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Are you frustrated with the Tatts handling of instant scratch ticket scanning?

I have been asked by several newsagents to raise here their frustration with processes implemented by Tatts for handling the scanning if instant scratch tickets. When you scan the first and last tickets of a book it presents problems when people scan a free ticket I’m told. My understanding is the changes will result in apparently inactive instant scratch tickets being in circulation.

Let others know what you think about the situation.

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Lotteries

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  1. shauns

    First I have heard about that

    2 likes

  2. Colin

    We don’t scan the last ticket unless we sell it.

    Sounds like people are activating the whole book as sold instead of activating at each sale.

    Am I missing something ?

    4 likes

  3. shauns

    even if that is the case Richard , everything in between should be activated . Even the free ones . Very Rare but we do sell full books and I am not going to scan everyone

    0 likes

  4. Bruc G

    I understand Tatts wants us to scan as we sell. Difficult with a single machine store especially.
    I f we pre scan the whole book the free ones will show as sold at the end of the day. whereas they should not show as sold.

    1 likes

  5. susan

    do they have free ones?

    1 likes

  6. Mark Fa

    Mark F, firstly, thank you for putting this issue onto the blog.
    Bruce G, that is why Tatts don’t want us to scan whole books unless we are actually selling a whole book. The problem you identify will not be possible. The reason I say this is because of the free ticket validation process. My understanding is that when you process a free ticket claim you have to stop and immediately scan through the new free ticket of the corresponding denomination before you can proceed with the validation of any other prizes. If you scan an ISI from the book that is already scanned ‘on-sale’ you will not be able to proceed with validation. A message will say this ticket is already sold. You will need to find an alternative ISI before you can proceed.

    Yes, I agree with your assessment single machine outlets will be impacted. We will be spending more time processing ISI tickets on sale which reduces time to sell other lotto product.

    Suggest the new process will not simplify the end of day process either. Hopefully I am wrong. You are still going to need to check actual sales against what is left in the dispenser and what has been processed through your POS. The terminal report will give you information on what books are active and how many tickets are left in these books. You will then need to translate that information into what ticket number you are actually up to and make a manual record so at the start of the next day you can check whether any have been gone astray. The other point is with the POS and lotto terminals not being linked you cannot assume that just because the terminal report and the scratch-its count correspond that this information has been accurately transferred into your POS (ie. cash in the till).

    My assessment at the moment is this is the change will make this ISI selling process more time consuming with cumbersome. The perceived benefits of the charging process are not outweighed by the negatives associated with what is now going to be involved in selling ISIs. I hope my assessment turns out to be wrong.

    8 likes

  7. Junior

    South Australia have been scanning ISI tickets for a long time and there doesn’t seem to be any problems. Staff training is important, and scanning just becomes part of the process.

    4 likes

  8. Dean

    Our problem is we scan scratchies into our pos system, so this now doubles the work.

    6 likes

  9. reg

    Er, what are these free tickets of which you speak?

    0 likes

  10. Mark Fa

    This mornings little fiasco is another good reason why scratch-its scan on sale is a bad idea. Terminals down so now can’t even offer customers a ISI. DOh!!!

    2 likes

  11. shauns

    Don’t know about you but I am selling scractits , the ones in the system today are already paid for

    1 likes

  12. Carol

    We are scanning ours today because it is a good time to learn even though they are already paid for. There is no training available for us in remote a areas so we always learn on the job. We should have a chance to iron out any issues before this weeks order arrives. It will be a real pain when we are busy though. We still have the rest of our store to run with much higher margin on that stock. We do not top prioritise Lotto products.

    0 likes

  13. Paul

    Carol ,everyone has the same training. It’s all online !

    TBH it’s just another bit of workload put onto by Tatts so they should increase our commission correspondingly . At least to 10% which should be the minimum anyhow now that you take into account all of their other charges on our sales. We should be able to bill them for the extra handling time via our own handling fee. ANF are you watching and where were you on this ?

    5 likes

  14. DAVID- Rose Bay News

    S.O.S. is an absolute joke.

    No market consultation, these bureaucrats just don’t listen to common sense.

    These terminals should be integrated so one button press transfers the complete sale of instants and lotto AND payouts to our POS system.

    If they wanted to bring in a manual way of updating the system with our instant sales (NOT DUPLICATING our workload)
    they should have reintroduced what they removed from the old system of Scan “Last Unsold Ticket”
    This provided a daily reconciliation from Lotteries against our POS that was 100% correct and only required one scan of each book every night.

    If you want to cause a complete meltdown to Lotteries – DON’T DO IT!!!! Don’t scan these tickets.

    • Winning tickets won’t be able to be paid out until a phone call is made to Lotteries if a customer turns up at another location so they can validate the ticket for payment.

    • They won’t be able to charge us up to the last sold ticket.

    Maybe then they will listen to the POS Systems and the Retailers and introduce Integration.

    Regards,

    David

    3 likes

  15. Martin

    Ok. It is active and, after a call from Lotto asking my why I am not scanning every scratchit before selling it, I have a compromise.

    My customer comes first. I am a single terminal outlet.

    I have had one customer walk out in disgust at making him wait while I scanned three scratits for sale.

    If I have a sale of a single scrathit and the terminal is free I will scan it before sale.

    If the customer wants “one of each of your fours and fives and a double crossword” then I will not hold them up while i scan each one and then enter each on the till.

