A few days ago, a person was working at a shop in the early morning, while she was in the back office unknown to her, a person came in the shop, took the cables off the main computer, grabbed the computer with her USB backup in it and ran off. It left them w no backup and no server. Because she has insurance, the computer and the setup will be covered but the data is lost - everything is gone. If they had a backup in the cloud, it would have been okay. When I spoke to her and told them that a backup in the cloud costs nothing to have, and if we had one, we would be right, they replied that they know this now but its happened and what can we do now?

Another example is a close call that happened to me this morning to me.

I received this email.

Now as it happened, we do deal with a company Global Knowledge, and we did recently enquire about a subscription with them. So I thought to myself what is going on, we should not be billed yet and clicked the attachment. Lucky for me, when I clicked the attachment it came up with an error as it was a virus. I double checked my computer just in case and its clean. It is, however, quite possible that if I had imported this virus, I could have lost everything on my computer. In a sense, I am not worried as I do have a cloud backup and there was nothing on that computer that could not be replaced although it would be a lot of bother.

Information on setting up a free cloud backup with our point of sale is available here.

Hi Bernard

As the owner of a combined Lisc. Post Office, Tattslotto, Sub Newsagent, I know that customers only complain when things go wrong.
They rarely offer praise during the millions of times and transactions, that things go right.

There is many software versions for small business POS systems.

The best thing about POS solutions software is the dynamic Crystal reporting sets, that appear so quickly on my screen no matter what criteria I am seeking.

As well as the attention I get from my designated Help Desk person (Rob) who knows how I’m set up rather than me being a number on a customer database.

So I just wanted to congratulate your team on the quick & prompt attention last week when my POS system failed to boot up in the morning.

A call to the help desk quickly revealed that it was an electrical issue and Shaun from your team was able to swap an electrical box within hours. That didn’t solve the problem, so he suggested a few ways to operate my store manually until he could get the PC unit back to the workshop and look deeper into the problem, even though he had prior jobs scheduled that day.

First thing next morning Shaun? rang to advise that the motherboard was fried, and that a new PC could be ordered but would take a few days to arrive.
Not to be deterred he was able to provide a refurb. Machine that same day with a quick swap of the hard disk and I could be up & running within an hour.

So within 24 hours of a total melt down, POS solutions had reinstalled and provided a PC so that I was all set up to continue trading with minimal loss..

My business was only effected for a single day, and because I had taken backups, all was restored as if nothing had happened.

So Thanks to Shaun and your team for a job well done when its was really needed.

Greg Lanyon
Mackie Rd Post Lotto News, East Bentleigh

Unfortunately, we have had to change the times and date of the proposed Melbourne user meeting. 8:00am start I think everyone will agree is a ridiculous. As we will be holding them from 9:30am to 1:00pm with two small breaks. I am a great believer that no session should be over an hour. So we will be providing two breaks with some light refreshments and biscuits all free.

The agenda will be:

The first hour will be on cash register and the new advanced security for money. Since the Caloudra bug hit, the security issue in a point of sale needs to be discussed. Unlike so many bugs, the Caloudra bug can close a business. To combat it, we have made a lot of changes in the security which needs to be explained.

The next hour will be on our new technology, including the web integration that we have released recently which will change much in retail. Currently, what has happened is that while there are website content systems out there like Wix, Wordpress, Magento and Shopify to name a few, these options our users find in practice are often limited to simple functions, plus the integration is messy and poor compared to our software solution.

The final hour will be open to general questions.

Tentitively the user meeting will be on 19 April in Victoria.

The NSW meeting is still scheduled on the 26th April.

We will be open on Labour Day Public Holiday on Monday. What we will be doing is routing our support services though are NSW offices so you will experience no change is our support as all our after hours support and weekend support services will be unchanged.

Almost all my clients use their own computer (desktop) for accounting. A few do use cloud, including Xero.

A while ago, we received ten vouchers for people to try Xero free for two months to see if they liked it. We gave them out to our clients, NO-ONE who we gave a voucher too eventually took on Xero. The main reason when I asked them why the lack of interest in Xero was cost, most had been using desktop accountancy solutions and all found desktops solutions cheaper.

