Now you are collecting information for your business for the end of the financial year. In the business world, the clock has been reset so many will talk to you, for example, your suppliers, accountant, bank and insurance broker etc.

It is time to consider what happened this year, see what has gone well and what has not gone well. More importantly, it is time to start planning for the new year.

These figures are up to 10 June 2020

Before I looked at this, I would say we were worse than we are now. Going by these figures Australia’s economy and labour market are not bad. We have economic growth and our unemployment is better than compatible countries overseas.

The challenge retailers now face now is uncertainty. Consumer shopping habits have changed, for example, how now people are moving around the shop. In the past people wanted to browse, now you need to get their attention in a few seconds from the distance. This is the main comment people told me from yesterday's post.

What we need to do is see how shopping behavioural patterns have changed

We will be having a webinar on your EOFY reporting which we would love for you to attend. It will be hosted through Facebook Live, on Monday 6th July, at 10 am!

We will cover:

• Profit / Loss 
• Stock Valuations
• Outstanding Customer Debts
• Outstanding Subagent Debts

-General Discussion

Due to COVID-19, we all do a lot more work from home. To many, it is a new normal.

Now there are some of the expenses of working from home can be claimed too. 

Some valid deductions would be on your home computer. You can look at such as its desk, your computer chair, electricity, carpets, lighting, etc.

Now you have done your stocktake.

It is a simple calculation for you or your accountant to do to determine your stock shrinkage. 

(stock shrinkage)= (opening stock) - (closing stock)+(purchases) -(Total sales at cost price) 

Generally what we do now calculate it as a percentage of sales, so it becomes = (stock shrinkage)/(Total sales) x 100% 

This question gets asked a lot now particularly as now many people are working more from home and the need for a home/office printer has increased.

As a rule, I tend to recommend for home an all-in-one (MULTIFUNCTION) printer, as these print, scan, and fax. These, however, are getting a bit rare as who faxes nowadays but they are still available if you look for them. Of course, if you like so many do not have a landline now at home, its not much use to you the fax part but if faxing is very important to you then you may want to investigate some fax services that are available.

Afterpay Touch networks announced the closure of its virtual product section on the 30th June!

So started a mad rush, to get ePay integrated solution implemented in time. This turned out to be a continual source of frustration for all.

Come this time of year, at the start of the financial year, is the best time in my experience if you are thinking of upgrading your EFTPOS to do so.

This is a very good offer, 

They are waiving account keeping fees for 6 months for new to bank customers. All existing Westpac clients on PC-EFTPOS and standalone can be converted over to an advance integrated EFTPOS system.

Now is a perfect time to make a stocktake sale.

Please keep it simple and focused.

Concentrate on the stock that you need to clear. Then place them in a prominent position with a sign. Make sure that people outside your shop in front can see your stocktake sale sign.

Want some ideas of what stock to use, this is the report to use.

Go to Register reports > Stock > Slow-moving Stock lines

Now we are all doing what we can about COVID-19. 

We do the deep cleaning.
We set up sanitation stations.
We limit the number of people in our areas.
Enforce social distancing.

 We know we are all in this together.

Want to know what is happening now in your shop, in seconds? 

This is a quick and easy way to get the figures.

Go to Register reports.

In the Sales section select 

"Dissection Sales/Profitability for a given period" which is here

Fill out the dates you want, and you get a report that looks like this.

A hard drive is a mechanical device, and it can fail at any time. It does not have to be internal, e.g. overvoltage, high temperature, vibration etc. can do it. 

Today many people are upgrading their main computers to SSD drives for speed. Still, they tend to forget that all hard drives degrade with use.

Yet, it is true that you can see many problems long before they can cause failure. This is true of the SSDs and the older hard drives.

A psychologist will say that it takes 2 - 8 months to create a new pattern, behaviour or routine.

It looks like this.

COVID-19 first started in a significant way in Australia since late February. We are now moving into the fifth month.  This is long enough to make the current buying trends entrenched in consumers’ everyday behaviours.

Turning off your computers at night has one immediate benefit, it saves electricity. Generally many never switch off their main computer as it is used after hours. 

The problem here is that happens is that sometimes a windows computer needs a reboot. If this reboot does not happen, weird things can happen.

Integrated weight scales do save many businesses time and money! 

As the scale and our POS software communicate, it is much faster. You also avoid many mistakes caused by the double-entry of figures. 

We do have a terrific range of such scales.

There are two basic types we market.

Today with all these automatic imports and transfers, it is likely that errors are in your GST rates in your stock. Sometimes these are due to rounding errors which can cause some weird figures. Often they are attributable to mistakes made by you or your suppliers. Sometimes it is due to some GST ruling which may or may not apply to you. In any case, you need to examine these rates. 

Here is a quick way of doing it, that will take you seconds to do.

Our software will do it for you. You do *NOT* need to go to another computer and load a select backup to get the report or figures you need.

- You do not need a unique backup for a date.

You can find the figure you need for any date with your current information.

Go to the report you want. Now in the options on the top, you will see an *AS AT DATE* (green arrow below). Enter the required date. Now our software will calculate the information you need for that date.

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In Victoria, face mask sales were high already, but now they have exploded. I have a client that sold out in hours his whole stock on the day it was annouced. Talking to a few of my clients interstate, they are selling well there too. 

Sometimes we see stock sales, still going on long after they are over. This, of course, costs the shop money.  Administrative errors are one of the major causes of stock loss.

If you see this as a problem in your shop, here is a quick way to check.

Go to register reports> stock

There you will find a report "Stock on Sale Between a Given Period"

Now we will keep it quick and straightforward here.

Now what I selected here this month and ticked "Show all within period"

I got quite a few enquiries about my post on marketing face masks, so after talking to a few people here are my thoughts.

The spread of coronavirus is driving the demand for face masks. 

"The global face mask market size was valued at $1,523.0 million in 2019, and is estimated to reach $ 2,455.4 million by 2027 with a compound annual growth rate of 4.4% from 2021 to 2027."

In shops, you often need to put computers into small places. If you think about it, a computer often in a shop is sitting on the most valuable space. Its the prime selling area. So it is great that we can get them smaller. I am sure many of you will be shocked how small we can build computers. Yes, we build computers, as most point of sale systems do need unique computer configurations.

Check out these hard drives.