    If the lotto terminal is busy then I will not keep the customer waiting in line to scan one scrathit. I will serve them and get them on their way.

    I may prescan some books to speed things up on poputal or cheap lines. I have done a couple of books and it works well.

    3 likes

  16. SUBARU

    It needs to go back to how it was with NSW Lotteries. Scan at the end of the day ONLY.
    That way the Lottery system can be balanced to the POS system by simple report.

    Also, if you scan the last ticket at EOD, then any tickets stolen overnight during a breakin can be stopped for the remaining tickets in the book. NOT the whole book stopped like it is now and poor mrs smith is made to feel like a criminal when she legitimately purchased earlier tickets in the book that was later stolen.

    We told them this at our local meeting. But as usual they knew better.
    Also why does the machine need to print a reciept every time a scratchie is sold? Who programmed this feature in?

    Since Tatts took over, it is slower to serve customers, and all feedback from us is ignored.

    But what do we know about front line service? We’re just dumb newagents

    10 likes

  17. eric

    one word:F^&$^&$%%%(%(%(^k^%
    Tatts is a joke

    5 likes

  18. Bretts

    Scan at the end of the day ONLY.
    Not rocket science.
    Don’t reinvent the wheel.
    We will all ALL lose sales.

    3 likes

  19. Sam

    For those that have not yet figured, some stores have already come with a solution to combat Tatts/Golden Casket’s headache by scan on sale the whole book, 1/2 book or part book so that you can pretty much bypass all the scan on crap that you have to do with each ticket. If you do scan on the whole book or part of then you need to make sure that you have spare scratchies (brand new book of not scanned on sale scratchie) nearby to scan when you come across free scratchie tickets. (Bonus note, there is no free tickets with $10 or above scratchies, or at least for the time being)

    Now that the scratchies now form part of the Sales Detail report, which has complicated the lotto sales reconciliation against POS. I have analysed the report and worked out how much was the lotto sale.

    1. Work out how much scratchies was sold according to the Sales Detail Report by grabbing the Instant Sales (up the top) take away the Instant cancellation (next 1 down) and add the Instant commission. This will give you the amount that you scanned using the scanned on sale. (This amount should not have any decimal placings, if it has then you made a mistake somewhere)

    2. Take the Scratchie amount that you worked out above from the Gross sales amount and you have your lotto sale for the day.

    Lastly, there is an ANF meeting in Brisbane tomorrow. If you have already booked in your attendance please raise our dis-satifaction to the Golden Casket representative that is attending tomorrow.

    4 likes

  20. BobH

    This system is rubbish. An example of the private sector not being able to do things better than the public.

    1 likes

  21. Chris

    Has anyone had the issue with Merv the miner $2 where you try to scan a winning ticket but the reader scans the sales barcode (as they are right next to each other) so the Tatts terminal registers a sale, not a win!

    0 likes

  22. Mark Fletcher

    I have received at lest twenty phone calls on this topic over the last three days. Tonight I have reached out to a contact at Tatts inviting input.

    2 likes

  23. reg

    Sorry, I have to ask again. What is a free ticket? Is this a regional thing? I’ve never heard of a free (scratchie) ticket in Victoria.

    I note that Sam said there are no free tickets with $10 *and above* tickets. We don’t sell a ticket above $10 here, and I can’t see one in the range in the tatts website. No mention of free tickets there either except for the Lucky Lotteries ones.

    Not even any hits with Google….

    0 likes

  24. allan wickham

    Sam @19. Thanks for the tip mate. Wasnt looking forward to what might have been in lotto accounting but your explanation made it easy. I owe you a beer when I see you!!

    1 likes

  25. SUBARU

    Tatts don’t care about what we think.

    Ever been to a local “training night”?

    They stand there and tell us how to do things, and don’t listen to anything we have to say. Its their way or not at all.

    Reps don’t care (or are too afraid of losing their jobs)

    Management don’t care (because apparently they know better than a newsagent)

    I’d love to have a local “discussion night” where Tatts management turn up and actually LISTEN instead of talk. And attempt to understand what happens in a REAL SHOP with REAL CUSTOMERS

    6 likes

  26. shauns

    I am worried about being charged for stock we already own . How do we work out what we are getting charged for when we are scanning stock from previous orders ? Do we just trust ?

    0 likes

  27. Richard

    Run the ISI Active book report for the previous day and that lists all the books (should) in the dispenser and how many tickets are left to sell. You can quite quickly see where you are at, or not.

    1 likes

  28. Colin

    Reg,

    Free tickets are where a customer receives another ticket as a prize rather than a cash prize

    0 likes

  29. Sam

    Al @24, no worries mate. We’re all here to help each other.

    Reg @23, maybe Visctoria don’t have this free scratchie thing. In QLD, NSW and possibly other states Tatts/Golden Casket has started an iniative (probably around 2 years ago now, only guessing) whereby a small portion of scratchies ticket winnings are pay out in a form free ticket of the same value as the scratchie instead of cash. This is so that retailers get another sale instead of just handing out the cash. And Reg, we have scratchie tickets up to $20 in QLD so is it that you choose not to sell them or are they not available at all in VIC?

    Shuans @26, I always run a weekly scratchie sales report on a Sunday (for ordering purposes) and while doing that last Sunday I did a quick stocktake on all the scratchies that I have left knowing that I will have to check if Tatts haven’t charged me for it next week. I have put away that report in a safe place as I’ll have to assess the weekly settlement report next week to work out if I have or haven’t been charged for my prepaid scractchies or not. If can I figure it out I’ll post it here next week.

