Running a business can be stressful, especially when you have lots of moving parts. Staying on top of everything can sometimes seem impossible but one thing you should always keep track of is expense management. Real-time expense management allows you to see how profitable your business is without digging through the invoices. It saves time, money and more importantly, it reduces managerial stress.

6 reasons why you should actively track business expenses

1. Improve money management
2. Be better prepared for tax season
3. Identify bad spending habits and create an effective budget
4. Make business forecasting easier
5. Create financial awareness and ask important questions
6. Improve workflow

1. Improve Money Management

One of the biggest reasons businesses fail is the lack of understanding or poor execution of money management. As your business grows, it’s not as straightforward as buying materials, creating your product and selling them to a customer; often, there are costs such as taxes and rent to consider. By not considering these costs, your profit margin is significantly lower, and it will harm your business model. Keeping a record of your expenses and income will remove the guestimation and accurately balance your business.

While you could set up a spreadsheet, it might be better to consider accrual or cash accounting. Cash accounting, put simply, acknowledges revenue and expenses when they are paid (not billed). A professional accountant generally undertakes accrual accounting, so it specifically reflects your business activity.

2. Prepare for Tax Season

For business owners, there are different rules during tax season. One of the best things about expense tracking is that you are able to identify what is tax-deductible on the income statement and account for it. On your balance sheet, you will also be able to list taxes as a current liability to know exactly what taxes you have paid each month. By tracking your expenses, tax time becomes less stressful because you are no longer running around looking for receipts and invoices.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

3. Identify Bad Spending Habits

When you are actively managing your expenses, you will become more aware of your bad spending habits. You will be able to see how beneficial each expense is to your business and identify all costs. By managing your spending, you will also be able to set limits on certain expenses and prioritise your expenses in order of importance.

Surprisingly, one of the biggest benefits to expense management for businesses is they have detailed documents of exactly where their money is going. Some common expenses that are often not thought about by managers or business owners include marketing, utilities, employees salaries or wages and office supplies. By tracking your expenses and understanding what you are spending money on, you are less likely to waste money on manufacturing costs and will budget more effectively.

4. Easier Business Forecasting

An element of running a business is to be able to predict and forecast future profitability accurately. It is a way to attract investors or potentially grow your business. If you do not track your expenses, your forecasts may be falling short of your goals. By tracking your spending and setting up an effective budget, you will not only be able to forecast profitability more confidently but also be able to market yourselves to new suppliers or investors.

5. Financial Awareness and Important Questions

One of the biggest reasons you track your business expenses is that you become aware of all your expenses. Once you become aware of fixed costs, one-off payments, and variable costs, you can set limits and reminders within your organisation on their spending behaviours. To get started in setting limits and practising financial awareness, you need to consider the following questions:

• Are you spending more than you bring in?
• Where do you spend the most money?
• Are you overspending in areas?
• Are you getting the best deal from your suppliers?
• If needed, where can you cut costs?

6. Improve Workflow

Finally, the biggest benefit to tracking your business expenses is that you will be able to improve your processes, so they are more efficient and account for the cost involved. Understanding all of the costs involved in running a business means that it is easier and more effective to manage your contractors and suppliers and organise your employees.

What’s Next?

Now that you know why you need to track your expenses, you will need to consider how you will track these expenses. There are many expense tracking applications and software models available, so it’s important to do your research into which one will work best for your business. At Acumen Computer Systems, we can provide your business with an integrated point of sales system that can improve your workflow and work with your expense tracking system to provide you with accurate inventory management, sales reporting and account keeping. If you need a new point of sales system to help you grow your business, get in touch with our team by calling 1800 167 489.

In 2020, the world changed unexpectedly and as a business owner, the word pivot has probably been overused in the last year. But like every other business, you probably have had to pivot to cater to where your customers are and how they are shopping. As Australia begins to return to normal, some of your customers may return to in-store purchase but many will continue to shop or view your catalogue online.

In December, NAB Market Research indicated that customers are less anxious to buy your product or service post-COVID, however, the same customers are generally more informed about your practices and more careful about who they buy from. This means many businesses have seen greater demand and greater sales as their business ethos aligns with their target customers.

