We are still getting a lot of calls about the problem of downloading Hallmark invoices through XChangeIT as a result of the partnership code for Hallmark, being changed from Hallmark to HM. I am sure someone has made a mess of it, as there is no reason for the change. Interestingly enough the XChangeIT support staff did not know about it either, why no one bothered to notify them, even after we released details of the problem is beyond me too.

The ones that use the email service of Hallmark rather then XChangeIT have reported no problems.

One of the unique functions in our software at least in our market space, is that our rostering system can align how many people come to the shop. Most systems that I am aware of can tell you only how many sales you made say between 2:00pm and 3:00pm last Tuesday. Our system can tell you how many visitors came into the shop. This solves a common problem of the shop being understaffed, as they just not have time to communicate with prospective shoppers as they are overwhelmed. This results in potential shoppers lost as they walk out because no-one had time to talk to them. Technically in retail, it is called bouncing. No-doubt you can add to the cost of the lost sale, the shop reputation too as these lost shoppers would not be impressed.

I know of one shop using our system that discovered that its bounce rate was higher on Wednesday and Thursday afternoons. As a result they put on more staff then. The system more than paid for itself as they gained a few percentage points on sales as a result.

On the 1st September 2014, remember to update your tobacco prices as there is another round of 12.5% excise increases.

Although I am a big critic of much of the Australian government's policies relating to tobacco, I do believe that the price rise does decrease the sale of legal tobacco and its a good way for the government to collect more revenue, what is done for the illegal stuff is a question I do not believe anyone can answer!

I was asked is it possible to mark a magazine so if that magazine arrives which they are sure will not sell, it will not process. We call this "Do not receive." You can either do it in stock maintenance, and in stock received. See the red arrow.

If the magazine comes again, the system knows not to process it. From now on, in our system, if that magazine arrives, it will be automatically instant return.

I have to admit that I have always found the future interesting, years ago I remember going to the first newsagency of the future meeting. It was hosted by Nextra. Well, what is going to happen? It is something we all want to know including Woolworths So they commissioned a study with a demographer and a Professor of Technology of shopping 20 years from now will be like. I think you will find it interesting.

It is available here.

We finally got confirmation today that week 1 in 2015 for GG will be 31/12/2014 and not 7/1/2015 as we were originally told. A patch will be sent out to adjust the progressive recall schedule in your software.

The main reason for this is to bring GG into the ISO standard which the Australian government, and most Australian business use.

This is a small step forward, but it is a step forward.

Here is a tip that may save you money, a client of ours a few days ago was working on his laptop when he raised his elbow, hit the cup of tea he was drinking and sent it flying into the laptop. This is hardly new, less than a week before another client of ours did the same with a cup of Coke, he was drinking. As water and laptops do not go well together in both cases about a $1,000 was lost.

What I suggest you consider getting for a few dollars, a silicone waterproof keyboard protector. These are transparent and quite comfortable to use. They effectively prevented liquid getting into the keyboard and so damaging the computer.

They are also easy to clean, much easier than a keyboard.

I use them.

In the reporting section, you have a favourite's section on the top. This is so you can place your favourites reports all in one section. No more going from a screen to another screen.

To use it, right-click on any of the reports, then add it to the Favourites Section.

Now all your favourite reports will be in one convenient place!

Immigrants moving to Sydney under a popular business visa are now not able to qualify by starting a restaurant, grocery store or newsagency. This does not apply yet outside of Sydney but I suspect that restrictions on ­people who migrate to Australia if they agree to run a business or invest money in Australia will tightened up. You can read more about it here.

A similar situation occurred two weeks ago, when lotto in Victoria blocked two newsagency sales on the grounds that the proposed buyers did not know English well enough.

The Monday to Friday Australian cover price will rise on the 1st September 2014 to $2.50. An automatic patch will be sent out to update the prices and commissions.

There seems to be some confusion over cost price. In this case, a classical case of confusion occurred. I think it is important as it shows how easy it is to get confused.

What happened is, we released some information on the benefits on our system which among other things showed a series of cost prices.

One item had a wholesale price of $13.20 attracted attention. Its cost price was listed as $11.22 after a 15% discount. Another storekeeper looked at the figure at announced proudly that he was paying only $10.80 with a 10% discount.

Now who is getting the better deal?

At first, you would think the second person as he is paying is $10.80. On second, you would think that the two stories do not make sense as a 15% discount should result in a lower price than a 10%. So maybe the supplier is doing a shifty on the first storekeeper.