    1 likes

  30. Paul

    Yep Subaru they really don’t care. You’ve summed it up pretty well. It’s all about the money with Tatts and nothing else.

    1 likes

  31. shauns

    and the terminals are down yet again

    0 likes

  32. Richard

    Tatts should follow Telstras lead and offer agents fee free days for these outages!!

    3 likes

  33. subaru

    The system has gone down hill since moving to Tatts.

    If they simply picked the “best of breed” from all the systems nationally we could have a system that was world class. Instead, we have to contend with:

    Slower and slower to serve customers – due both to poor processes AND poor hardware choice/programming

    Machine updates not finished until WELL after we open the doors in the morning – this never happened under NSW Lotteries

    The current scratchie debacle – why not just re-implement the NSW Lotteries system instead of reinventing the wheel

    The cost of a brand new counter, when the existing counter could simply be re-veneered in the new colour scheme for a fraction of the cost (our expense not theirs)

    An extra $8000 AND 0.5% fee to run new advertising system for them – on top of the required shopfit

    8 likes

  34. Sam

    Further to my earlier post, if you are following through with Tatts SOS this is what you need to do to recconcile the scratchies sales against your register.

    First you need to go to my earlier post @19 and apply the #1 instruction.
    Second, you need to add the total free Instants down the bottom of your sales report (if you normally scan the free tickets on your cash register).
    Thirdly, if you have any non SOS tickets i.e. The $10 Live The Life or the $15 One Million Dollar you need to add these to your report. You can find this out by running your Tower or POS report and what out how many of these have been sold or just do ALT-T on Tower on those 2 tickets to find out what is sold for the day.
    Once you done all the above your cash register scratchie sales should equal to the figure that we have just worked out from the Golden Casket report. A lot of friggin around if you ask me. If it doesn’t balance then you need to curse Tatts and their stupid big ideas. Hope that makes sense.

    4 likes

  35. Lara

    If we don’t innovate and change we won’t make it as a newsagency industry !!! @Sam, @Subaru if you are that dissatisfied don’t sell scratch it tickets. The technology and vision that I see from Tatts and NSWL is far better than what I see from other suppliers. I certainly don’t wish to keep doing the same things and getting the same results. I want to improve my business and at least with some engaging screens and knowing what I am selling to help plan stock orders to help my cash flow I can do this! Pitty some want to stick their heads in the sand and live in the past. Simply put I look at this as an investment in the future not a cost.

    11 likes

  36. Mark Fletcher

    Lara that is one way to look at. The other is that, at this place, you have passionate retailers here keen to have best-practice experiences from suppliers. Just because they criticise tatts does not mean they are not pursuing change in other departments in their businesses.

    My own approach is to not have Tatts. As a result, I have more control in my business, control from which I benefit. I also achieve a higher GP%.

    2 likes

  37. Colin

    Mark,

    Tatts is a commission, not a sale of goods, the GP rate on Tatts is close to 100% because other than renting the terminals, there is almost no cost of sale.

    I agree with your attitude to Tatts and would also love to say goodbye. The terminal is not part of my long term plan. But for the short/medium term, the Tatts counter generates a healthy GP and make a significant contribution towards costs.

    Same cannot be said for the damn magazines which are loss leaders extraordinaire … along with newsapapers, ezipass and metrocards.

    1 likes

  38. Mark Fletcher

    Yes, I understand Colin. My GP point was aimed at other points in Lara’s comment.

    Magazine traffic continues to be important in my view.

    2 likes

  39. subaru

    @Lara
    My point is the major difference between the way NSW Lotteries ran things compared to the way Tatts run things now. NSW Lotteries no longer exists (sold to Tatts by Labor government)
    The systems and processes and the speed of serving customers are way down on what it was under NSW Lotteries.

    How about Tatts innovate and change and improve so we can earn them more money. Instead of having customers walk out in disgust….

    3 likes

  40. allan wickham

    Just a heads up for people….Make sure you cover the qr code when scanning a payout. I`ve managed to sell a $2 isi this morning that I sold last week and cannot cancel the sale…….

    0 likes

  41. allan wickham

    Oh and scanning 1st and last tickets is BS….if there is a winner in between it will tell you the ticket has not been sold….

    1 likes

  42. shauns

    it would come up as already sold wouldn’t it ? and you wouldn’t be getting charged anyway because it was last weeks stock and scanned based sales stock didn’t start until Monday

    0 likes

  43. allan wickham

    Doesnt come up as already sold but just spoke to my lotto rep and there will probably be a credit in the background.

    0 likes

  44. subaru

    It’s almost as good as how they put the ticket barcode and the POS scan for sale barcode on all the lotto and lottery tickets so close together.
    At least the ticket barcode is recognised as an error when it’s scanned by the POS system. Requiring the correct barcode to be re-scanned and again SLOWING US DOWN at the counter.

    1 likes

  45. allan wickham

    Just on the 1st and last ticket scanning. If you scan 1st and last using the the “isi” screen you wont have a problem. If you 1st and last sell from the main screen it wont recognize the tickets in between. Hope that makes sense….

    1 likes

  46. Brett

    Just in case Tatts/Golden casket is reading.

    With every ISI sold we get a printed form, that form has a barcode on it.