That’s not the only change customers have made though. Customers have also shifted in how they pay and when they pay for goods and services. These changes were already in effect prior to 2020, but after spending 12 months at home there has been a significant increase in adopting these changes. Here are some things to look out for.

Alternative Payment Methods Are Increasing In Popularity

Alternative payment methods generally refer to payments other than cash or card. One of the most common alternative payments is a split payment between a gift card and a credit card. Many POS systems have built-in a designated function for this alternate payment method. However, we are beginning to see more trends using alternative payment methods. For example;

1. Increase in Buy Now Pay Later schemes both in-store and online

Buy now pay later intermediaries such as ZipPay allow for your customers to smooth out their expenses and pay back the credit owed over a 30 or 60 day period. Unlike account-based customers though, you get paid upfront. Industry research has shown that this shift is not just great for customers but businesses as well with up to 30% more sales and the average order value increasing by up to 70%.

2. People are preferring to use their eWallet when purchasing products or services

We noticed preCOVID there was a surge for people to tap and go with their watch, phone or other compatible device but since COVID people are opting to use their eWallet online as well as in-store. 42% of customers prefer to pay with ApplePay and GooglePay than hand over credit card details.

3. More and more people are exclusively using credit cards and digital payments

At Acumen, we have noticed this trend towards becoming a cashless society for many years in Australia. But lockdown pushed this notion even further as more and more of our clients began to opt-out of using cash to prevent the spread of COVID19. This not only forced their customers to use a digital payment but many customers found it easier to track their spending.

Predicted Permanent Changes To The Way Your Customer Is Paying

Some of these changes won’t last forever, especially with the upcoming ASIO and ACCC internal review into buy now pay later schemes. However industry experts predict some permanent changes based on current customer behaviours, the two biggest changes are:

• Online retail trade is expected to rise to account for at least 30% of all sales by 2030, in 2020 online sales accounted for a total of 13% of all retail trade.
• There will continue to be a need for a digital presence, either through a website or eCommerce platform, as it is expected that 63% of people will continue to research the company online before deciding to purchase.

Good Things For Local Business

The big winners out of the change in customer behaviour are local businesses, as people are more confident in spending within their region than purchasing from overseas. In fact, 36% of people spent more locally in 2020 than in the previous 5 years allowing local businesses to boom.

One of the more recent studies showed customers still confidently headed to their local hardware store for their DIY or commercial supplies as they wanted the whole customer experience, sausage sizzle included. Customers noted that their local hardware stores were generally more knowledgeable about their needs than companies on the internet and were more helpful sometimes going as far as to provide insider tips to projects.

What Does Your Payment Set Up Look Like?

At Acumen, we are here to help you drive your business by providing simple solutions to complex problems. Our systems can help you develop the perfect customer trends through insights from purchase behaviours and other custom reports. With an Acumen system, you have the ability to change payment methods and use split payment methods for every customer and we provide you with ongoing support should you come across an issue. If you are looking for a point of sales system that is also a business success tool. Choose Acumen Computer Sales.

It all started with an idea and now you are running a successful business. There are many challenges to running a business but one of the biggest challenges is deciding on the right time to grow your business. There are many factors to consider and often there are risks involved, but if you pull it off, you’ll be more successful than ever.

So what does it mean to grow your business?

Many people consider growing your business to be expanding to a new location but that isn’t always the case. Growing your business can mean many things, including sustained growth in customers or delivering new products or services. When you grow your business, it generally means you are going to need more POS terminals. Acumen Computer Systems specialises in providing growing businesses with custom POS solutions designed for greater business success.

What should I consider when growing my business?

It can be an exciting time,  but it is imperative that you keep your business objectives in mind. Here are a few helpful tips when growing your business.

1. Know your customers

Customers drive business and without them you would not be in a position to consider growing your business. The very last thing you want to do is lose valuable customers. So get to know your customers, paint an exact picture of what they look like, how they shop and how they would benefit from your business growth. These key insights may even shape how you grow and market your business to future customers. For example, tradies who are time poor would benefit from an online store and order form that they can fill out on their phone.

