Lost My Way finds a POS and retail management partner

Sarah Palmer launched Lost My Way in 2006 as an online store and retail emporium boasting an array of gifts, home wares, crafts, clothing and cards. The Lost My Way retail outlet is located in Sydney’s Waverley and caters to those who prefer the in-store experience of personal service, shopping advice and on-the-spot exquisite gift-wrapping.

As a 17 year veteran of FileMaker, when Palmer was in start-up phase and looking for a retail management and point of sale (POS) system, she decided to work with FileMaker Business Alliance member Ambrite to customise an existing retail application built in FileMaker Pro 10—BrighterShop—for the Australian market. Lost My Way soon became the pilot for BrighterShop Au as features and enhancements that suited the local Australian market were incorporated into the solution, for example Australian GST calculation and multiple exchange rates.

Palmer commented, “It astounded me that a commercial application could be customised to meet our wide range of Australian requirements in just a month. The developers took an application that was already feature rich and added a host of others that have proved really useful.”

“We now use BrighterShop Au to manage all aspects of the businesses operations from the checkout to administration to reporting and finances. BrighterShop Au makes hard work easy for us processing online orders, managing invoicing, tracking receipt of goods and stock inventory, and managing checkout sales of lay-bys and bill-of-material items.”

For more information on Lost My Way visit www.lostmyway.com.au. For more information on BrighterShop Au visit www.ambrite.com.au.

In researching the Australian retail software market, FileMaker Business Alliance (FBA) member Ambrite Pty Ltd discovered a gap. There were no products available that offered businesses both an intuitive user interface and a full set of reporting features.

However, in the USA FileMaker developer BrighterData had a fantastic product doing everything Ambrite’s owner Mark Richards was looking for, only tailored to US conditions. He explained, “I suggested to BrighterData that we team up to customise their retail application BrighterShop for the Australian market and the end result, after a two-year development collaboration, is BrighterShop Au.”

In the simplest terms BrighterShop Au is an easy-to-use, affordable, complete POS solution ideal for any Australian retailer looking to streamline processes including ordering, check out, inventory control and management reporting.

Key features of BrighterShop Au include:

Local GST and multiple exchange rate support
Purchase order and inventory control
Bar code and scanner support
Processing of lay-by sales and bill-of-materials
Item price testing and modelling
Store credit and gift certificates
Tracking sales and marketing communications
Customisable reporting

For more information on BrighterShop Au and to download a FREE trial visit www.ambrite.com.au

Education Corner: Denbigh takes the headache out of parent-teacher interviews

Scheduling parent-teacher interviews can be time consuming for all parties. After receiving numerous requests from existing users of Denbigh Administrator, Denbigh developed an online booking system—the Parent Teacher Interview (PTI) module—to streamline the process.

“Having been a teacher for nearly 10 years I appreciate how difficult it can be to schedule a mutually convenient time with parents to discuss their child’s progress, usually relying on the student to provide the conduit for communication. Our aim when designing the PTI module was to simplify the communication process between teacher and parent, which will save the parent’s time and minimise the admin load on teachers,” commented Murray Benn, Denbigh International’s Managing Director

Key Features of the PTI module include:

Easy-to-build schedules

Automated email notifications to parents of upcoming interviews

Online access for parents to book in interviews

Ability to tailor module to align with school’s corporate image

Fully Integrated with Denbigh Administration

Bishop Druitt College in Coffs Harbour is piloting the module, next newsletter we will report on the benefits the school has experienced since its implementation. For more information on Denbigh Administration visit www.denbigh.com.au