PC-EFTPOS and 'Which Bank?'

Recently one of our point of sale customers, a not for profit organisation who has four sites throughout Tasmania required an Integrated EFTPOS solution. Prior to this, they have been running Amicus POS for four years with stock and logistics centrally managed in Hobart. Their main drive to a completely integrated solution was to elevate the double entering and in most cases incorrect values being entered into the EFTPOS machine.

The order was placed to the Bank and within a week the Terminals arrived in each location. Hobart was the first site to be installed; the first thing that was noted was the complete lack of documentation. There was no TerminalID no CAIC ID (uniquely identifies the merchant), to make matters worse, the terminal was in an un-configured state for PC-EFTPOS (completely negates the whole point of ordering a “PC-EFTPOS” terminal). The configuration on the bank’s end wasn’t completed either. There were several calls made to the Bank and PC-EFTPOS to get the issues resolved.

After the first Terminal, there wasn’t much hope for the other three. As it turns out, once again none of them were configured for PC-EFTPOS. To make matters worse, two terminals actually had the wrong software version which required the Terminals to be sent back to the Bank. In total, I received nine Terminals. Four wouldn’t power on, two had the incorrect firmware and the others died after a couple of hours. To add insult to injury, the Bank actually issued the same TerminalID’s as the previous stand-alone Terminals, which wouldn’t allow the new Terminals to log on. This issue in itself took hours and multiple calls to the Bank.

In essence, dealing with the Bank wasn’t a smooth experience. In total I wasted in excess of 10 hours, 'which bank' has been invoiced for. Other Banks aren’t any better, the only seamless integration has been with Westpac.