2. Invest in professional development

As your business grows, you and your team will need to upskill to better your processes and be on top of technological changes. Professional development also allows you to grow skillfully and for your team to understand and have input on bigger business objectives. For example, a team-building day or short courses are just some of the ways you can upskill your employees.

3. Consider your operating costs

After getting to know your customers and investing time in professional development, you should evaluate your operating costs. Operating costs can be the biggest hindrance to growing your business. Try to keep operating costs down as much as possible by investing only in necessary equipment and services that will improve internal processes and customer satisfaction. For example, if you are opening a new store make sure to buy more POS terminals so you don’t end up short at your current location, but only buy as many as you need.

4. Seek to improve your customer service

When you get to know your customers, you will most likely also get to know what they like and dislike about your products, services and sales process. With this new information, you will be able to implement and refine processes that will better serve your customers and potentially attract more business.

5. Set data-based benchmarks

Business growth is a dream of every business and many businesses fail every year because they grow their business without insight into their customers, shopping behaviours, internal processes or operating costs.

Your POS system, financial statements, website traffic and social media analytics can give you insight into your current position, trends, employee close rates and what is doing well. These metrics can minimise the risks of growing your business and help you set quantifiable benchmarks to achieve before taking the next steps. It is important when you set these benchmarks that they are realistic and are reviewed regularly to help you stay on track.

6. Utilise your unique selling proposition (USP)

How are you different from your competitors? What makes your business so popular? Understanding your unique selling proposition can help you decide how to position your business for growth. A USP is not just about the price of your products or the location of your store, but how you position your product in the marketplace. By reminding your customers of your level of quality, superior product or customer service offering, you can re-engage your current customer base and can get prospective customers excited too.

Choose the right point of sales

Not every point of sales system is built the same and while it may be convenient to go to Officeworks and purchase a POS system off the shelf it may not be the best option for you. You need to consider how you operate and how you can streamline your processes to assist your business growth.

To get started you should:

1. Outline the needs of the business: What do you need the POS system to do?
2. Determine where, when and how you will use a point of sale system
3. Consider what software you use: Xero, Magento, Linkly, Shopify etc.
4. Decide what hardware you need: Receipt printer, terminals, tablets, scanners. How many of each do you need?
5. Ensure that the system you are considering can keep your sales process smooth.

Are you growing your business?

If the answer is yes, consider Acumen POS. Acumen POS specialise in providing custom solutions for growing businesses. We are constantly looking for new ways to better our systems to enable greater customer satisfaction, retention and improved stock management. Our latest guide outlines how we help businesses succeed, to download it fill out the form below or get in contact with us by calling 1800 228 636.

A POS system is no longer just a cash register. Point of sales solutions are constantly evolving to help businesses achieve greater success. In the last couple of years, we have seen an influx in simple POS competitors and many of our newer clients have come to us following a bad experience where the system wasn’t right for them.

A simple POS system built for a 2021 business should at least be able to:

• Add inventory when purchasing
• Reduce inventory when selling
• Have a manual input system for changes during stocktake.

An Acumen POS system goes above and beyond these functions.

The Acumen Difference: More than POS

An Acumen POS system can complete all of the basic functions, but we go a step further to assist businesses in inventory and cost management.

Inventory

Inventory management is not just selling your final product but sourcing products, storing raw materials and on-selling additional services. This can get quite complex when a store has multiple departments or a business has multiple sites (factories and franchises included). Acumen is here to help you, our systems allow you to:

• Specify and Display Inventory: You can see exactly how much of a product you have in stock and where it is.
• Purchase Bulk and Sell Unique: The Acumen POS allows you to specify the units in which each Product is purchased as well as sold. For example, purchase by the box and sell individually or purchase by the roll and sell by the meter. We also allow you to toggle between these units when displaying your current inventory levels.
• Display Default Unit Type by Location: The Acumen POS allows you to specify a default unit for each inventory location. Your warehouse may want to default to display inventory levels as cartons/boxes, while your retail locations default to display inventory levels as single units.
• Input Minimum Orders: If a supplier has a minimum order spend or you want to save on purchasing, you can add that condition to the product, so you are buying products in bulk and not individually.
• Bundle Products into a Single Code: You can have a table and chairs special combo which you receive as a single product, but the inventory level of each of the “table” and “chairs” will be adjusted accordingly. You can then manage the inventory of these components, while also viewing how many “table and chair” combinations you have available based on the inventory levels of the components. At POS, you can sell the tables and chairs individually, or sell the table and chairs collection bundled together as a single product.
• Add Services to POS:  Sometimes it’s not a product you are selling but a service. With Acumen, you can class services within inventory so you don’t have -273 freight products available.