As background information now, I would say in order of use by my clients MYOB would as a quick guess have about 50% of them, Quickbooks would have 35%, the rest are a range of products like Money Plus, GNUCash and Xero.

As Australian accountancy standards do not change much, in fact, they have not changed much since GST came in any of these accounting software package versions released since GST are able to handle most of my clients needs with one exception payroll. Some may do it better than others; they look prettier; they have extra features; they may work better the way you feel, etc., but they can all can do the job. Which system would be best for you is one that you will need to investigate? For example, my main gribe with MYOB is that it behaves like it was coded by accountants who are amateur programmers who think they know better because they have a "background in the field."

In any case what you use is not an issue to our point of sale, which is very flexible.

One point to watch as I stated is payroll you will need to determine exactly what you need here before you look and remember much of the cost in accounting programs is in the payroll section. My advice to save money, consider running a separate payroll system. They are generally much better at payroll too.

If you ask me my advice, I tell you to try Money Plus, which is free and see how it goes for you. If it does not work, then you will have at least a better idea of what you do need. You will also not lose much work either as most systems can import Money Plus files as it uses Quickbook formats.

Now I do not recommend anymore going to your accountant. This is because accountants partly tend to pick the one, they know and also as they get special deals and in my experience, their advice is often is based on this. Your accountant requirements are simple a Profit and Loss statement and the Balance sheet, which are standard documents and any of these systems. here can supply that. If the accountant wants more, which is generally purely if they find something that looks wrong, all the systems can provide full audit trials, which again are all very standard.

What you need to consider is if you need help, MYOB and Quickbooks have the best help both internally and with external consultants everywhere. The others from what I hear, help ranges from poor to almost zero

Now you should be able to get a costing.

One point to check while costing is that a cloud solution has no value once you stop paying; a desktop version will have value years after you purchased it.

What are the additional costs?

Now you have tentatively decided on an accountancy solution. You need to do an estimate on what after buying this software what are additional fees. This is particularly important if you want integration.

If you intend to manually enter in the information, then there are no additional charges. Integration will cause more problems, but it will save time. There are two types, the first is from the bank to you, this depending on your selected system and if available is free.

The other from your point of sale to you generally costs although with us, this link is free for MYOB and Quickbook. However, some point-of-sale companies charge about $1,000, so you need to check if it is not us.

The next point, is do you have a current maintenance contract with your point of sale provider Well with our accountancy link, you do not need one but some point-of-sale companies demand you do have one and will lock you out of integration if you do not have one. If you intend to take maintenance contracts every year, this is not a problem, but if you did want to option not to take it, well it will be a problem.

The next point is the monthly fee. With us its free, but some point-of-sale companies will charge about $35/month. Again if you stop paying, you are locked out of the integration.

Final note!

Whatever way you do go, I would recommend that before you start you buy a book on basic bookkeeping using the software you intend to use. Work though it and then start.

Probably the best site on the net, to learn about the mechanics of shoplifting is here. <Link removed>

This is a site for professional shoplifters where you will find many discussions on shoplifting. How to do it, what to take, what to do if you are caught, fencing and so on.

Note what they say that they are a "wonderful community of allegedly corrupt and soulless individuals."

I wrote an article here at the VANA Expo

about an allegedly buggy competitors software that when people upgraded to Windows 10 suddenly stopped working, and that they were locked out of their software until they contacted the software companies accounting department

Suddenly, another company responded claiming that this total anonymous post which does not mention them, is an attack on them, even though on the previous post I said that there were four newsagency software companies who came to the VANA show and they produced this.

Note there is nothing here to state why they should consider this an attack by them and not the two other companies.

So this attack by them on me, quickly produced a stream of justifiable complaints by people against them, so they stopped, but they did NOT print a retraction. Soon I got a lot of emails, including copies of this company's newsletters showing that there had been problems with their software and Windows 10. Here is one such article in their OWN newsletter about their software and Windows 10.

So if you read their attack on me, it states that their software works with Windows 10. Now that might be true in the current versions but the earlier versions which would have been around when I related what happened clearly had problems. Nor was it a one off thing as it states in the article quite bluntly that this is not the first warning.

