GaP Solutions News

Retail Inventory Management Software: How EM Cloud™ Works

corneliaf@gapsolutions.com.au (Cornelia Freysen) — Sat, 12 Sep 2026 11:25:39 GMT

EM Cloud™ is the GaP Solutions cloud back-office system for Australian independent retailers. Its inventory management covers automated ordering with visible forecasting logic, purchase history, dump stock, expiry alerts, single-and-carton product handling, forward buying on supplier deals, live stocktakes and automatic supplier credit notes.

Too much stock ties up capital. Too little loses sales. Both problems have the same root cause — the number in the system not matching the number on the shelf.

That is not a small problem. An ECR Retail Loss study across seven European grocery and general merchandise retailers found 63% of audited grocery SKUs did not match system records, and that correcting those inaccuracies lifted sales by between 3.8% and 8.4%. For the products with the largest discrepancies, the sales lift exceeded 14%.

WHY INVENTORY ACCURACY IS THE WHOLE GAME

63%

Of grocery SKUs did not match system records (ECR, 2020)

4–8%

Sales lift from correcting those inventory records

43%

Of stockouts end in no sale for that store at all

2.1%

IGA price gap to the major supermarkets (Metcash, FY26)

Research cited here is third-party, not GaP’s own, and is dated and located in the Sources section. The stockout figures are from a global 2002 study, still the primary reference in the field. Verified August 2026.

The competitive context matters too. Australia’s independents run the largest store network in the country — around 1,335 IGA stores compared with roughly 1,115 Woolworths and 850 Coles — but hold about 7% of national grocery sales against Woolworths’ 38% and Coles’ 29%, according to the ACCC’s February 2025 Supermarkets Inquiry. Metcash reported an IGA price gap to the majors of 2.1% for FY26, with food sales excluding tobacco up 5.4%.

Independents are competing on a 2.1% price gap. That is won or lost on buying accuracy and waste, not on wishful thinking.

The upside is real and measurable. Jones Retail Group, running Auto-Order and Investment Buy across its stores, has saved several hundred thousand dollars over the past year — figures confirmed by Michael Tucker of Jones Retail Group, and detailed further down.

EM Cloud™ inventory features at a glance

Feature	Problem it solves	Who it matters most to
Auto-Order	Orders written from habit rather than from sales data	Any store where ordering depends on who is rostered
Purchase History	No clear view of ordered versus received quantities	Stores with high supplier counts and frequent short deliveries
Dump Stock	Write-offs happening off-system, so losses are invisible	Fresh departments, and anyone managing recalls
Expiry monitoring	Date-sensitive stock found at write-off rather than markdown	Deli, bakery, butchery, seafood, dairy, chilled
Parent–child products	Selling singles but restocking by the carton	Liquor, convenience, general grocery
Investment Buy	Supplier deals missed, or taken at the wrong volume	Stores with storage capacity and steady demand lines
Live stocktakes	Counting requires closing the store or working overnight	Any store that trades long hours
On-the-spot credit notes	Delivery shortfalls never chased because raising a claim is slow	High-volume receiving operations

1. Auto-Order, with the reasoning shown

Rather than static reorder points, Auto-Order analyses your sales data to work out how much stock a line actually needs. The distinguishing feature is not the forecast — it is that the forecast is visible.

Transparent predictions. The system recommends a quantity and shows you why. When someone questions an order, the forecasting logic is there to look at rather than something to argue about.
Adjustments you can make with your eyes open. Many stores find the first Auto-Order suggestion is lower than they are used to. That usually means the previous approach was over-ordering — capital sitting in a back room.

Transparency matters more than it sounds, because manual overrides are not free. A study of ordering behaviour across retail stores found managers advancing orders by a median of 0.59 days of excess inventory per SKU, amounting to roughly a 9.6% increase in inventory over what the automated system would have ordered. Overriding the system is sometimes right. Overriding it invisibly, every week, out of habit, is expensive.

Showing the logic is what makes the override a decision rather than a reflex.

2. Purchase History

A dedicated Purchase History tab, so what you ordered and what actually arrived sit next to each other rather than in different places.

Discrepancies are visible instead of being discovered at stocktake
Historical patterns across past orders inform better forecasting, and show which suppliers consistently short-deliver

3. Dump Stock

Every store removes unsellable stock — damage, recalls, discontinued lines. The question is whether it is recorded.

Single-click removal straight from the product page, so recording it is faster than not recording it
Dump Stock Report to track losses and surface recurring patterns — the same line appearing every week is a ranging or ordering problem wearing a write-off costume

This is where the inventory accuracy point bites hardest. Stock written off without being recorded is exactly how a system number and a shelf number come apart.

4. Expiry monitoring

Fresh and perishable lines need oversight that does not depend on someone remembering to walk the chiller.

Automated alerts for stock approaching its date, early enough to mark down, rotate or donate rather than dump
Fewer write-offs, and a fresh offer customers can rely on

Worth knowing that “use by” and “best before” carry different legal consequences — food past a use-by date cannot lawfully be sold, while best-before stock can be, provided it is still fit for consumption. Any markdown rule needs to treat them as two different things.

5. Parent–child product management

Selling a product in multiple formats — single bottles and twelve-packs — without maintaining two sets of numbers.