Product Types

There are various types of Product you can set up in the Acumen POS system.

• A Standard product is the base simple product, it can be purchased, sold, and inventory is tracked.
• A Service product can be purchased, sold, but inventory is not tracked. e.g. Freight
• A Consumable item can be purchased, but not sold. e.g. Office supplies.
• A Kit product is a collection of Standard products. e.g. 1 Table and 6 Chairs.
• A Factory product is a product that you manufacture. It can be sold, but not be purchased. It also contains a collection of Material products that are used to manufacture the item (as well as labour costs if required) and must be manufactured. Inventory is automatically managed once an item is manufactured to reduce the inventory of the Material products.
• A Material product can be purchased but not sold, and inventory is tracked. It is simply a component of a manufactured item.

Additional Product Types

The Acumen POS contains various other types of product handling that offer different behaviour and features including rental, serial numbered, and various combinations of those already listed above.

Cost Management

Sometimes cost management isn’t as straightforward as it seems. Your POS system should let you specify the base cost of a simple product, but just like inventory, sometimes costing can be complex. You want the lowest cost, and we make sure you’re getting it. After all, accurate costs mean accurate profit reporting.

• Discounts: Quantity discounts can be specified per Product in the Acumen POS system. 5% if you order 10 or more? 7% if you order 50 or more? We’ve got it covered.
• Individual Costs: If you have multiple suppliers of the same product, you can specify the costs per supplier so you have an accurate record of your costs.
• Date Based Promotional Costs: If a product is at a reduced rate for a period of time you can input this at the product level.
• Rebated Costs: Acumen allows you to maintain a Purchase price, used when placing the Order with your supplier, and also a Rebated Cost, that is used to obtain accurate profit reporting on your sales.

Questions to Ask When Considering POS for your Business

1. Are these products available at POS in their purchase unit?
2. Do you display available inventory levels as units or boxes?
3. Do you purchase them in a box and sell them individually?
4. Is there a minimum number of boxes you need to order in a single order?
5. Maybe you purchase the table and chairs from your supplier, but also sell the items individually?
6. Are there volume discounts available from the supplier?
7. Have multiple suppliers for the same Product?
8. Is the product available at a reduced rate for a period of time?
9. Does the supplier offer a rebate on your purchases?
10. Do you want to maintain your current mark-up and adjust the sell price of a Product when the cost changes?
11. Do you need to preview this new sell price so you can make necessary adjustments and print shelf labels before applying the change?
12. Have an excel spreadsheet of costs you want to import rather than enter them manually?

 

This is not a comprehensive list but if you answered yes to even one of these questions, you need to investigate complex POS systems like Acumen. At Acumen, if you need complex, we do complex, and we’re here to help you get it right the first time so that “it just works” at POS. Give us a call today. 

 

 

 

 

Pricing a product is all about making the most profit in the most sustainable way. It can be considered an art form, and while we wish for the days of $2 coffees again we know our coffee shops wouldn’t be making a profit if they did that.

Pricing products accurately is all about the strategies and tools we use. Many of us know if we end our prices in a 9 or 5 it increases sales, but that is not the only strategy you should employ. A pricing strategy should be data-driven and attuned to your market – some of this you can find within an Acumen POS System.

This guide will provide you with some key tips to create an effective pricing strategy.

1. Know your market

Pricing a product is not something you do on a  ‘feels right’ basis. It’s usually based around how established your products are, the demand for your products and what the market looks like. Key questions to ask are:

• What life cycle stage is the market in?
• What life cycle stage is your business in?
• Do you have direct competitors and who are they?