The second claim is also false, clearly users in their software were locked out some clearly for some time. Clearly, their user running old versions of their software would be locked out and forced to ring their accountancy department to gain access to their system.

Which leads to the next claim, if any user is locked out and they have to ring their software accountancy department, can it be called RANSOMWARE, you tell me???

The last two points, are actually totally irrelevant to either my post, any of the issues and the subject so I wonder why they are there. However for the record, I am not aware of us ever inhibiting access to our users for any reason, and on the last claim, I can say truthfully that we have switched 100s of newsagents and many other users, including people in the Pet Industry from them to POS Solutions.

Please consider if you are making judgement on this, that the best way to assess a company is to see how they interact with their customers and the world.

From a business point of view as there is much interest with the public over the environment so it's been a major business movement over the past year. Firms are now advertising that they are green. It is something that consumers are paying attention.

Not surprisingly as studies do show that most consumers when asked were willing to pay more for products and services provided by companies that are committed to improving the environmental impact. Interestingly enough studies are reporting that employees were more likely to be satisfied with their jobs to working in places that were environmentally friendly. Clearly, there are some commercial benefits to going green.

Most industries, many suppliers are doing something, why not tell people that?

It does not have to be big, a little sign on the front window. It does not have to be much either. I have some that advertise they have cut back on some waste, some tell people they have switched to a product which requires less energy, some COULD tell people that all unsold newspapers and magazines are recycled, or some say that they have turned to LED Eco Lighting to save energy.

We actually have done something too. We installed eco-lights and cut down on electricity at night; we switched to a waste pickup service that does recycling too, and we installed installation to reduce cooling and heating charges.

PS I should say that I was one of the first people actively involved in Earth hour in Australia. I do confess that now I am really upset how some have hijacked it often by political extremist with their own agenda. I actually told one of the senior organisers that too when she talked to me today.

Update: As a result of this post, VANA thought this idea was interesting for newsagents and started to investigate. One problem maybe that its too short notice as Earth Hour is next week.

While I was at the VANA show, several newsagents who were with a different computer software provider told me of an amazing story.

What happened is that their software was supposed to be able to work on Windows 10. They had been told that it did. Then when people did the upgrade to Windows 10, they were blocked from access to their software. I am not sure whether it was a lock or barrier that blocked access to their software.

When they rang the support department of this software, they were told that it was a bug in the software that occurred while doing a Windows upgrade, and they had to ring the accountancy department of this software company. Why the accountancy department? This is very strange. Then they discovered the accountancy department was closed as it only worked business hours. Which meant of course that they were locked out of their software some for quite awhile. Then finally only after accounting department allowed it, was their software unlocked. In the meantime, they were totally locked out.

I suppose those that owed money had no choice but to pay so they could use their software. Ransomware????

POS Solutions does not do this; we do not lock people out of their software.

Do you think such action by a software company is ethical?

If you are considering POS software, please ask:

Will the software stop working or my access be impeded in any way if I do not pay support? And give them the benefit of the doubt and ask them if their software properly tested in Windows because if what they say is true, it was not appropriately tested?

And get the answer in writing, on letterhead, from a director.

There have been some dramatic improvements to the stock search in the cash register.

Press on the search button in the Cash register (see red arrow)

What you will see on the bottom is ? [search text], I will explain it.

Say you do not know what the title is, you know or your client knows that in the title, it has the word "roof" in it. So I am looking for a book that has the word "roof" in the title.

So its

?B ROOF

? to say its a wild-card search, B as its a book and ROOF because that is what I know is in the title.

Now look what happens.

As you can see all titles, with the added details like the on hand and the retail price, etc. is displayed. All I have to do is click on the one I want.

I often find this faster to search, even if I do know the item's title because it's quicker to search then it is to type.

At our stand in todays VANA Expo we were extremely busy with a constant stream of visitors by the end of the day, I just crashed on the chair exhausted. Many were existing clients coming for a friendly talk but others were people looking to upgrade their software. Our stand featured our latest developments, including our newest reporting tools and the feel of the increased speed of our system.

