Change this weekly. Use the opportunity to learn more about what your customers will purchase on impulse.
- Always know your top selling item in the store and always place products next to the top selling item thoughtfully, to leverage the eyeballs looking for and at the top selling product.
- Run a generous loyalty program where the value is understood. This probably means not using points.
- Create stunning window displays people would not expect to see in your type of business.
- Offer multi-buy opportunities unlocking savings for people purchasing more than would be usual in a single visit.
- Be brief in talking to customers about your products on social media: a single product per post. Two sentences. Short sentences. Make the post appealing beyond you trying to promote your business. Entertain them.
- Send customers a card for special occasions, a personal card to reinforce the personal relationship you have with them.
- Change the front two metres of your shop weekly, keep it fresh for your customers and your staff.
- Unpack and price products on the shop floor and not in the back room or outside of shopper view.
Our goal with this list is to give you ideas you can use right away as well as ideas that will get you thinking of your own ideas.
Go for it. Remember, if you do next week what you did this week you cannot expect any growth. Growth only comes from change.
Small business retailers value personal and accessible POS software customer service
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We are winning good business for our POS software this year from retailers switching from other POS software. While the software is a factor in their decision to switch, customer service is top of mind.
Customers switching love:
- Personal service. When they call they talk to a human. And, yes, they can call any of our offices even toll free from NZ. We hear many stories of poor service from other POS software companies where personal contact is discouraged.
- Names. Names matter. Were humanise our contact and support by people on our teams using their names, real names.
- Access to leadership. Our leadership team is directly accessible to our customers should they wish to escalate any issue. Too often we hear of other POS software companies sidestepping issues or completely ignoring requests to speak too senior management. We take personal service seriously.
- Free training weekly. People love our free and easily accessible live online training workshops.
- Free one-on-one training. People love that they can schedule top-up training long after the installation is done.
- Transparency on updates. People love that they can suggest changes and watch as other customers vote on their change suggestions.
- Extensive help desk coverage. People love our long hours and our weekend coverage.
- Response time. People love how quickly we respond to their queries.
These are points of difference we have invested in with infrastructure, people and management focus. We are thrilled to win business from other POS software companies because of these services we provide.
This whole package is part of our Tower AdvantageTM.
Everyday marketing tips for small business retailers
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Here at Tower Systems, through our work with our specialsist retail POS software, we get to see many different retail businesses in in our work and along the way we pick up ideas that work particularly well.
Here is a selection of everyday marketing tips we see working in almost any business. This list was first shared with our customers on the weekend, as part of our weekly email of advice, support and encouragement.
- Always have a value-proposition offer just inside the entrance to the business. This should be a double-sided offer, one they see as they enter and as they leave.
- Always have an appealing impulse purchase offer at the counter. Change this weekly. Use the opportunity to learn more about what your customers will purchase on impulse.
- Always know your top selling item in the store and always place products next to the top selling item thoughtfully, to leverage the eyeballs looking for and at the top selling product.
- Run a generous loyalty program where the value is understood. This probably means not using points.
- Create stunning window displays people would not expect to see in your type of business.
- Offer multi-buy opportunities unlocking savings for people purchasing more than would be usual in a single visit.
- Be brief in talking to customers about your products on social media: a single product per post. Two sentences. Short sentences. Make the post appealing beyond you trying to promote your business. Entertain them.
- Send customers a card for special occasions, a personal card to reinforce the personal relationship you have with them.
- Change the front two metres of your shop weekly, keep it fresh for your customers and your staff.
- Unpack and price products on the shop floor and not in the back room or outside of shopper view.
Our goal with this list is to give you ideas you can use right away as well as ideas that will get you thinking of your own ideas.
Go for it. Remember, if you do next week what you did this week you cannot expect any growth. Growth only comes from change.
Sunday retail management advice: interviewing prospective employees for your retail business
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Interviewing prospective employees is a personal thing in that it is all about you and your business. Get this one thing right and you get plenty of benefits for your business.
The type of people you want for your business can only be determined by you. This is why we say it is personal and why we do not advice a consistent corporate approach across all businesses.
That said, based on our many years working with and helping small business and independent retailers there are some basics to get right before or at the interview:
- Make sure prospective candidates are who they say they are. Check photo ID.
- Have them bring a Tax File Number – to show they are known to the government.
- Have them bring two written references.
- Advise them before the interview you may do a police check.
- Stalk them on social media to look for possible issues.
- Interview two or three candidates. Not too many though as it can take up time when if you vet them right prior to the interview you can have a good short list.