Understanding where you are in the market and who you are in direct competition with can help you understand the value of your products. For example, if you are in the infancy stage of your business and your customer base is in the growth stage, best practice is to have an introductory offer that is slightly lower than the market average to attract customers.

2. Know your customer base

Your products are unique to your customer base, so it is just as important as knowing your market to identify who your ideal customer is. Consider:

• What do they look like
• Their demographic: Age, Gender, Place they live
• What is their occupation
• How many kids do they have
• Hobbies and how much free time they have

Understanding who your ideal customer is will help you price your products accurately because you understand what they are willing to spend and how they will spend it. Another benefit to knowing your customer base is that you will be able to identify trends that will help you sell your product. For instance, if you are a hardware store, consider a Father’s Day sale or campaign.

3. Choose the best pricing technique

There are many pricing strategies to choose from but it depends on your business model as to which one is right for you. Here are a few of the best pricing techniques you can consider:

Cost-Based Pricing:  A simple pricing strategy that can help ensure you make a profit with each product sold. In this strategy, you add the cost of the product to a fixed percentage markup that you would need to make a profit (i.e. 15%). Usually, this is a pretty similar markup across your industry and is generally suited to businesses who move large quantities of products.

Market-Oriented Pricing: Competition-based pricing considers your costs, the quality of your product and your customer. This pricing strategy is great for new businesses entering an established market as you can determine if your product is of higher quality and if your customers are willing to pay a higher fee for a higher quality product.

Dynamic Pricing: This is a time-based pricing strategy which allows businesses to set flexible prices based on current market demand. This means you can change the price multiple times over a set period of time so that you do not miss valuable customers.

Manufacturer Suggested Retail: This is the suggested price wholesalers or manufacturers recommend you sell their products. This pricing strategy saves you time but will mean you have the same prices as your competitors and may not maximise on your profit.

4.  Work out the costs

Now that you have evaluated your industry, customer and pricing strategies. You need to work out what costs you have. Understanding your costs will ensure that you choose and develop the best pricing strategy for your business. There are a quite a few costs involved in running a business consider:

• What are your overhead costs?
• What monthly and yearly fixed costs do you have?
• What variable costs are there?
• Taxes and government rebates

It’s important you don’t forget about the costs involved because they can severely impact your profit margin and the success of your business. With Acumen POS, you can pull up reports on your overhead costs to help visualise what price your products should be.

5. Create a strategy to drive long term business profit

It’s important that your pricing strategy considers what you need to make to be profitable in the long run, how much demand there is and what volumes of products you need to sell. One of the ways you can do this is by analysing your current stock and profit margins to measure price elasticity. Price elasticity is the relationship between quantity sold and the price sold at, and it demonstrates that often the highest price will not get you the most profit. This is because the most reasonable price will have the highest conversion rate. A good way to visualise this is to consider you have 100 customers and how many of them would buy your product at each price point.

6. Market changes

Finally, it is important to remember that the market changes and your customer’s behaviour will change. Therefore it is important to make sure your prices don’t remain stagnant. Experiment with your prices and see what works best for your customer base, but make sure all of your changes are data-driven and can produce reliable outcomes. A good practice is to change your prices as the market changes.

Pricing with Acumen POS

Now that you have developed your pricing strategy it’s time to implement it. Luckily for you, if you have an Acumen POS system it is relatively easy to execute. Here’s a few ways you can do it:

1. Change prices of individual products – this technique is the simplest but also the slowest
2. Update a range with a percentage increase – faster and less prone to human errors as you are leaving it to your POS system
3. Update cost pricing with a margin increase
4. Import a set of cost prices from a supplier which is relatively painless and time-saving.

If you are introducing or refining a pricing strategy to your business make sure you are using Acumen POS. Our POS system is one of the most comprehensive systems on the market and can help you with a range of business activities. Our team will not only help you set it up but will provide support for any queries or concerns you may have when using your POS.

It is a well-known fact that suppliers are the key to every business. Without them, you might have a tough time scaling your operations. Suppliers provide goods or a service to help you conduct business. When talking about suppliers the most obvious are those that supply you with your stock for you to on sell to your customers.