What I thought was an wonderful idea was for VANA to supply free lunch and refreshments, as such people tended to stay much longer.

Here are some scenes from the VANA show.

While I was there I was thinking how years ago there were four newsagency software companies displaying their products, then over the years the four became two and now only us. Today we are the sole newsagency software company supporting Victorian newsagents by supporting the work of their association VANA. How times have changed! Many people actually forget that above what we do, we do give much financial support to the industry and newsagency associations.

Another benefit was that we also got to meet with many industry suppliers. It made it much easier as the experts were there for example I used the opportunity to resolve the touch problem that many face today.

We thank VANA for putting on an excellent expo; we certainly look forward to the next VANA Expo.

The POS Solutions team is excited to be headed to VANA Expo tomorrow for the 2016 Expo, and we hope to see you there! Before you head out the door, I have put together a list of helpful tips and ideas for things to do, so you can make the most of your time at the Expo.

How to find us

Stop by stand 007 (easy to remember think James Bond) to chat with our team.

Check Your Packing List

) Bring business cards as there will be opportunities to connect with people in the industry.

) Make sure your battery charged.

) Wear practical clothes and shoes as the Crown centre is huge and you could be walking on your feet all day.

) Come with a bag as you will need to have something to store the goodies.

Make the most of the discussions

There will be some interesting discusions that are worth listening too.

Suppliers will often tell you what the margins on the product are but in the real world often, these figures are different. One of the main causes is discounts. A typical example maybe you get too much stock, so you need to discount to get rid of it but there are many other examples. Well, the question is how much discount are you giving away. Well, it is easy to find out.

Go to the menu

Now in sales select "Discounted Item Sales Summary"

Pick a period and now check by department.

You will get a detailed report of where you are discounting both by quantity and price. I find it better to transfer the figures into excel.

Now you can review exactly where your profit is going into discounts.

Subscription is when you agree to pay $X a month for as long as you use the software rather than buy. One clear advantage it has for the client is the initial ‘up-front’ cost is cheaper and from the supplier, it's often a much easier sale.

In our market space, several offer software subscription as an alternative to buying. Although generally subscription models have not been popular in our marketplace because from a strictly commercial view, overtime you will pay more. For example, doing a quick calculation, besides gaining a more stable cash flow. I determined that if we could turn everyone to a subscription model, that we would earn about 30% more revenue a year. This type of overpayment is the main reason why overwhelmingly most people in our market space prefer MYOB which they buy, over Xero which they need to subscribe as MYOB works out cheaper.

However, if someone wanted to take out a subscription with me, I am certainly not against it.

But of course that is not where the story ends, as its a very tricky question that depends on a client's particular needs and the terms and conditions of their software. Here are some examples.

) A person that intends to open a new shop for say three months and then close it down would probably find a subscription model attractive. The shop could have a computer system, as long as it is required at a reasonable price.

) If one needs an extra till over Christmas might find with his software if unlike our software, they require an additional licence, it would also be attractive for the two months to subscribe. Our users do not pay extra for more tills so this is not an issue to them, but it is to other software providers.

Some other problems would be.

) Cash flow, some of our clients have plenty of cash after Christmas but come say September, I have noticed they really need to budget to get them to Christmas. Here subscription is going to be a problem as the payments are constant all year round.

) The computer software today in our field is only a small part of the purchase price, there still are computers, printers, scanners, training, conversion costs, etc. to consider. Making it nonsense that it's a cheap trial as you will incur almost all the costs upfront anyway and if the subscription does not work you may be stuck with a pile of useless stuff and little legal recourse.

) The subscription model is an operating lease with instead of say NAB as a leasing agent, you are taking ABC Software as the leasing agent for the debt. I would prefer a reputable established company like NAB.

) You own nothing. If you stop paying, its terminates and you have nothing. It is similar to paying rent rather than buying a place. If you pay rent for 20 years, you have nothing on the 21st year.

) Under the law, you have fewer consumer rights to the software and your data.

) What happens if the software company goes out of business or gets brought out with a new policy.

No doubt others can add more to this list as there are issues to consider.

