With hundreds of users of our Point of Sale software now processing eftpos transactions through the Tyro broadband eftpos interface, we are building excellent data on the business benefits.

Tyro is saving our retail users, including our own retail businesses, time and money with a faster and mroe secure solution.  Since our software communicates directly with the EFTPOS terminal, we reduce internal fraud and errors.

Here are the key benefits our customers tell us about:

• Speed and efficiency (transaction time less than 4 seconds)
• Lower costs (no phone line, no admin fees, free paper rolls)
• Low integration set up costs
• Low merchant service fees negotiated by Tower Systems
• Reduced internal and shop front fraud
• Secure, real-time online reporting

The Tower Systems / Tyro integration offers improved efficiency and accuracy - as we are seeing ourselves in our own retail businesses.  Yes, we used this ourselves to prove its worth first.

Theft in retail businesses often relies on regular work and operational patterns being followed: the banking being done at the same time, the refund policy being lax when managed by some staff, checking the cash banked back to takings being lax, the bins always being empties by the same person and so on.

By regularly changing processes, a business can make theft harder to perpetrate.

I know of a retail business which uncovered employee theft by changing the bin emptying process.  I know another business which uncovered theft by changing the people who balanced the cash at the end of the day.  I know of another retail business which cut theft by requiring the owner to approve all refund requests.

Theft in retail, customer theft and employee theft, can be cut by setting policies, adhering to them and ensuring that all employees adhere to them.

Our Point of sale software can also help retailers cut theft thanks to a range of public and not so public facilities which protect the interests of the business owners.  These facilities, like business policies, require setting.  Once done, the Tower Systems software monitors activity and can warn you of potential misbehaviour.

Theft kills retail businesses.  It is easier to stop than many think.

A newsagent called me earlier this week to share the news that he had caught an employee stealing from the business thanks to the Tyro broadband eftpos integrated within our Point of Sale software.

Each manual step in processing a sale which we remove is one less opportunity for fraud against the business. In this instance, the Tyro eftpos integration removed a loophole in local store practice which was being exploited to the considerable cost of the owner.

A couple of months after the introduction of Tyro in the newsagency, the smart Tyro reconciliation showed up the fraud and set the owner on a goal of fixing the expensive problem.

Our Tyro broadband eftpos integration is a smart move for our retailers because it delivers financially rewarding benefits:

• Cuts keystrokes. The amount of the sale is transferred to the pin pad.
• Cuts mistakes. . Less keystrokes means less mistakes.
• Reduces fraud opportunity. . With less manual intervention and a direct from the POS to bank processing there is less chance for someone to steal.
• Faster processing. With fewer keystrokes and lightening fast approval (less than 2 seconds) customers are happier and staff are happier. Everyone wins.
• Lower cost. The Tyro solution usually costs considerably less than a back supplied eftpos terminal.

While out theft check service helps uncover theft, our tyro integration helps retailers establish more checks and balances in their own businesses and thereby mitigate the costs of the problem.

We are helping a retail business cut theft by installing two in-store screens showing live surveillance footage in more than one location.  We are feeding the vision to one of the screens wirelessly - this enables us to place the screen in a location which might otherwise not be accessible by cable.

We know from theft reduction specialists that the risk of identification and or capture will deter many criminals.  These screens show that you have vision of them.

The DVR unit which manages vision from all of the cameras overlays this data with sales data from our point of sale software.

The work we are doing for our customer is crucial because of a serious theft problem which is hurting the business.

Last month, we quietly released enhanced security facilities in our point of sale software.  The new facilities focus on reducing employee and customer fraud against businesses using the enhanced software.

Months in development, the enhaanced security facilities are truly state of the art and unique to our software in our marketplaces.  Our work has been done in association with experts in retail security.

We know that fraud / theft in retail costs between 3% and 5% of turnover.   Risk of discovery is key to reducing the cost to a business.  Our enhanced facilities provide the business owner with better facilities with which to discover a problem.