Finding the right supplier does come with its challenges. Generally, you would like a supplier to have knowledge of your industry, provide products and services consistently and align with your core values, for example, an organic wool supplier for an eco-friendly furniture store. Once you have found your suppliers you want to be able to scale your business while also maintaining relationships with them, so how do you navigate that? Here is a quick guide to using Acumen’s POS system to help you maintain your supplier-business relationship.

Negotiate terms and have a clear outline as to what is expected

While having a great relationship with your supplier is key, one of the most important steps to a supplier-business relationship is to set expectations and negotiate terms. One of the smartest ways to complete this task is by having a service level agreement (SLA). An SLA is an obligation usually built into the contract which outlines what needs to be provided each month and the standard in which it is to be delivered each month.

Within this agreement it is important to address: 

• What service is being provided
• How the service will be conducted
• Responsibilities of both supplier and your business
• Compliance to industry regulations and legal requirements
• Reporting and Communication
• Payment terms and how to be paid including EFT, BPAY, and online payment solutions
• How to address disputes and complaints
• Termination conditions
• Confidentiality

A well structured SLA makes it easier to run your business because you know what to expect from your suppliers and when to expect it. There is no confusion or vagueness, so you can go about running your business without feeling like you are waiting on something.

Automate your payments

Once you have agreed to the terms and conditions with your suppliers, you can now look at streamlining the process of paying your suppliers. Automating your payments allows you to pay your suppliers on time without worrying about invoice dates or payment amounts. You can start a new payment run in Acumen through the use of Suggested Payments. When executing a payment run you can select which suppliers by their terms, type or by supplier code. You can also enter in an ID or have one generated for you for the payment so that you can easily review all the payments that are generated. The payment run will check through your supplier invoices and find which ones are due to be paid and generate the payment document for them. You can then review which payments have been generated.

Review Payments

Just as important as maintaining those supplier relationships is to stay on top of what you are paying for and when you are paying for it. A good practice is to review your payments at the start of each month and ensure that deliverables have been delivered. Reviewing your payments is simple with an Acumen POS system, you can view the list of generated payments on screen or use a report to see all payments created for the month. This will provide you with all the information about your supplier payments which will make it easier for you to make decisions about how to spend your resources.

Still Need Help? Contact Support

Our support team is more than just a call centre – we want to make sure your business is running as smoothly as possible using Acumen POS. Our team is based in Geelong and our members are skilled software users so we can provide personalised support for a range of challenges. If you are having trouble paying your suppliers or need to set up an alternative payment method to accommodate your SLA, get in touch with our team.

For any retail or wholesale business, good inventory management can help to reduce overheads, cut unnecessary costs and improve future decisions. Usually, they are separate from the point of sale and/or require additional processes. However, if you have an Acumen POS system, you can control your inventory and provide updates to your stock all from one system. With an integrated system, you are able to have greater inventory control, minimise costs and improve profits.

Why do you need Inventory Management?

To avoid dead stock

Deadstock is when something has gone out of style, out of season or has become irrelevant to your business for other reasons. With inventory management, you can easily identify and control your dead stock through actions such as;

• • Clearance promotions.
  • Write-offs for deadstock that cannot be moved.
  • Utilising your branch level reports to identify and transfer dead stock to branches that may have better chances in moving it.

Save money on storage

You never want your products to be waiting in storage and by having a clear inventory management system you can save on storage costs as you are only ordering what you need.

Account for wastage in your manufactured goods

You might manufacture your own goods, or build your own product kits. Therefore it can also be important to have the ability to account for and control product wastage inside your inventory management system.

Provides accurate forecasting

An inventory management system built into your point of sale can help to reduce unnecessary double entry of data which can often lead to discrepancies with your inventory. Furthermore, accurate inventory information can help you identify hidden trends with your customer buying patterns, so you are able to order products to meet demand and take the guesswork out of inventory control.

The Benefit to Adding Images to Products

Within the Acumen System, you are able to add images to your products to improve inventory control. This added benefit will not only make your customer’s happy but has many internal benefits such as:

Easier to Locate Products

This added benefit is great for retail and warehouse employees who are assisting customers or maybe stocking orders. With product images attached to your point of sales system, customers can use the name of a product and employees will be able to use their Acumen POS System to accurately find the correct product. In a warehouse, many products can have similar names so having images attached reduces the likelihood of there being a human error with stock take, inventory management and order fulfilment by allowing staff to easily identify differences.