    It would be awfully efficient if only one form was printed, not many, and that form printed when we pushed the Finish button, and that barcode was then scannable by the POS so the entire transaction could be replicated on the POS – the time we lose scanning the ISI could be recaptured by just scanning the form printed.

    6 likes

  47. Sam

    Brett @46 the printing is a temporary thing, pretty sure it was in the memo or something. It may be useful to keep them just in case you missed SOS a ticket.

    Lara @35 are we even talking about the same thing and I am not even trying to be rude? The post and the comments in here is talking about the new scratch-its scan on sale procedure and how time consuming and cumbersome the whole procedure it has become, at no time did I see anyone talking about the Digipos shop fit or anything else for that matter so I am not even going to go there.

    However since you are talking about how you want to improve your business and how other people have their heads in the sand and live in the past I don’t like where you are heading.

    Firstly, I am fair and I will give Tatts/Golden Casket credits for the following: Introduction of the self-checker; introduction of free scratch-its; introduction of new games such as Lucky Lottery (in QLD) and Set for Life and yes scan on sale of scratch-it with their intention of helping our cash flow.

    But it pretty much stop there, here is a list of items that Tatts/Golden Casket that I know of or can remember that has been a hindrance to our operation:
    1. The change of the MX terminals to their new S8 terminals, I can remember breezing through checking 10 lotto tickets in about 3 seconds and now that it takes me a minimal 3 seconds to process 1 ticket. Maybe exaggerating but it is pretty close to the truth;
    2. The changing of the scratch-its packaging from back side facing out to front side facing out, it is a bit incidental but it does mean that it takes more time to arrive the scratchies; if they are thoughtful they would be introducing electronic invoicing, but since when did they listen to us;
    3. The introduction of marketing fees, is it used to benefit us or them;
    4. The introduction of $0.06 cents per gift envelopes, luckily there must have been outrage from many lottery outlets and they back down;
    5. The introduction of red tape to get lotto tickets cancelled, ever tried getting one cancelled via their helpdesk lately;
    6. And the introduction of the scan on sale, you mean I have to arrive shipment, activate the books and scan on the sale the tickets, before I even sell my ticket? Isn’t that triple my procedure. Then there are the other problems, a customers who comes in and only want one $1 scratchie but as our lotto terminal/s are occupied he/she will have to wait maybe an additional 2-3 minutes (that additional 2-3 seconds extra, ha), and oh another customer comes in with a scan on sale ticket that hasn’t activated by another outlet do you A) ring up Golden Casket and wait 5-10 minutes to get them activated or B) do you send them back to where they purchased from during busy time?

    These are just the things that I recall but I am sure there are others. If I have to sum up my argument I just want to 1. Ask yourself at any stage were you offered consultation with regards to the scan on sale or anything else introduced and 2. Do you think the suggestions mention on this post is a better solution or you like it how it is?

    Innovation is about improving the way we operate either by efficiency or effectiveness, If you can honestly say it has speedup or slimline your business operation I have nothing else to say.

    One last note, I am not too looking forward to Digipos imaging standing in front of those television screen for long hours and how much radiation that it is going to send to my body and the headache that I am going to get from it. Money for health what do you choose?

    11 likes

  48. shauns

    Sam well said , I was just outlining yesterday every problem that you just mentioned .

    1 likes

  49. shauns

    I was just reading the latest NEXUS magazine and there is an article in there about TATTS introducing scan based sales to take the lime light away from the magazine company ;)…..jokes

    Poor old Gordon and gotch are hardly getting a mention this week

    1 likes

  50. subaru

    I wonder if the new digipos system is going to be as annoying as the new electronic McDonalds menus.
    You just start reading what you want to order on the menu, and the image changes to something else entirely before you’ve had a chance to make your decision…

    Let alone the upfront cost (and running cost) thanks Tatts

    0 likes

  51. David Ewen

    Come on everyone – Just stop doing S.O.S.

    If enough get their backs up, they will listen, otherwise they will just get their Puppets to try and encourage / threaten / coerce each agent to comply or risk getting a Breach Notice.

    Go the Breach!!!!!

    Not SOS

    3 likes

  52. subaru

    Unfortunately David, this could cause even more problems for customers who were trying to cash in their scratchies at a different newsagent to where they bought it.

    Tatts knows this and, while they couldn’t care less about customer service, they know that us newsagents do….

    4 likes

  53. Sam

    It is late night shopping in QLD and just had a ticket that wasn’t activated/SOS which the customer was certain that she brought over the weekend. Anyway it is a quiet evening so I rang up Tatts to get it activate, waited about 8 minutes for the helpdesk and got it activated in just under 10 minutes. Don’t think I want to do that too often.

    2 likes

  54. BobH

    I cannot understand why these issues are appearing now and were not discovered and fixed during trial in SA. Could someone from SA comment please. Thanks

    0 likes

  55. Mark Fletcher

    Sam what a waste of time. I wonder if they’d deliberately want to frustrate retailers.

    1 likes

  56. Lara

    @sam 47 – In regards to Digital Advertising comment, I was referring to Subarus comment on 5/4 at 13:15 last paragraph. I just purchased my business and getting screens installed soon – Excited!