Security is big business in retail. CCTV systems, tag based security gates and other measures are used to try and cut theft in retail. Our retail management software has excellent security facilities which, without any capital expense, can significantly cut the cost of theft in any retail business.

We regularly host online security briefings for business owners to explain how to use the security facilities to cut employee and customer theft in a retail business. In fact, we have another of these briefings this week, on May 12. Access is free – book at our website: support / user meetings.

By engaging with the security facilities in our software, our users can demonstrate to employees and customers that the business takes a professional approach to risk management. This alone will reduce the impact of theft on the business.

Our POS software integrated security camera system has helped another of our customers address a theft problem.  While many systems claim to be integtrated with point of sale software, few are.

In this latest incident, we were able to help our customer catch someone scamming the business with bogus refund requests.  While the amount involved this time was relatively small, providing a consistent process for retail staff to follow can save a business thousands of dollars a year.

We are close to releasing an enhanced security bridge between our retail management software and the security camera system with which we link which will enhance further the Tower Systems security offer.

We are about to start live testing of a significantly enhanced security bridge.  This bridge between our software and smart image recording technology is exclusive in our software - it enables our retailers to search image footage by transaction type, content and staff member.  This reduces the time spend reviewing footage in search on any event of concern.

We first released our secruity bridge six years ago and it has undergone significant change since.  The latest changes take the marriage of security management facilities and point of sale facilities to a new level.  We are grateful to technology developers overseas who have provided deep access to their image capturing systemto enable our new bridge to be built.

Once the in-field tests are completed we will release the bridge for general use.

Tyro is saving our retail users, including our own retail businesses, time and money with a better credit, debit, gift and loyalty solution.

Integrated EFTPOS means the point of sale device communicates directly with the EFTPOS terminal, reducing internal fraud and keystroke errors.

Tyro’s unique internet-based platform will improve your workflow and loweryour costs with:

• Speed and efficiency (transaction time less than 4 seconds)
• Low operational costs (no phone line, no admin fees, free paper rolls)
• Low integration set up costs
• Low merchant service fees
• Reduced internal and shop front fraud
• Secure, real-time online reporting

yro gives retailers a choice away from the big banks and we like the competition this drives.  You don’t have to change your existing banking relationship to join Tyro.

The Tower Systems / Tyro integration offers improved efficiency and accuracy - as we are seeing ourselves in our own retail businesses.  yes, we used this ourselves to prove its worth first.

For more information or a free savings analysis, call Tyro on 02-8907 1751 or email sales@tyro.com.

We yesterday completed a review of the handling and storage of customer credit card details processed through our point of sale software given the current tightening of security standards being driven by Australian banks.  Our software meets these tight standards. 

Our software, porcesses and standards have been passed by Australian banks as well as other international parties whose standards we must meet given some of the transactions we process. 

That we meet today’s standards including the PCI DSS standard offers peace of mind to current Tower Systems customers and prospective customers.

We have received several calls over the last week from retailers using our point of sale integrated security system reporting that our technology had avoided expensive theft in the business.  By providing visual certainty around counter activities we are able to help retailers reduce payouts on false refund claims and other activities. 

Given the news of fraud by shoppers in the media over the last couple of weeks our technology is proving itself.  We have also received some excellent feedback to guide plans for 2009 in this area.

The risk of getting caught is key to cutting theft in retail. Our integrated security / point of sale solution provides greater certainty of capture. As the photo shows, we record items being sold and list them over the vision of the sale. We have offered this link for many years. Our own experience is that the link pays for itself.

Beyond cutting theft, our link also eliminates disputes about amount tendered, when an item was purchased and other queries at the counter. These facilities boost confidence of team members when dealing with difficult customers.

In the back of the shop one can monitor the 8, 16 and even more cameras on the management screen. This is also where we can search the vision based on stock items and other criteria - for when we need to check when an was last sold.

