Theft is one of the hardest topics in small business retail. It costs money, but it also costs trust. Customer theft feels like an insult to the shop you have built. Staff theft feels personal. Many owners would rather not think about it at all.
The trouble is, ignoring theft doesn’t make it go away. It just makes it harder to see. And you can’t deal with something you can’t see.
But before we get into it it’s important to note that we speak from experience here. We have felt the financial and emotional cost of theft in retail that our founder owned a few years ago. We learnt from it so we can speak from personal experience.
Two kinds of theft
Customer theft is the obvious one: stock that walks out under a jacket or in a bag. It tends to cluster around small, high-value, easy-to-conceal items.
Staff theft is quieter. It might be cash taken from the till, refunds processed to a friend’s card, discounts given without reason, sales voided after the customer leaves, or stock taken home. It often starts small and grows when nobody notices.
Both show up in your data if you know where to look.
What your POS can show you
Every transaction in your POS leaves a record. That record is the most important tool you have. Look regularly at:
- Refunds, especially refunds without a matching original sale
- Voided sales and deleted items, and who processed them
- Discounts and price overrides by staff member
- Cash drawer openings with no sale
- Stock adjustments and write-offs
- Differences between expected and counted stock on high-risk lines
The patterns matter more than any single entry. One refund is normal. One staff member processing three times the refunds of everyone else, mostly on quiet shifts, is worth a closer look.
Count what matters, more often
A full stocktake once a year will tell you something went missing. It won’t tell you when. Short, frequent counts of high-risk products, perhaps fifty items once a week, show problems quickly and narrow down when they happened.
Set up the basics
Give every staff member their own login and don’t let them share. Limit who can process refunds and large discounts. Balance the till at every change of shift where practical. These steps protect honest staff as much as they protect you, and most staff appreciate that.
What to do this week
Pull a refunds and voids report for the last three months, broken down by staff member. Look for anything that stands out. Then pick ten of your most-stolen lines and count them every Friday for a month.
Tower Systems POS software records sales, refunds, discounts, voids and stock movements by staff member, giving local retailers the visibility they need to catch theft early. Our help desk can also show you which reports to use and how to read them.
To talk through whether Tower is the right fit for your shop, call us on 1300 662 957 or email sales@towersystems.com.au. www.towersystems.com.au. Locally made. Locally supported.
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