How to Automate Epos Now

The same back office runs a hair salon and a brewery

Epos Now sells the till and the software behind it as one purchase, which is how the same company ends up in a bike shop, a vape shop, a pharmacy, a bakery and a taproom. The counter hardware carries names of its own: Countertop, Micro, Duo and Pro+, with the Air and Link card readers alongside them.

Behind every one of them sits the Back Office, which is a browser tab. That tab is where the business is actually run. Real-time reporting on sales, margin, staff, customers and stock. The product file with its cost prices. The stock count. Who was on shift and what they rang through. Hospitality sites add a kitchen display, Order and Pay at the table, and a delivery module. Retail sites add barcodes and variants.

Whoever owns the place has that tab open more than any other, and usually on a laptop in the stockroom.

The owner is also the finance department

There is rarely a finance department behind a shop like this. There is an owner, a manager if the takings stretch to one, and whatever time is left at the end of trading.

So the round happens in the gaps. Count the drawer. Check the card settlement against what the Back Office says the day was worth, and find the twelve pounds that do not agree. Open the wholesaler's trade site, because a case costs something different this week than it did when the rep quoted for it in June. Key the day into Sage or QuickBooks. Chase the order that was promised for Thursday and has not shipped. Read the review that came in overnight and decide whether to answer it. Work out who is covering Saturday now that somebody has called in sick.

None of it is hard and all of it is compulsory, and most of it gets done with a customer waiting at the counter.

Epos Now

A reorder list with prices on it Every line you are about to buy priced at the wholesalers you actually use this morning, against what the last delivery was invoiced at.

The settlement matched to the day Card money that arrived in the bank set against what the Back Office says the day was worth, per site, with any gap named the next morning.

Renewal dates read at source Licence and registration expiry taken off the issuing authority's own site, months before a lapsed one closes the doors.

Predictive ordering knows your selling and not your buying

Epos Now has taken more of that round off an owner than most systems at this end of the market.

Warehouse Manager does stock lookups from the till, raises purchase orders automatically and moves stock between locations, with predictive ordering deciding what needs reordering. Multi Site Manager gives a group location-specific pricing, per-location stock and reporting structures built by store, area or region, so six shops are not six separate back offices. And the AppStore is the deliberate answer to everything else, with Workforce.com for rotas and payroll, Deputy, OpenTable, Loyalzoo, QuickBooks, Sage and Mailchimp sitting in it.

The catch is the shape of that answer. Each of those apps exists because a partner built one. Predictive ordering forecasts your own selling, which is useful and knows nothing about the supply side: not that a case price moved on Monday, not that the line is discontinued, not that the depot is out until the fourteenth. Your independent cash and carry has not built an app. Neither has the licensing authority, the bank, or the marketplace taking a cut of every delivery order.

A price rise can be caught while the order is still a draft

Put something on those sites before opening and the buying side stops being a guess.

Every line on the reorder list priced at the two or three wholesalers you use, this morning, against what the last delivery was invoiced at, so the case that went up is marked before anybody confirms the order. The lines that quietly dropped off a supplier's catalogue caught on the morning they disappear, not on the morning somebody needs one.

The card settlement in the bank matched against the Back Office totals, site by site, so a batch that never landed gets chased on Tuesday instead of found in March. The delivery marketplace dashboards added to the Epos Now figure, so the day is one number with the commission visible inside it. The licence renewal date read off the issuing authority's own site, months before it becomes a closed door. Last night's reviews collected, with a reply drafted and the transaction it refers to attached.

Keep the line at money and at customers. Reading and comparing can run while the shop is dark. Placing the order, answering the review in public and paying the invoice stay with the person whose name is above the door.

Some jobs are never going to get an app

There will not be an Epos Now app for your cash and carry's trade counter, and there does not need to be. The site already takes your login, and the number is already on the screen.

WebRun is an AI agent that works a real Chrome browser, signed in the way you are. It opens the Back Office, the wholesaler sites, the bank and the marketplace dashboards, and leaves the morning's list somewhere you will find it before the doors open.

It runs on your schedule in your own private environment, and a workflow can be locked to a named list of sites. You can watch a run and stop it. Nothing that spends money or answers a customer goes out without you.

Each workflow below names what it opens and what it brings back.