New POS software solution turns on the taps for Bathroom Bizarre

Accurate daily monitoring of orders, sales and stock is critical to a retail organisation in which hundreds of different items are sold daily from the showrooms and considerable stock is held in warehouses. Large volumes of data are involved and retailers are often at the mercy of the reliability of point-of-sale and accounting software.

National bathroomware retailer Bathroom Bizarre, with 12 outlets and a dedicated distribution centre, has suffered the consequences of unreliable POS software in the past.

IT director Brian Webber says the complexity of the typical sales process in an operation like Bathroom Bizarre poses significant challenges to POS software developers and vendors. "Fortunately we have found a developer whose software has the flexibility, functionality and the customisation and integration capabilities to meet all of our requirements with the high degree of reliability we demand."

Bathroom Bizarre has installed isoPOS, a point-of-sale software solution developed by Isonome Consulting, a Johannesburg-based business IT solution consultancy, software design and development house and ACCPAC accounting software dealer.

Suitable for both centralised and decentralised environments, isoPOS effectively integrates all point-of-sale requirements from both front- and back-office into ACCPAC`s Advantage series accounting software.

Webber says the isoPOS solution is economical because it is able to function across a number of databases, including Pervasive.SQL and MS SQL Server 2000, integrates seamlessly into ACCPAC, runs on the Microsoft operating system, is Windows-based and operates cleanly and consistently on 64k Diginet lines (via Citrix Metaframe).

Most importantly, isoPOS functions with the Citrix access infrastructure used by Bathroom Bizarre for the cost-effective deployment and management of its enterprise applications using centralised servers and thin-client terminals.

"It has the scalability to cater for all of our 12 branches, allowing each branch to run as a separate entity but at the same giving head office management the ability to see, in real-time, all transactions conducted at all branches. We`re able to keep our fingers on the pulse of the business at all times despite our widespread locations," says Webber.

"We looked far and wide for the right POS solution. No other system at such a reasonable price can track the complexities of our orders, sales and stock processes as completely and accurately as isoPOS, saving us time, generating cost-efficiencies and providing us with strategic information on which sound business decisions can be made."

The isoPOS system has simple, clear transaction screens covering quotations, sales orders, tax invoices and credit notes with all features easily accessible through the toolbar.

"The flexibility of the system is what really counts for us," adds Webber. "On large orders we experience frequent need for modifications as customers change their minds. Such changes are quickly and easily accommodated. The software also allows comments to be entered on each order to differentiate, for example, between a six-jet and an eight-jet spa bath, which is important for stock reconciliation and accurate pricing."

Daily cash-up reports are provided for management through Crystral Report Writer. The isoPOS software enables the reports to be tailor-made to meet Bathroom Bizarre`s specific needs.

"We are able to generate reports on sales by individual sales person and credit notes per sales person as well as obtain detailed sales reports or reports on specific invoiced items. The information we derive from these reports enables us to develop meaningful incentive programmes for branches and individual staff with escalating future targets set from current and historic information. A full suite of historic data is provided, enabling us to conduct comparisons on year-on-year or month-on-month trading."

Webber adds that the isoPOS/Citrix combination holds many other benefits, over and above the fact that the sales operations of all branches can be viewed centrally at any time. "We can see how sales are progressing every day and this is valuable information. If one branch is particularly busy we are able to dispatch staff from another less busy outlet to help. It is this sort of flexibility that allows us to maintain high standards of customer service.

"We can also quickly pick up anything that is out of the ordinary, such as sudden excessive demand for a particular item, and we can make contingency arrangements to ensure stock availability. The distribution centre software system has the same look and feel as isoPOS, was also written by Isonome and also integrates seamlessly into ACCPAC. "

All sales-related and stock movement information is fed into ACCPAC and the system ensures that standard stock items are maintained in each outlet at a pre-determined level. Special stock items are flagged as such and are supplied only on demand and on receipt of a confirmed order.

"There is very tight integration between the three systems," says Webber. The isoPOS solution allows special orders to be flagged as such so if a standard stock of an item is 10 and a customer at one of our outlets orders 50, this order is immediately flagged and 50 will be supplied from the distribution centre while the standard stock is maintained at 10.

"Another very useful feature of the system is one that caters for the fact that we hold a number of items that are still in stock but that can no longer be ordered. The isoPOS solution ensures that no new orders can be placed but still allows existing stock to be sold at the outlets that still have it - typical of the flexibility that differentiates the isoPOS solution from the rest."