With theft in retail costing between 3% and 5% of sales and a professional security system costing around .5% of gross sales, the financial benefits the point of sale / security system integrated package are obvious.

It is difficult to engage retailers in a discussion about theft. Most prefer to think it is not happening in their business. Our theft management marketing is multi layered and ranges from a public service announcement approach to a focus on strength. here is the cover of our latest postcard:

The security bridge, the link between our software and the CCTV technology is exclusive to our software. It is the smart way to bring vision and data together in a form which reduces the time managers and owners spend on managing theft in a retail business.

In addition to the theft management enhancements I blogged about earlier this week, we are close to finalising an enhanced link with the security camera (CCTV) software our point of Sale software exclusively links with.

This interface dramatically cuts the time it takes to uncover customer and employee fraud since you can navigate the footage by event, in-store and remotely if you’re not running the business locally.

We were the first software company in each of our markets to provide such a smart and direct CCTV link. The power for the retailer is obvious from the first incident checked. From tracking change given to when an item was last bought to who handled the end of shift balancing, this link makes it easy for the retailer to see who did what and when.

Key to the link is that it can be accessed from anywhere.

we are proud to bring bring business theft management tools to small business retailers. Much of what we have developed here has grown out of our own experience operating six retail businesses.

Newsagents complain about the theft of porn, computer and craft magazines. They tend to pick on these because they are the magazines which leave a residue if opened – a plastic pack or some other cover. My experience from years of looking at theft in newsagencies is that these categories are not the most common stolen. The categories stolen most often are women’s weeklies, women’s monthlies, cooking and fashion.

Knowing what titles are stolen is easy. Since our newsagency management software tracks all magazines coming in, what is sold and what it returned at the end of the on-sale period, we can easily identify what has been stolen. This is the number on which newsagents need to focus – every week when they do returns.

By knowing what is being stolen, newsagents are able to take steps to reduce the cost to the business. It’s why we make it very easy to identify the titles and the quantity as part of the routine of managing the business.

Smart newsagents who use these tools to their fullest are able to cut the cost of theft in their businesses.

Thanks to feedback from several of our customers who have experience theft in their businesses we are strengthening our retail theft management tools.

From managing a robbery through to managing employee fraud we are enhancing our retail software offering.

Each case of theft is different and it is through talking with people who have experienced this that we are able to find ways to improve how we help our customers manage this if it happens to them.

I am not about to blog details here of the changes since some are so advanced that we want to enjoy the benefits of being first to market.  Also, one change involves interaction outside the retail business and a joint announcement will be more appropriate.

Our current theft tools are robust and proven – we have some convictions in the bag – the next generation of enhancements will take is to a new place and better equip our retailers to hand le situations in ways designed to minimize their losses and to bring the perpetrators to account.

Employee and customer theft in retail costs hundreds of millions of dollars a year. As this report at ninemsn shows, everyone pays. Here are the top five tips which, if followed, will reduce the impact of theft on your retail business:

Track all sales by employee - use a code or a staff card.

Scan everything you sell - train team members on how to scan so ‘free’ items fall out.

Implement a returns policy - make sure you sold any item a customer returns to the store. This is very easy in good software.

Balance to within $5 - make team members accountable for sloppy system use.

Spot stock take - understand the shoplifting problem in your store. This will drive your action.

For a more comprehensive list of actions around employee theft, check out our free advice sheet.

It is easy to reduce fraud by customers at the sales counter with our software. If someone requests a refund without a receipt, our software can quickly verify in seconds whether they purchased the item when they say they did. By using this facility, most fraud attempts will be stopped. Sales staff can check without the customer even knowing what is being done.

This may seem like motherhood stuff - talking about proper checks to validate a refund request. Sadly, it is necessary.

At the small business end of retail, where personal customer service is critical, such refund requests are often processed without checking. This is why small businesses are often targeted by scammers out for some quick cash.

The technology can be used as a friendly (to the business) barrier to refunds or it can at least be used to slow the process and thereby weed out the scammers.