Now, on to the interview. The goal is to encourage conversation as it is from conversation that you can determine if you like the candidate and liking them is key to their future with the business.
Start by asking them what they think of the business and what they would change. The purpose of this is to test to see if they know much about the business and have any interest in it beyond a paycheque.
Ask them why your business. The reality is this question often elicits the answer they think you want rather than the truth. Press them on it.
Ask them about any experience they have that could help them in your business. This is designed to be open ended, encouraging conversation.
Usually, three or four topics in and you should have an idea if they are right for you. If the feeling at this point is they are not right for you, pull the pin on further discussion and than them for their time.
Other topics worth discussing are: how they relax, their dreams for the future, whether they collect anything, what they are passionate about and whether they read magazines. Each of these topics can be open ended – encouraging further conversation.
If you have a candidate you think is right, consider a paid trial of three hours. This is usually useful if you are not sure between two candidates.
Enjoying small business retail
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It is a thrill to see so many independent small retail businesses thriving through the winter of 2016. We are seeing businesses transforming from what has been traditional for their type of operation into fresh offerings that drive the appeal of the business beyond what has been traditional for them.
We love seeing this not only because of the pleasure of observing success but also because of a role we can play in helping to uncover and leverage good news for small business retailers.
Our commitment is to help our customers beyond the software to help them reach beyond the dreams they have for their businesses.
We are grateful every day for the opportunities that come our way.
Small business retail advice: never let a stock item celebrate a birthday
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Inventory in retail is worthless unless it sells. The longer it sits on the shelf of a retail business the greater the cost of the inventory to the business.
A good basic inventory management principle is: never let a stock item celebrate a birthday. That is, never have an item in the business for more than a year. In fact, we would suggest six months is too long for most items.
Using good POS software you can easily track how long a stock item has been in the business. Stay on top of the age of an item. Work the item to ensure it does not celebrate that birthday. Focus on placement, promotion, adjacency and more to ensure the item is turned within the time necessary for you to achieve a good return for the business.
Ensuring all team members working in the business understand your commitment to never let a stock item celebrate a birthday will help make this happen.
You could take the commitment a step further. Put a sign up in the back room. Make it a discussion point at staff meetings. Encourage anyone to run a report at any time on the age of inventory in the business. Make everyone accountable for the mission.
Tower Systems regularly offers advice to retailers beyond what is usual for a POS software company. The advice demonstrates our commitment to helping beyond the software, to add value to the relationship to benefit the whole of the business.
Repairs software helps specialty small business retailers efficiently manage repairs
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Small business retailers using the repairs management software from Tower Systems can rely on the software to streamline operations, reduce paperwork, improve customer service and deliver outcomes that help the businesses grow repairs revenue.
the repairs facilities in our software have been developed in close consultation with customers across a variety of retail channels. Plus, the repairs software is regularly enhanced – too deliver evolving solutions to meet evolving needs.
Tower Systems serve a number of specialist retail channels with repairs management software appropriate to the needs of businesses in those channels. Initially developed in response to the needs of our jeweller customers, these features are now utilised by clients in a number of different retail markets.
Some of the functions our specialist retail software’s repair features are being used for include:
- In Jewellers: Jewellery and watch workshop repairs, dated manufacturing.
- In Bike Shops: Bicycle and tricycle repairs, warranty returns.
- In Garden Centres: Landscaping services management.
- In Firearms Stores: Gunsmithy and equipment repairs, warranty returns.
- In Pet Shops: Aquarium installations.
Repairs management software is flexible, serving a range of needs outside managing the actual repairs themselves. The flexibility in the software enables it to be used in different businesses for different purposes – from job management, to workshop management and traditional repairs management.
The software tracks the labour and resources used from a billing and inventory management perspective. It also handles allocation of repairs or parts of a repair to venues outside the business (for contracting and supplier exchanges or repairs for warranty issues, for example) and tracks repair staff and couriers used in shipping repairs. Once the repair is ready for pick-up by the customer, the software finalises the billing and advises the customer by SMS or another preferred method. Payments are processed with the usual depth of our retail software’s point of sale functionality – customers can make multiple payments against a repair or a specialist manufacturing, pay through cash, EFTPOS, PayPal or other methods.
Tower Systems streamlines the repairs process, facilitates good communication and helps bring management certainty to the overall repairs process in your business. It helps local independent businesses provide the kind of professional, personal and efficient repairs services that major corporate stores and online-only offerings can only dream of.
