To try and shore up relevance, XchangeIT has inserted itself as middleware in a tech relationship between TheLott and newsagency POS software. As announced Friday afternoon, this is now available.
While it’s clunky, because of requirements driven by those outside of newsagency software businesses, it is better than nothing.
It will be interesting to see the uptake. It will also be interesting to see if XchangeIT provide the level of support newsagents will want / need for this transactional facility.
My own newsagency software company has been involved from the outset. The approach is not what we would recommend. But, as they say, it is what it is.
Yes, it is Clunky and takes some concentration especially when under the pump doing $5m-$6m sales p.a.
It is better than nothing however a fair bit of training required and a bit more time however it helps with balancing especially with multiple purchases.
Yes it is a cock up and helps perpetuate an unnecessary overhead like XchangeIT to get more cash from Newsagents who do not control or have any say in it beyond paying the cost of it. A one way feed through Diodes or other tech is available now so data can be dumped from Lotto terminals (which are basically just IBM Clones, PCs) directly to our POS Systems with no return communications possible to the Lotto Terminal/PC. However Lotto obviously likes us paying extra for this. The data is sent to Lotto via an internet connection then returned to us via another internet connection. I now have in my store two 2 NBN internet connections one for the Lotto terminal only and one for my store which will also carry Lotto Data from sales etc back to my store for my POS System. I now look forward with great interest how long it takes Telstra to return the info to my POS System.
Peter R
As I am not day to day in a newsagency doing sales could If you wouldn’t mind answer question re lotto and the new link as I believe you would know.
Before connection quite often I would find ring ups of lotto on the various P.O.S.System purchased with other stock incorrect. due to human error some lotto as magazines etc.They did not balance with the Lotteries print out even after certain consideration. In some cases the amount would be considerable.
Has this been eliminated by having the direct link?
or is human error profound?
I have still to get the new link working. ExchangeIT blamed Tower and now Tower is looking at it for me, though I do not believe it is a Tower issue.
Yes errors can be eliminated if you use it religiously for every transaction. In this case it should eliminate ring up errors by Staff transferring data from the Lotto terminal to the POS System. These are errors I address every day by updating my POS invoice (from POS Daily Sales Summary) entry in MYOB with actual figures from a Lotto Daily Cash Balance Report.
Further I should state I am highly skeptical the ability for data from Lotto to be returned to the POS system in a timely manner so that time is not wasted waiting for it to arrive. I am basing this thinking on the reaction times I have seen while using TYRO which is net based and MYOB which I am now forced to do it MYOB’s cloud. Time Outs especially with MYOB are not uncommon.
This is the major issue I beleive will make or break this system.
Hi Peter R
These are the best comments I have received.
There seems to be an urgency of time factor involved to check the transaction, apparently it expires within a certain time?
I am confused as I haven’t performed an actual tansaction.
Thanks again
I have to get it working first and see what it does produce. As to Marks comments here and in Emails he dose deserve to get payment or recon pence for his/companies efforts rather that been used as he will be seen as one who must support his customers to keep their custom. It is a catch 22 to Mark.
I totlly agree with your statement re Mark’s contribution however Mark does not have Lotto and I wasn;t sure of his day to day balancing apart from that the hook up is with othe software suppliers other than Tower.
As Mark states this is a newsaagency Blog not Tower Not newsXpress
He repeats this claim often and I appreciate his intentions.
I don’t own a newsagency now how deal with many newsagents all over NSW and ACT and have asked this question. Seeing you answer Mark’s blog this has made the question public.
Mark’s customer do pay him and this “free” statement has nothing to do with software configeration rather the user problem of which Mark refers to.
It’s “clunky” is how I see it as well -it’s the system not the software ffom the P.O.S. situation especially when one is exceptionally busy as they will be this Thursday.
Graeme,
I now have got it working and first impressions is it will cut the mustard on speed. However that is after only 1 hour of use.
XchangeIT support and service as usual was totally abysmal and next to useless. When I set it up yesterday I did not realize the same number I entered into my POS system had also to be enter into the Lotto terminal configuration area. I rang XchangeIT and was told to update my POS software but this was not the problem. I again contracted XchangeIT and told them it would not work and gave them the warning message it gave me. I was told it was a problem caused by Tower Systems and to contact them. This I did and established it was not caused by Tower and I can now clearly why Mark is not happy. I again contacted them this morning and complained loudly about the lack of service and lies I have received so far. The girl who answered the phone then took me through the setup and the problem was identified as the number I entered into the POS system which I had done also had to be entered into the Lotto Terminal configuration. After this was done it worked.
Great work and explanation.
I have witnessed one lot of transactions for an hour and could see the complexity of the transactions but didn’t have time to get the final result. Iknew it wasn’t the P.O.S. as the transaction was being tansferred. Time delay was another problem anyway, thanks for the update.
Today it has worked without time loss as an issue. I am surprised and satisfied by the timely responses to my POS system. I was also contacted by ExchangeIT and peace now reigns with them once again as they have now seen the issues they caused and will about provide better information and instructions next time. They also clearly accept that Tower was not the cause of any of my issues.
We will see things proceed over time.