    In regards to scanning ISI tickets:
    1. I am sorry I haven’t been a franchisee long enough to comment on history of their scanners, customer don’t care about scanners so I don’t – sorry.
    2. Packing, I do recall this change and it caught me by surprise. However I quickly thought about my customers and moved on. In regards to your comment on listening, my lotto rep does listen to me and I understand there are numerous other channels for feedback included but not limited to their contact centre, Facebook and retail consultative groups. (They spoke about this in training)
    3.Not sure what you are referring to.
    4.They retracted this decision and listened – GOOD! (Point 2 in case)
    5. I don’t have this issue often, and I understand there is a lot of legals around lotto, so I would prefer they deal with that so they keep providing game integrity to protect me from rogues like Lottoland.
    6.I get the time factor to scan the ticket and extra time, however if you really extrapolate the time to $ (and believe you me as a small business I have!!!!) the extra couple of $ per week it will take to help my cash position, stock rec, loss control etc. I welcome. Short term pain in working through a new system change and process for the long term gain in managing part of my business more effectively.

    Suppliers frustrate me at the best of times, but I do rate Tatts. They offer good service, good communication , and effective marketing campaigns (unlike other franchises) and when they visit talk about how to grow sales and don’t simply come and merchandise their area and leave. Just want to ensure we keep a balanced view.

    11 likes

  57. Michael

    Sam (53) Your experience is exactly like our repeated experience thus far. On the first day of this new rollout we spent a total of 2 hours on the phone to Tatts trying to get tickets activated that came from other retailers.

    We have since had at least 3-5 tickets come in from other outlets that have not been activated and thus caused problems. Each of which we have told we can either do it but it will take time over the phone or take it back to the agent that sold it. These customers have all opted to go back to where they bought it or just not worried about it at all.

    Simply i have lost potential sales. Tatts have lost potential sales and frustrated both agents and customers alike. To that end, we have had absolutely no benefit from it as i cannot say i have even bothered to look at our reports as we have always done things through our POS.

    Please revoke this stupid new system and go back to scanning in and out at the end of the day if you insist on having a system at all.

    5 likes

  58. SUBARU

    Michael,

    Can you imagine if a customer from Tweed Heads has had these scratchies posted from a friend in Sydney for a birthday present?

    Lets say these scrathcies were not activated before sale in Sydney (due to the machine being unavailable because it was selling Lotto at the time or whatever other reason)

    Lets also say that the customer wanted to (rightfully) claim their prize on a MASSIVE Powerball jackpot day.

    Would you want (or have the time) to spend time on the phone getting these tickets activated?

    I know I wouldn’t.
    But customer service isn’t Tatt’s strong suite unless its online is it?

    1 likes

  59. SUBARU

    By the way,

    I spent 3 hours re-arranging my entire counter on Sunday to put the Lotto machine BETWEEN my 2 POS tills to make this function better.

    I spent another hour this morning fine tuning the placement to make it work a little better.

    It now places the machine off “Tatt’s end” of the counter, but hopefully increases the in-efficiencies of “their” design.

    Can’t wait for my rep to come and see it. I wonder if he’ll tell me to move it back again 😮

    1 likes

  60. Sam

    Hi guys, just to clarify some of the things that I wrote is issues that either my staff or our newsXpress members raised before the introduction of SOS not actual things that we have encountered. And I have as soon as my scratchies came in on Tuesday SOS all the scratchies that are on my dispenser and have my spare $1-$5 in the draw to scan and give away when we come across the free tickets so those isssues about scratchie customers just wanting a scratchie do not have to wait. And I am not using their report to reconcile scratchies and just stick with my good old excel.

    0 likes

  61. Sam

    Got a message from my staff that a uni friend that he knows who also works in a newsagency said that their owner got yelled at by the “district manager” for SOS the whole book of scratchies. I think it may be Brisbane area as I haven’t received my phone call yet.

    1 likes

  62. DAVID- Rose Bay News

    Just had a customer change her mind and ask for the cash back after the time it was taking to validate each ticket that she wanted to buy and after waiting to validate a winning ticket.

    She just said, forget it, I won’t be buying scratchies again as I tried to explain how we now have to sell them on the Lotto Terminal and then sell them again on our POS. Otherwise they won’t be able to be paid out IF you are lucky enough to get a winning ticket:-)

    What a hopeless system change.

    We won’t be calling the Hotline, so don’t validate unless you have to pay out your own tickets and let the system fall over and the tickets unable to be paid out at another location.

    You could do what we are doing, Each night scan off the Next Ticket to be sold in your dispenser and then after the first day the Lotto terminal and your POS will balance if you have the same number of AND the same denomination of tickets on sale.

    You will end up with a rolling overpaid bill from Lotto that is the value of 1 ticket of each open book as you are paying for tickets up to and including the ticket you just scanned.

    It will work and at the same time cause mild chaos across the network.

    Regards

    David

    0 likes

  63. Robert A

    The most important person in my business relationships is the customer, and I will go to all costs to keep them. I am pleased to say that I have not lost any customers in this transition. In fact, I have picked up and hopefully retain those customers that have walked out in frustration from other newsagencies poor service to mine! Thankyou.

    8 likes

  64. David@anglevalenews

    Why does anyone need to scan ISI in to their POS? I don’t book Lotto sales as income, only the commission, so do not want to inflate my sales figures with low margin agency lines.

    I have a separate cash drawer for lotto (a hangover from the old SA Lotteries where a separate cash drawer was mandatory) and bank all Lotto takings in to a dedicated account.