Serving a number of specialist retail channels gives Tower Systems the opportunity to provide more comprehensive and flexible repairs/job/manufacturing management software. Our customers continue to provide feedback and influence the development and support of this software feature, from firearms stores to bike shops and more.
Sunday retail management advice: basket analysis helps retailers sell more
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Basket analysis is the analysis of products purchased by transaction – shopping basket. Such analysis typically compares two trading periods overall and by day of week. It also includes this analysis by supplier comparing trading periods and day of week.
Using the Tower Systems POS software, retailers are able to dig deep into basket data in recent times and into the past, to gain insights into the performance of the business for the benefit of the business and those it serves.
Basket analysis shows the efficiency of product categories (departments). For example, see how many baskets include one category of item and nothing else. You can also see the numbers of times sales are single item sales.
Basket analysis underscores the value to the business of newer categories such as gifts and toys.
Basket analysis at a supplier level is equally insightful, allowing you to compare the basket efficiency and value of suppliers between two tradition periods as well as across each day of the week between two trading periods.
It is at the basket analysis level that you can determine product efficiency. A product is more efficient for you if it is purchased with other items in our view. You can drive this by careful placement on the shop floor, promotion at the sales counter and working with customers on the shop floor to guide their purchases.
It’s an example of how you can use comprehensive business data to drive your in-store actions. For example, knowing what we know about pop vinyls, Saturday is the day we really focus on them with secondary locations to do even better from the Saturday opportunity.
Basket analysis can also help you with rostering. With some category sales requiring more staff time that others, you can consider the product mix sold by day and adjust your roster accordingly. Trimming wages is an important cost saving focus in business.
The goal has to be deeper baskets (more items per transaction) and a greater spread across product categories – but with a focus on higher margin items so that also lift the overall GP performance of the business.
In the Tower Systems software the report to use for this analysis is the Basket Analysis Report. It provides an extraordinary insight into baskets.
Tower Systems helps small business retailers achieve balance in inventory
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We often see in data from retailers an imbalance in inventory performance – 20% or fewer items in-store generate 80% of the revenue.
This imbalance can often be missed if the overall business performance is good. It could be that such an imbalance is only discovered if the business falls on hard times and more thorough analysis of business performance is undertaken.
Using the Ranked Sales Report in the Tower Systems POS software you can quickly and easily see the top performing inventory items based on revenue or unit sales. Either metric could be useful in different situation.
Our advice is to run the Ranked Sales Report for a three, six or twelve month period. Look at the items in, say, the top 100 and determine the value of those items to your business compared to the rest of the business.
Usually, such analysis highlights inventory challenges business owners want to address by achieving greater balance of sales across more inventory items. This does not mean holding back the top performing lines. Rather, it means working on those outside the top performers, working on their success through work on placement, promotion, staff engagement and other factors over which you have control.
The Ranked Sales Report provides excellent insights into comparative performance of inventory items. The goal is to guide you to achieve greater balance so your business relies less on the star performers.
The danger of relying on star performers is the impact on the business should one or two stars fall. The more broadly based your business the better positioned it is to weather competition, challenges or a decline in one or two items. Broadening the base of your business from an inventory perspective strengthens the business.
We are happy to assess your Ranked Sales Report for you. Contact support and ask the settings we’d like, run the report, save it as a PDF and send it to us. We will share our feedback.
Updated advice for POS software users in Tower Systems knowledge base
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The Tower Systems Knowledge base continues to expand with weekly enhancements. We add new articles and update existing articles. This makes the knowledge base a living thing for our customers, offering fresh insights and advice through which they can learn more about how to use the software.
Here are knowledge base enhancements in the last few days.
- Importing The Blueshyft Stock File & Invoice File
- Common Problems With Magazine Arrivals
- Gift Vouchers / Cards Setup
- End Of Financial Year Procedures
- How To Add A New Staff Initial
- NETWORK Sales Data Being Sent Back To XChangeIT
- New PC / Windows Configuration – Operating System Configuration
Our POS software customer in their weekly email get a more comprehensive list … weekly.
How do you know can you trust a POS software company?
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Trust is important in business. It is especially important in small and local business.
Trust is mission critical for POS software companies.
We say this because our software helps our customers engender trust in their local communities and with their customers. If our software fails, it challenges the trust local shoppers have in local businesses using our software.
Retailers rely on their POS software, they trust their POS software companies to provide software that works and that it is backed with professional assistance when they need … and that it is enhanced too meet the needs of businesses as they evolve.
This is why we say trust is vital in the choice of POS software for any small business.