However, the answer to all three questions is NO.

The second storekeeper is paying more.

The discounts do make sense.

The supplier is not doing a shifty.

Okay have a think and see if you can figure out what is happening? Answer below, do not look.

What has been forgotten is GST The first storekeeper is paying $11.22 INCL GST add a 15% discount, and you get $13.20. The second is paying $10.80, add GST, and you get $11.88, INCL GST now add a 10% discount, and you will get $13.20.

If you guessed this, I congratulate you.

This example shows how easy it is to mess up pricing. This is why our system uses only EX GST costs.

Many of you today reported problems with downloading Hallmark invoices with XChangeIT. I am not sure whose fault it is, but someone did not bother to warn XChangeiT client or us, for that matter, but there has been a change in the partnership code for Hallmark, instead of Hallmark it is now HM. It would have been lovely if someone had notified everyone before they did it. If we had known we could have released an automatic fix which would have saved our clients a lot of problems today.

Really, there is no good news to report here according to the latest figures from the Audit Bureau of Circulations (ABC) which take in the months of April to June 2014. The same trend as last quarter seems to be holding that the bigger publications are losing in less percentage terms then the smaller publications. For example Bauer's Woman's Day went down 5.0%, although Pacific Magazines seemed to do better overall, their New Idea dropped by 2.90 per cent which was the best performer in Weekly Magazines. That's Life also a Pacific Publication was down 4.4%. The smaller publications in comparison went down much more. I would not be surprised if much of the loss is due to many retailers not handling them anymore. If they are not selling well why put them up? Famous went down 22.4%. Zoo Weekly which posting a decline of 33.7 per cent, I doubt Zoo can afford such a loss. I would expect with the current trends, many of the smaller weekly magazines to go.

Well, it does not look good at all, the biggest newspaper in Australia; The Sunday Telegraph was down 9.8 per cent on last year's figures. The Melbourne Age down 20 per cent, now that would hurt. News Corp overall did not do so badly about 9.5% down; West Australia 8.0% down, Courier Mail were very happy to be only down 2.4%, Advertiser 9.4% down, Mercury 7.4% down and the Financial Review 7.6% down. One issue that does seem to be coming out of these surveys is that Australians are sharing more their newspaper and magazine so buying less but reading them more.

What happened today is that XChangeIT sent an invoice with an incorrect barcode. Doing the right thing, Network notified the XChangeIT users with an email of the error. It then asked the users to manually correct the situation.

Why should users today correct it manually? My windows program, my antivirus program; my data mining program, etc. does not ask me to manually fix their software They all send down patchs automatically and the fix the problem often without me even knowing of the problem.

This is what we do too rather then having over a thousands of people getting notes like this and then manually changing the system, we get one programmer to write a script to fix it. That is why we and everyone else long ago stopped sending such information sheets for maintenance issues like this.

Surely, what is needed by XChangeIT is to make such a script system too.

We have tested and released the latest copy of the Hallmark catalogue file. It is available in download area of our website stock files.

For this and other supplier files please visit here

With the AVG antivirus, what happened is that people who do not have the full version, but think they are clever and clicked for the full version. What they got was a trial version of the full program. This causes problems on a network. As such many have today with the latest round of AVG updates their network blocked so causing weird things to happen with their software.

It should not be allowed in AVG or at least AVG should issue a warning message. Anyway please use the appropriate version for the AVG update. If you do not have the full version, do not click for a full version.

It is an interesting question that is being raised now in a recent trade show. Many people reported to us that their existing system which used to run fast is now running slow. Too much data. Even their end of day reports takes an unacceptable amount of time to run and print. What they have done is hit a performance bottleneck. It is not only reports although reporting is often one of the areas it is first noticed. Other parts of the software also run slow. The simple fact is that these items are taking too long to run because their software is using poor data engines. As the amount of data the business has collected has outgrown their software’s ability. They now have two choices either switch to a better system like ours that uses Microsoft SQL or delete data.

We are currently looking for a new helpdesk support person. We are for this position, particularly interested in someone who has pharmacy experience. Details are available at seek.

Update: In response to public demand the video is here, I will see about putting it into seek to. Enjoy!!!

If you use XChangeIT, and you are having some problems scanning John Sand Cards, it probably because the latest invoices are not yet into the system. So you need to chase up with XChangeIT what happened to these invoices.