    I know exactly how many ISI I have sold from terminal reports, and I know that I have captured every sale as I ensure the ticket registers on the terminal before finalizing the sale. Should I have a fire or break in overnight, Tatts know exactly how many of each ISI I had on the premises. If I scanned in advance of sales, I would be liable for those scanned tickets.

    Now, I know each state has their little differences, but surely it can’t be that hard?

    Maybe I am just a little shop in a little village, but I am in the top 25% SA agents. I don’t get impatient customers, I don’t want them, but a smile and a hello down the line as they wait goes along way to increasing their patience.

    3 likes

  65. shauns

    Separate draw for lotto sales ? How do you do a full sale if the customer has a few different items and wants to pay all together ? sorry but seems odd and even more time consuming

    1 likes

  66. subaru

    @David,

    How do you cverify your POS report to your Tatts machine report to see if staff, customers (or Tatts) are stealing from you?

    We have found 2 different reports within the Tatts machine that give us 2 different figures for the same time period. We used our POS system to verify which one was incorrect.

    If you ever get audited, the ATO would like to see verification of figures as well, i’m sure

    1 likes

  67. david@anglevalenews.com.au

    The only figures the ATO would need to see are those on the twice weekly settlement report which has the buyer created tax invoice. That shows the commission I earned and the charges levied by tatts. These figures are the ones I enter into my accounting software.

    Maybe the reports are different, but I just ran a report that shows me all the ISI books I have, if they are active or not and the next ticket for sale in each.

    I can guarantee that no ISI leaves my shop unless it has been activated. We take the care to check every ticket, every time.

    3 likes

  68. Lara

    @ david 64 and @ robert 63 – Nice to see we have some fellow business savy people that can follow a simple change for all our sake and keep the customer top of mind. This helps my industry! I also must say i gave some minties out last week a couple of times with change of staff, while we worked routines but all happy now and ditching my lengthy excel spreadsheet that i used to reconcile between different systems. Surprises me other businesses dont know how to keep customers and resort to blaming someone or something else….anyway their lose my gain ! 🙂

    7 likes

  69. david@anglevalenewsagency

    Yes, Shauns, a separate drawer. Until the S8 arrived it was a requirement of SA Lotteries to have a separate drawer, and the old machine even triggered the drawer to open; shame the S8 won’t do that coz Tatts were too stingy to add a 12v output.

    How do you do a full sale if the customer has a few different items and wants to pay all together ? sorry but seems odd and even more time consuming

    No where near as time consuming as scanning every ISI twice would be. On the, maybe dozen or so occasions each day we simply add the non lotto sale on to the terminal in the “other to retailer” field. That amount is added to the total for that sale, but DOES NOT add to the Lotto total sales.

    Maybe our customers are better trained – Lotto counter for Lotto, general counter for everything else and “Yep, I can do it all as one” when we are not busy.

    0 likes

  70. Colin

    We had a new fit out 18 months ago including new Tatts counter. Their requirements included the separate cash drawer that cannot be integrated to the terminal … how stupid is that ?

    1 likes

  71. subaru

    Just had to ring Tatts AGAIN to cash scratchies for a customer.

    Because she received them as a gift from a far away friend, she was not able to take them to the store of sale.

    She (as a customer) has already written a stern email to Tatts previously this week about the same topic and is getting more frustrated every time she has to claim prizes.

    I called Tatts to do the right thing by her, and am even less impressed by their processes.

    q1: How much are the prizes for?
    my response: Does it really matter? I don’t have time to figure out these complicated scratchies
    his response: I can only authorize up to $50

    WTF? They were only $3 each prize, but he should be able to tell me that when he punches the numbers in?

    q2:what are the ticket numbers?
    my response: 2 tickets, seperate books, here are the numbers

    He punches in the numbers and says “you should be right now”
    One worked, the other didn’t. He says “I’ll just have to put you on hold while I get further authorization”

    Eventually it was all sorted.

    q3: anything else I can do for you today?
    my response: yeah get rid of this stupid system that is slowing down our service and alienating our (and your) customers.
    his response: we trialled this in South Australia and had no problems. Once the rest of the states are on board properly, you won’t have a problem. have a nice day

    If this is what the managers have trained the staff to respond with, then I don’t know what is going to help us….

    2 likes

  72. Chris

    Probably not even God or Malcolm Turnbull! Certainly not Mike (I don’t listen to anyone but I am fully cool) Baird!

    0 likes

  73. Colin

    SA here and have to say I do not have the issues highlighted above, We do however scan and sell tickets simultaneously and do not attempt to activate first and sell later.

    5 likes

  74. Mark Fletcher

    Subaru I don’t know how you kept your cool through that. The process sounds nuts.

    1 likes

  75. SUBARU

    I’m suspecting that an update was done last night

    Anyone else having trouble paying scratchies this morning?

    I scanned a scratchie on the terminal to pay it, and recieved a deferred payment message.

    0 likes

  76. Gregg

    SUBARU
    There are some bugs in the system and there are updates being done in NSW. I had differed payments for free tickets come up several times late yesterday

    0 likes

  77. SUBARU

    These changes (and ongoing poor programming/processes) are pissing customers off. We, on the front line, are being made to look like idiots.

    Luckily I’ve got good customers that are emailing their thoughts directly to Tatts – in support of us agents.

    If they don’t listen to us agents, “maybe” they’ll listen to the people that buy their product?