So, how do you know you can trust a POS software company you are considering? Here is our advice, things to look for in assessing the trustworthiness of any POS software company you are considering:
- Talk to the owner. Most businesses will say this is not possible. Challenge them – see how they respond.
- Visit their office. This is essential to understand their capacity to serve you.
- Look at their website. Do they make it easy to contact them? Are the ottos real? Do the words make sense? Do you trust what they write? Are they on your level?
- Talk to their customers.
- Ask for access to their training website. See what their customer see.
- Ask for access to training videos. See the resources they offer for staff training.
- Do a Google search on them and see what comes up.
- Do a Google search on their owner and find out more about them.
POS software company relationships are long term so take your time, make sure the business you enter into a relationship with has the capacity, stamina and desire for an equally long term relationship.
POS software company relationships are personal. Ensure the POS software company you are talking to understands this. Too often POS software companies hide behind general email addresses and call centres where you do not know the name of the person you are speaking to. It is vital you know who they are because, yes, it is personal. Being personal is key to trust and trust is vital in this relationship.
Small business management advice: 20 tips for Christmas in July
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A fun event for any small business retailer is Christmas in July. Here are twenty tips to get you started on the opportunity:
- Check with your local council or business association as to what they have on – more and more are running Christmas in July events. Be sure to check with charities too. A quick search online shows plenty do. Talk to suppliers to see whether they have anything which could help you embrace the opportunity.
- Run the Christmas in July campaign over no more than two weeks in July. One week could be enough.
- Choose dates which are away from any other promotion – it works best with little competition.
- Get all employees together, seek their ideas and explain the value of the season you are creating.
- Set aside a defined space at the front of the store.
- Dress the team and the store to suit the Christmas theme.
- Display any spare Christmas stock from last year.
- Play Christmas music.
- Choose a day for an extra special celebration and make this an all-out focus.
- Have a competition for the kids around the theme. This could be a coloring competition –display their works of art as parents and family will visit to see.
- Create a giant Christmas stocking which one lucky customer can win.
- Use the event to discount slow moving items – try and create a real sense of bargains.
- Promote the event using a flyer to houses around your location – it is a great way to draw people into your shop. On the flyer, promote the activities and any specials.
- Call the local paper and get their attention.
- Connect with a local charity that is busy at Christmas time and use your Christmas in July event to raise funds for them.
- Use the promotion to drive interest in Lay-by for more expensive items. The sooner you lock people in on more expensive items the better.
- Consider running the promotion with other retailers – the more noise you create the better.
- Don’t wait for suppliers to offer products – ask what they have.
- Being Winter in Australia, Christmas in July is your opportunity to have a cold Christmas event.
- Have fun.
Best practice advice on how to do a stocktake using your POS software
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Here is some of the advice we published to ur POS software customers in the lead up to the end of the financial year – to help them efficiently and accurately handle stock take requirements.
Take the technology to the stock and not your stock to your technology.
For the process to be as easy as possible you will need a wireless network – vital for OH&S reasons.
The best way to do a stocktake in your business is by using a laptop (or laptops) or tablet computer with a scanner attached. This enables you to do the stocktake live with no impact on sales and absolute integrity of your stock on hand data.
While using a laptop (or laptops) or tablet computer may seem cumbersome, it is our best practice advice for speed, data integrity and the ability to address data issues you may encounter on the shop floor. It enables you to do management work to ensure completely accurate data.
The alternative is to use a PDE. The challenges with this are the many different PDEs and it is challenging to be expert in all plus the PDE counts at that time and you load the data at a later time – meaning a gap in time in which sales could have been done. While PDE software is available for live to data updates, we have seen this be problematic and so we do not use it.
Given the advances in technology, our best practice recommendation is either a laptop of tablet computer as either offers a better solution than a PDE.
We suggest you setup a Laptop or tablet and use Team Viewer or the like to connect in and count this way. This approach means you do not need to purchase an additional software licence for the laptop. Team Viewer is easy to setup. If you do need our help on this there would be a support cost.
For the physical stocktake, we suggest you approach the business aisle by aisle, counting and rearranging stock as you go.
Once you have completed your first full stocktake, our advice is you engage in a rolling stocktake, doing parts of the business, through the year. The Tax Office does not require businesses with full sock control implemented to do a stocktake at the end of the financial year. They will accept data from your system if you manage stock through the year.
On the stocktake itself, follow carefully our Knowledge Base advice. Choose the type of stocktake wisely. Backup before you commence.
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