As there is additional round of excise rate increases for cigarettes today. You need to check that your pricing is correct.

Network to G&G; Transition

POS Solutions would like to advise all newsagents to continue to return Network stock by Network EDI return forms until further notice. You may send the Network returns in the same box as the Gordan and Gotch returns but they require two different forms for the time being.

The longer shelf life items such as the AWW Cookbook series, annuals, bi-annuals, etc will be fixed automatically for you in a coming patch so you do not have to do anything.

All computer age. It is a fact. This year, its top desktop computer, eighteen months later is average. Wait another eighteen months and it will be poor. After that, they may work but its worthless if you try to sell it.

If we are discussing laptops, it probably has about three years of life. For a smart phone, it's even worse; I count on about two years. There are a couple of reasons for this, but mainly with me, it's because I carry them around, despite all my efforts, they get dropped, water gets split on them, and often I leave them in hot places like cars and my pocket. Heat is the main enemy of electronics. Lastly, even if they last they go out of date and unlike a desktop computer they cannot be upgraded

For businesses, I think its best to plan on a life cycle of about four to seven years. Once the computers start going over four years, its time to reconsider what to do with it. The big issue in business is that old computers run slow and employees are paid for time. A shop assistant costs you $19 hour, once you include holiday, sick pay and superannuation, that comes to about $24 an hour and that is the cheapest you can get. Currently if an old computer say without a touch screen or an SSD drive costs an employee about 10 minutes more a day. Over a year that works out to costing you over a $1000 for that employee per year just in salary. Now add into the equation, that many people work on overtime rates, many senior staff members spend more time on the computer so they lose more time and they cost more, your customer service is 10 minutes per employee worse a day, your own time etc. With probably even the cheapest employees from a business point of view, a computer upgrade can be justified as it's false economy to hang on to old computers in business.

These of course are only averages, sometimes you need to replace them much earlier as some are just lemons.

I was at a shop a short time ago where the owner told me that he had made a big mistake degrading his current software point of sale system in front of his staff. What he had done was tell them often that he was upset that the tills never balanced. What happened was as the staff started to realise that the tips did not balance, they gave up caring that they should balance. One staff member listening while he was going through it with me, burst out laughing when he showed me a cash register listing that showed one day they balanced. "How did we do that," she said? It was obviously the staff had stopped caring. Part of the pressure is on top of that the owners knew his software has not been fixed for the Caloundra bug where employees can take money out of the tip without leaving a trace. One point we could reassure him was that our system it could not happen.

Still ask yourself this how will your suppliers, clients and staff think if they even think that there is a problem with your computer system? They know you do not have stock control, what if they know you do not have tills that balance, what if they know you do not check your supplier's invoices, etc., etc.

Security is very much a feeling. If you give a bad feeling, it will become a reality.

If it is no good fix it, ASAP but do it quietly.

For those handling magazines, the biggest problem, I suspect for many will be the massive bill shock for the March GG statement. It will have all the deliveries they used to get from Network and none of the returns. Those returns will be on the Network statement.

The other problem is, although I do believe that the GG systems are better than Network, it will take time for them to get the supply figures right. You will need to check where the purple circles are below while you are stock receiving the supply figures closely as you invoice magazines in, order any shortages and instantly return any oversupply to keep the March bill as low as possible.

Technically for those on XChangeIT, the changeover we do not see many problems as XChangeIT uses the barcode which will not change.

Please click here for the details. .

For those not on XChangeIT, who as such are manually invoicing, there will be problems. While invoicing you will need to look up, each magazine by description and then add the new supplier/supplier code in. This will take time. This is why some are talking at the moment of doing an early cull of Network magazines. The other reason is that many are complaining of what Network are suddenly now sending. However, we can help as here you will find a dictionary file of the GG and Network codes. There are two versions of the file as the B version has two rows for the Woman’s Day and the Woman’s Weekly as Gotch is going to have different product codes for the Metro and Country Newsagents.

I suggest you download them, and once you find which one is applicable to you, use it as a reference.

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Note some people have asked us if there is an extra $495 charge from us like others are charging their users. The answer is NO. Our users are not getting charged.