    1 likes

  78. Mark Fletcher

    What is interesting is the growing diversity in how Tatts handles retailers. Supermarkets, c-stores, newsagents and online – the rules and processes are different for everyone.

    Tatts is not reasonable in its use of technology in newsagencies. Their backward approach to technology in the newsagency channel disadvantages newsagents compared to other channels with which Tatts deals.

    2 likes

  79. Peter

    In my Town Tatts handle IGA (yes a supermarket with lotto) with exactly the same rules as my business. It has appeared to make this IGA a bit of an orphan as it makes it harder to sell the business because of the Tatts rules on business takeovers/sale. I have seen them stop selling Tatts for a couple of months until the new principals are properly qualified by Tatts.

    0 likes

  80. Mark Fletcher

    The disruption this change is causing is considerable for such a low margin product.

    1 likes

  81. Paul

    Yep it is. Quite amusing though how Tatts and the field reps are all trying to sweep it under the carpet as having gone through successfully. Successful my rear end. I had a customer who wanted two of each ticket this morning while we had a queue up for the lotto terminal. She had to wait and when told why all the customers in the line said what a load of rubbish that was from Tatts and why do we put up with them ?

    0 likes

  82. Lara

    Mark – My lotto is on commission is it different for you at your newaagency? I am getting used to it now what isn’t working for you?

    1 likes

  83. Jeff

    What the actual fuck Lara. You sound lite you work for Tatts.

    6 likes

  84. Colin

    Lara,

    You are right to be confused but in the wrong place if looking for logic on lottery/magazine/paper margins.

    My outlet gives me $20 spend per lottery customer, an average reduced by those pesky instants. So I reckon to make $1.60 (ish) per lottery/instant customer, which is almost exactly the same as I make from the average magazine purchase. But if I add in the papers (akin to the instants) I make considerably less per customer. And that is before the hassle and cost of receiving magazines, returns, stickering etc … very slightly offset of course by the marginal cost of turning on and off the lottery terminal each day.

    Sure the lottery has some drawbacks, but the bigger Satan is magazines and papers.

    3 likes

  85. Mark Fletcher

    Lara, I don’t have lotteries in my newsagencies (in Victoria) and have not had since 2011 by choice.

    My comments about this new process by Tatts are based on feedback from many newsagents. Your voice is one of a handful supporting the change.

    Where is your business?

    1 likes

  86. Lara

    @ Jeff 83 – I do not appreciate your comment and find the language used offensive. @ Mark I request that this post is removed.

    1 likes

  87. John

    has anyone been able to daily reconcile the Scratchits reports with their actuals?

    2 likes

  88. Mark Fletcher

    Lara comments are unmoderated, always have been and always will be.

    5 likes

  89. Paul

    John you can’t fully “correctly” reconcile between the two at the moment simply because there are still some (2 ? ) current issue scratchies that don’t scan on sale. So it doesn’t ring true what Tatts has said that this was in part brought in to allow better reconciliation because they quite simply haven’t provided all of the tools (and I’m not talking about the Tatts management there who thought this was a good idea !) to do it.

    0 likes

  90. subaru

    When this new process was announce at a Tatts training night a number of months ago, the whole room responded with comments that it wouldn’t work, and it would slow us down even more, and Scan at the End of the Day NEEDED to be re-introduced.

    Management didn’t listen and kept pushing this through.

    Guess what. WE TOLD YOU SO Tatts

    5 likes

  91. Lara

    @Paul 89 – I have had the same experience and I have sold through the scratchies that are non scanning on sale, and wont reorder. If you still have the old stock then you will need to manually count.

    @jeff 83 – Whilst only recently purchasing my first agency, I run several other cafes where customers are my bread and butter. If my comments challenge you, I suggest your look at your own attitude and energy towards your clients.

    2 likes

  92. Mark Fletcher

    Tatts has a track record of introducing more red tape than state, federal and local politicians. They do this with double standards and that is part of what fuels anger from newsagents over this latest mess.

    0 likes

  93. Jeff

    Hey Lara now we know you have different names on here you have got all silent. Is that because people know of your GC relationship or is it because you are scared people are finding out other things?

    0 likes

  94. Mark Fletcher

    My suspicion is someone has worked where the IP address 124.170.90.199 is from.

    1 likes

  95. Bill.

    @ Junior #7. SA Lotteries introduced scanning ISI at time of sale in 2009. Because they consulted their Retail Agent Representative Group a lot of the bugs were ironed out before it went to market.

    Since the take over by Tatt’s they have failed to live up to the same standard. Unfortunately there is no longer any consultation and everything is force fed.
    Tatt’s systems and processes are very poor in relation to what we had previously. In the case of ISI’s – 1. They are frustrating to sell because they don’t scan efficiently, 2 when you eventually get it to scan, it then scans the same barcode twice. While in the middle of a sale it repeatedly asks you if you want to start a new customer and when you want to cash-in an ISI you have to cover the selling barcode or it will pick that up before the barcode you are trying to scan.
    Tatt’s processes do not stand up to the rigor of a busy days sales.
    They have introduced customer surveys here in SA over the past year where an outside marketing group will survey your store quarterly, one of them being an audit. In between surveys the introduced prompter strips for up selling. I refuse to use them because they are a visual distraction and have been marked down in my latest survey along with not having a clear gambling area “their space” which is 9 metres of space on the lease line. (compare this to the double standards of OTR convenience stores).
    They are about to introduce this nationally.
    We get paid for the “how many” yet are measure on the “how”.
    In the words of General Norman Schwarzkopf – ” Good leadership is not telling people what to do, but telling the what you want to achieve and leave the how up to them.”