Applies Context to Invoices and Receipts

An image tells a thousand words and on documents like invoices and receipts, a product image helps the customer identify and reference what they bought. So it is equally important to have product images of all variations of the product as often the customer will reference the image as to what they bought if there is any difference.

Can be Used to Improve Product Catalogues Sent to Customers

Having images attached to products in your POS and inventory management system can help to improve both your marketing efforts and increase the information provided to your customers inside your distributed product catalogues. Adding product images and specifications can give you the ability to offer unique information and insights for customers into products shown inside your catalogues. It can also be used to help improve your seasonal and weekly catalogues that can be distributed to customers of different groups or clubs.

How to add Images with an Acumen POS System

You are able to add images to your products in a number of ways here are two suggested ways from the team at Acumen to add images to the products.

1. Drag and Drop

If you utilise Firefox or you have images stored in a local folder, you can easily drag and drop images straight from any online site (such as google image search) or your local folder into Acumen’s product screen image tab. This option is perfect if you have product images on a website, you don’t have any local images available, or you have a separate media library with product photos. Other browsers can still take advantage and add images by right-clicking, clicking “save” and then uploading or dragging downloaded images into Acumen.

2. Bulk import

If you already have bulk set of product images available you can easily utilise Acumen’s import feature to add all your product images with one click, saving you time to use on more important tasks.

Choose Acumen POS

Acumen POS Systems are the perfect system for your retail or warehouse. Unlike standard POS systems, you are able to control inventory management, automate payment reminders, create custom reports and process sales with the one system. At Acumen Computer Systems, we not only provide you with great software for your business but also provide you with regular email updates about new integrations and ongoing support if needed. Get in touch with our team by calling 1800 228 636.

What is Magento? 

Magento is an open-source e-commerce platform that provides flexible shopping experiences. With a Magento integration, you are able to seamlessly manage inventory for online and instore purchases from one system. At Acumen, Magento has been a popular integration over the past financial year as many of our clients have had to adjust their business model due to ongoing pandemic restrictions. 

Why should you have an e-commerce platform? 

After a pandemic, it should be clearer than ever that every business should have an online profile. However, what is more important for many businesses is to also have an online store, an e-commerce POS integration can assist in remedying this challenge. But there are many reasons why an e-commerce platform is so important:

• Studies show that people tend to research products and services before shopping for them. An e-commerce platform can provide them with the valuable information they need to make a purchasing decision.
• An e-commerce platform, like Magento, provides you with global exposure and can assist you in growing or scaling your business. 
• More exposure means more sales and less work. People know what they want often and if they can find it online they are likely to purchase it then and there. 

Why integrate Magento with your Acumen POS?

If you are not completely sure how a Magento integration will help your business here are just a few ways Magento improves the efficiency of your Acumen point of sales system. 

Streamlined Inventory Management 

A streamlined inventory management makes it easier to manage multiple stores, particularly if those stores share the same inventory. With Magento Inventory Management, sales made online can automatically sync with the stock your brick and mortar store uses. This prevents products from being sold that are no longer available and allows you to see real-time updates of what products are being bought and when. You retain total control over your products and sales and are able to optimise the e-commerce platform to meet business needs. 

Get to Know Your Customers Better

Customers are the heart and soul of every business, and with Magento, you are able to get to know them and their shopping behaviours a little bit better. Magento provides comprehensive reporting tools that allow you to segment customers by order history, lifetime value, location, gender and wishlist items. This allows you to personalise the shopping experience for each customer and provide them with different ways to pay and acquire your products, such as Find In-Store or Click and Collect. When you add Acumen POS System to Magento, it enables you to make smarter business decisions as you are able to track purchasing trends and accurately predict when you need to order more stock. 

Acumen Point of Sales

Acumen POS systems are great for hardware stores, manufacturers and retail stores with lots of moving parts and a Magento integration provides B2B companies and B2C companies with an online catalogue for their clients. This is the perfect solution to improve inventory management and scale your business. If you are considering how you can improve your POS functions, get in touch with Acumen who can help you find the right integration for your business. 

