[caption id="attachment_1939" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="C-Store Office TM back office software"][/caption] Managing a convenience store can be a time consuming headache but if you own and/or manage multiple locations, having a system in place for Convenience Store Automation is imperative for running an efficient operation, and for growing the profits in the current sluggish economy. With Petrosoft’s C-Store Office®, you can automate your back office processes quickly across many stores while cutting costs, reducing manual time expense and improving profitability. In the “good old days” convenience stores carried a few hundred items, there were no lotteries and gas prices were somewhat stable. Now an average C-store may stock over 4000 items, prices change daily; there are state and intrastate “Powerball” games with varying payout dates and rules and fuel prices yo-yo like the stock market. With C-Store Office®, Convenience Store Automation is easy. Inventory management part of the program allows you to have access to item level data. Ordering can be done automatically, saving your managers’ time, allowing bottom line optimization. With item level, per store data, adjustments can be made to account for differences in each location’s sales. By basing ordering off actual inventory levels rather than guesstimates or enterprise level buying, we have seen our customers routinely slash inventory levels by as much as 20% to 30%. Multiplying the savings by many locations will free up substantial money in the budget to invest in your business, but this software is designed to optimize a one-store business just as well as a chain. One store can achieve thousands of dollars increase in monthly revenue through efficient ordering and inventory management alone, and other useful features. Many of our users also love the price book feature – see here a customer testimonial - which automatically catches price changes and allows for manager approval before registers are updated. Tools embedded in the software make it easy to run price promotions over multiple stores, whether or not they are geographically far apart or just minutes away from each other. C-Store Office® also gives you access to over 200 reports updated every shift on inventory, pricing, employee hours, expenses, and financials so you know daily what’s going on with each location. With access to up-to-date data for every shift, it is easy to catch and fix problems quickly before they spread throughout your operation. Here is how the owner the North Carolina C-store chain, Handy Mart, slashed costs and increased profitability with C-Store Office®. Convenience Store Automation is available at your fingertips with C-Store Office®. Because the internet-based system utilizes cloud computing, you can access your reports on your personal computer, smart phone or tablet. You’ll find that you don’t have to spend all day running from office to office. Manage your stores from home…or on the beach or golf course! Convenience Store Automation does not have to be expensive or require hiring a crew of IT folks to manage your system. With C-Store Office®, you don’t have to spend thousands of dollars on extra equipment or software licenses multiplied by many locations. All that is required is a monthly subscription, no license, or sign up fees are needed. Installations can takes as little as two hours and personnel are trained online so they can be up to speed quickly without pulling them away from the stores for hours of classes. Updates are done automatically. Here is what one of our users has to say about how easy it is to get started. Sign up for C-Store Office and spend more time in the front of the store – not the back office. Request a Free Demo on this page. Above is an example of the demoed info from a currently operating business.

Click here to see the first in the "Starting a convenience store" series. Starting a convenience store is a process. Once you have your inventory, POS and tracking system, the next step is to develop a price book. With Petrosoft’s C-Store Office®, setting up a price book is easy, even for C-store newbies. With C-Store Office®, you can acquire a list of items from vendors and scan items with a hand held device. The system will automatically pull items from the “global price book software.” This software contains over 250,000 UPC’s with suggested retail prices, taking the guesswork out of pricing. As invoices come in, C-Store Office® will automatically update the price book – no manual data entry on your part! The great part about C-Store Office® is the customization tool – you can set up departments, categories and groups the way you want and even use custom tags. You can also set promotional pricing in advance for a given period – helpful when you are putting together marketing for a grand opening. With C-Store Office®, even a non-tech savvy individual can build a price book quickly. Another thing to think about when starting a convenience store is managing lottery sales if your state offers one. With the C-Store Office® lottery management module, you can easily set up games in the system and enter information about sales, purchases and payouts. Cashiers can scan instant tickets at the register and you can enter sales information about online games, so that all lottery data is refreshed at the end of every shift. There are many expenses involved with starting a convenience store and a back office software should be the priority one, but it does not need to be a big expense trumping the business capital outlay, creating more spending than absolutely necessary. Utilizing internet-based, cloud technology, C-Store Office® does not require any investment of software of hardware. There is no initial investment or implementation cost, just a low monthly subscription fee that can be renewed month to month and is less than the cost of a monthly phone bill. Request a Petrosoft rep to show you how to make starting a convenience store easy with the Not Your Average Free Demo, using data from an operational gas station and convenience store, a shift accepted just hours prior to the viewing. See below an example of the information used during the demo:[caption id="attachment_1841" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="C-Store Office TM back office software"][/caption]

Starting a convenience store can be a challenge. You have to find a location, negotiate a lease, establish relationships with fuel distributors and vendors, hire personnel, purchase and install equipment and stock the store. However, having the right office back end system in place from the start can make that challenge less daunting. One of the very first steps in starting a convenience store should be having an automated system in place to track sales. Of course, this technology needs to work in conjunction with all other technology you will need to use in the business, i.e. accounting software—for example QuickBooks, Cash register, gauge readers, etc. etc. That and so much more is what the i99® feature of the C-Store Office® software can accomplish. Petrosoft’s i99® gets store information from cash register to Quick Books with a touch of a button. The beauty of it is that it connects with any type of convenience store POS system – Verifone Ruby, Sapphire, Topaz, Gilbarco Passport, Wayne Nucleus in a matter of minutes. Fuel sales and method of payment data automatically input into your accounting system. Cash sales, voids and no sales are easily tracked for each shift. Scan rates and item level tracking show exactly what items were sold at your store. The money your cashier collects is noted, allowing you to quickly identify any shortage in the drawer. With all the expense and time involved in starting a convenience store, setting up a complicated office system should not be one of them. With i99®, connecting your POS system and cash registers to our software takes minutes. Since i99® is internet based, no expensive software or hardware is required and there is no initial investment or implementation cost, just a low monthly subscription fee that can be renewed month to month. A centralized 24-7 technical support group oversees the operation of your web site saving you the additional expense and headache of hiring and managing IT staff. We built the infrastructure so you don’t have to. Let our Petrosoft rep show you how to make starting a convenience store easy. Discover so much more from this back office software during a Free Demo scheduled on www.cstoreoffice.com site. More about C-Store Office® features with smart analytics, allowing predictability and reliability in ordering and turnover coming soon. Next – Creating a Price Book and Managing Staff Made Easy! Click here for Part 2.