    4 likes

  96. Mark Fa

    So we have $40m Thursday, $21m Saturday and Mother’s Day – one of the biggest ISI selling periods of the year – all lining up this week. Has anyone given any creative thought on how we can get around the little SOS issue??

    0 likes

  97. Sam

    Mark Fa, as I have said before. Scan sale the whole book or half book before you put it on the dispenser. Have spare books of $1-5 ISIs nearby in the draw for you to scan as a free ticket. Make sure it is consistent (do it for all ISIS or all $1-$5 ISIs) and that your staff is fully aware of what you are doing and what they need to do.

    1 likes

  98. allan wickham

    After yesterdays debacle on people just wanting a scratchie while we were busy with Lotto, one can only assume that the people responsible for dreaming up this idea were clearly on some sort of illegal substance at the time. Have they ever spent an hour behind a counter?

    4 likes

  99. Russell

    While Tatts continue to build their business through other channels – Online, Corporates etc – which they are entitled to do, they are forcing us to update the Lotto Corporate Image at the same cost as previous updates. With Online increasing to 23% as of April figures how can Tatts justify this Corporate Image cost while we are losing over 23% of our Lotto business to Online? This Online figure will only increase with Corporates also set to jump in for their slice. What sort of business decision is this – ‘Do It or Lose It’. Big business running without authority.

    5 likes

  100. subaru

    Big business looking after itself at the cost of small business.

    The person/persons involved in these new processes need to acknowledge their mistake, and either “fall on their sword” for someone else to fix the problems, OR fix the issues themselves.

    Our customers are good enough to understand that the issue isn’t our fault.

    I wonder if the share holders of the big corporate know of the lost sales due to these processes? Surely a drop in share price wouldn’t make THEM happy

    2 likes

  101. Bruce G

    Well Subaru Our customers are also very good about the introduction of SOS and seem to understand that it is not our fault when we are delayed.
    HOWEVER those same people are choosing imo to buy fewer scratchies less often. I have seen them and heard them. They will curtail their lotto and ISI purchases if there is a slow moving queue. They will say ” No thats all I need” when I asked them if they need ISI.They will wait in the queue and when it is their turn they will just put on the lotto. I even heard one say to another, the Keno doesn’t take this long.
    Tatts is inflicting damage on itself. And on me.
    And yes I have written to them and received replies. Platitudes. No substance.

    1 likes

  102. Amanda

    We sell approximately $4,000 worth of ISI per week. So we make approximately $350 selling them across the week. It is now at the point we are paying more in wages to cover the time costs of staff associated with selling ISI.

    These changes have had a damaging effect on sales and staff involvement.

    Commission must go up.

    6 likes

  103. Colin

    Amanda,

    I agree on commission. I calculate that if i had a queue of customers only requesting instants, one person continually serving these customers could not cover that person’s labour cost. I could just make a profit if customers bought multiples of one ticket, but most don’t.

    I despair when an instant customer says ” one of each please”

    Same issue applies to newspapers.

    1 likes

  104. Bruce G

    Same here Amanda.
    We sell about 4000 worth ISI per week as well. Approx $350 commission is just a joke for the work and waiting involved.
    The commission has always been inadequate, but now it is a super loss maker. As well as the time wasted, there is the frustration factor.
    Every staff member just likes their job a little less.
    I want our staff to love their jobs even more not less. It is a damn shame to see.

    1 likes

  105. Karen

    We are a one terminal agency and the time it now takes us is ridiculous…we particularly struggle on a Saturday morning our busiest morning…when we get a customer who buys a scratchy of each reel and the other customers are all waiting in a queue…The people who make these decisions need to come and work in an agency for a couple of days and see how their new system works.

    4 likes

  106. Jerry Apatse

    we all know that all lottery agency stores are not 100% honest. because they are actually caught doing it.

    what about the online-lottery-operators? are the agents honest? online lotteries has a sophisticated systems that the operators are in full control after a player signed-up.

    is there a compliant monitoring by the australian online lotteries and gaming authority?

    0 likes

  107. Jerry Apatse

    i have been playing online lotteries online using tatts.com for many years.
    since my first and last winning of $3000 from powerball in 2014. i have to call tatts head office in brisbane because the money is not in my account after three weeks have gone by. the staff told me that they are not aware that i won. so they did process and i got the money. but since 2014 to until now 2017. i have not had winning anymore. four years just bad-luck! or maybe not. online gaming is computerize process. not like lottery agency store’s traditional process and can be view on television live sometimes.
    players playing online lotteries only have one way to find out if they win is by email. so tatts online controllers are in full control. because online lottery is computerize,wicked opportunity can happen.

    1 likes

  108. Katie

    Jerry Apatse,
    I have never played online lotteries – I am a retailer.
    Out of interest, when you purchase an online ticket, are you shown an virtual ticket with your numbers?
    If yes, there could be no foul play.
    Interesting if they don’t show you what your numbers are…

    0 likes

  109. Maria Gaillard

    I would like to know : When I purchase instant scratchies the newsagent not only scans in first and last numbers into machine but he then goes to another machine and scans in a bar code? I have never seen this before; only first to last tickets are scanned in…why does he do this twice on two different machines?

    0 likes

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