As a business owner, it is becoming increasingly important to have integrated systems that work seamlessly with each other. A comprehensive network designed to make business easier.  It’s no longer just about purchasing a POS system alongside everything else but about purchasing a complex POS system to integrate with every aspect of your business. A POS system that is able to communicate customer data, track sales, assist in stock management and refine accounting processes is the key to success.

At Acumen Computer Systems, we don’t just sell you a POS System but we provide ongoing support and customisable integrations that assist in streamlining your business processes.

Why do you need Integrations?

Adding integrations to your POS system can help you run your business more effectively as you usually heavily rely on your POS system to perform tasks such as inventory management. Having one system to help you perform all of the tasks you need to do at the checkout, not only makes it easier for your business to make sales but improves the customer experience. Using integrations with your POS system also means when you’re busy your store hands, sales representatives or cashiers aren’t flustered and confused with how to handle sales.

Acumen have quite a few integrations to choose from, here are five integrations you should consider adding to your POS System:

Office Integration

Office is one of the most well-known brands that can provide many benefits for integrating with your POS. Good integration with Office can serve to provide not only with more convenience but also make your business look more professional. Acumen can allow you to unify your operations with Office by:

• • Creating customisable stationery such as letterheads, labels, as well as printable forms or promotional letters direct from Acumen to your preferred office application.
  • Quickly and easily email quotes, purchase orders, customer statements and invoices as word, excel and many other document types whenever required.
  • Easily export advanced reports and graphs for viewing and analysing data in your preferred format.
  • Heavily reduce the amount of double-entry required when working with your Office applications.

SMS Integration

Having an SMS Integration allows you to connect with your customers on the most popular communication device, their phone. SMS integrations can be personalised and segmented to only target the customers you want to target. This integration is great for reminding customers about bills and providing additional marketing, but some other benefits include:

• • Able to provide timely updates and helpful messages to your customers.
  • Provide the customer with options and allow for a multi-channel experience
  • Immediate benefit in the outlook of your customer service as customers feel appreciated for the reminder
  • A cost-effective solution to contacting customers as it can be completed through our report systems.
  • Able to collect further data on your customer’s behaviours and customise their sales process

Magento

Magento is an e-commerce platform that provides online merchants with flexible shopping experiences. A POS integration with Magento allows for you to seamlessly manage inventory and online and in-store purchases from one system. It’s an open-sourced platform that provides many benefits including:

• • Provides a better customer experience both online and in-store
  • You get to know your customers, with powerful reports and insight into shopping behaviours
  • Easy to install onto Acumen POS Systems and is a budget-friendly solution to hosting an e-commerce store.

Linkly

Linkly is an integrated payment solution, previously known as PC-EFTPOS, and sets the standard for secure and flexible transactions. It is a seamless integration that provides your customers with more options as to how they pay, and support for end-to-end payment solutions.

Some benefits of integrating Linkly with your POS system include:

• • You don’t have to leave the POS system to make a transaction, there is no need for a second device
  • Linkly leverages and maintains relationships with major banks to improve cash flow and payment cycles.
  • Easily connects with Acumen POS System
  • Reduces human error and is a more reliable payment solution by streamlining data with your POS system.

GetSwift

GetSwift is a delivery management integration solution that helps businesses deliver purchases safely and securely. For a business with this integration, you are able to effectively track drivers, and optimise delivery routes for efficiency. It also allows you to:

• • Manage your fleets and provide real-time updates for your customers to keep them happy.
  • Provide drivers with critical tasks from your POS system
  • Collect data from customer feedback and own your brand reputation.
  • Evaluate your drivers’ performance through added insights such as average delivery time.

Choose Acumen Computer Systems

In today’s world, POS integrations are needed to help businesses succeed. Acumen POS Software is versatile and can incorporate a vast array of integrations seamlessly. The five outlined in this blog are just some of the most popular integrations with our systems. If you are looking to add integrations to your POS Systems, check out some of our featured integrations and get in contact with our team to find out how we can help you.