Flexible selling units. Child items (singles) and parent items (cartons or packs) tracked together
Accurate ordering. Sell singles, restock by the carton, and EM Cloud™ orders the correct quantity without anyone doing the arithmetic

6. Investment Buy

Investment Buy extends Auto-Order to supplier promotions. It weighs cost, current stock, auto-order cycles, sales history and upcoming deals, then places orders on user-defined logic set per store, department or sub-department.

Timing. If the last day to order a special is 12 February, the purchase is scheduled for 12 February — not early, which costs you holding time, and not late, which costs you the deal.
Sized to the site. Configurable across multiple locations, accounting for each store’s size and storage capacity.
Reporting. Total savings, days since the last deal, best deal achieved, and current investment buy status — so the benefit is measured rather than assumed.

An honest note on forward buying. Buying ahead on a deal is not automatically profitable. Published research in the Journal of Marketing Research shows forward buying benefits the retailer only when holding costs sit below a threshold — and that competing retailers can both end up worse off than if neither had done it. The margin is real but bounded by holding cost, shelf life and the risk of distorting your own demand signal for the next cycle. That is precisely why the module needs to sit alongside visible forecasting logic and expiry alerts, rather than operating as a standalone deal-chaser.

What this looks like in a multi-store group

Jones Retail Group runs Auto-Order and Investment Buy across its stores — covering the Metcash warehouse, fresh, and direct suppliers alike. Michael Tucker of Jones Retail Group confirmed the following results to GaP Solutions in August 2026:

Several hundred
thousand dollars

Saved over the past year

~1,000
pallets

Of additional stock secured through Investment Buy

Thousands
per week

In ongoing value, with no added workload for the team

The detail worth noticing is the last one. The savings did not come from someone working harder at buying — the process runs in the background, which is the difference between a tool that finds you savings and a tool that gives you another job.

It also illustrates the point about buying discipline across a group. In a multi-store operation, ordering quality otherwise depends on who wrote the order at each site that day. Standardising it means head office sees one consistent picture rather than reconciling several.

Live stocktakes and automatic credit notes

Live stocktakes. EM Cloud™ supports stocktaking while the store is trading — no after-hours shutdown, no manual data entry marathon afterwards. Given how far system and shelf figures drift, being able to count more often without closing is the practical route to keeping records accurate rather than correcting them once a year.

On-the-spot credit notes. When receiving stock, a discrepancy between what was ordered and what arrived generates a supplier credit note automatically. Small shortfalls usually go unclaimed because raising the paperwork costs more attention than the claim is worth. Removing that friction is how the money actually gets recovered.

Working with your existing supplier files

EM Cloud™ integrates with host file and warehouse ordering for a range of Australian groups, including Metcash, ALM, SPAR, Foodland, Tasmanian Independent Retailers, New Sunrise and Foodworks, alongside IGA Online and IGA Rewards. Inventory management only works if it is connected to where you actually order from.

The number in the system
should be the number on the shelf.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is EM Cloud™ inventory management?

EM Cloud™ is the GaP Solutions cloud back-office system for Australian independent retailers. Its inventory management covers Auto-Order with visible forecasting logic, Purchase History for ordered-versus-received tracking, single-click Dump Stock with reporting, automated expiry alerts, parent–child handling for singles and cartons, an Investment Buy module for supplier deals, live stocktakes while trading, and automatic supplier credit notes on delivery discrepancies.

How does Auto-Order decide how much to order?

It analyses your sales data rather than relying on static reorder points, then recommends a quantity and shows the forecasting logic behind it. That transparency is deliberate — research on retail ordering behaviour found managers overriding automated suggestions carried roughly 9.6% more inventory than the system would have ordered. Seeing the reasoning turns an override into a decision rather than a habit.

Why is the first Auto-Order suggestion lower than what we normally order?

Usually because the previous approach was over-ordering. It is the most common reaction stores have on switching, and it generally reflects stock levels built up from habit rather than from demand. Over-ordering ties up capital, consumes storage and increases waste in date-sensitive lines — so a lower suggestion is often the system working rather than the system being wrong. The forecasting logic is visible so you can check it yourself.

Can you do a stocktake without closing the store?

Yes. EM Cloud™ supports live stocktakes while the store is fully operational, so there is no after-hours shutdown and no manual data entry afterwards. This matters because inventory records drift continuously — an ECR Retail Loss study found 63% of audited grocery SKUs did not match system records — and counting more often is more effective than counting once a year.

How does EM Cloud™ handle products sold as singles and cartons?

Through parent–child product management. Child items are the individual units you sell, parent items are the cartons or packs you restock by, and the two are tracked together. If you sell single bottles but order by the case, EM Cloud™ converts to the correct order quantity automatically so stock stays consistent.

What is Investment Buy and is forward buying always worth it?

Investment Buy extends Auto-Order to supplier promotions, weighing cost, stock on hand, auto-order cycles, sales history and upcoming deals to place orders on logic you define per store or department. It schedules the purchase for the optimal day rather than early or late. And no, forward buying is not always worth it — published research in the Journal of Marketing Research shows the benefit depends on holding costs sitting below a threshold, and that competing retailers can both end up worse off. The module reports total savings and deal status so the benefit is measured rather than assumed.

What results have retailers seen from Auto-Order and Investment Buy?

Michael Tucker of Jones Retail Group, which runs both across its stores covering the Metcash warehouse, fresh and direct suppliers, confirmed to GaP Solutions in August 2026 that the group had saved several hundred thousand dollars over the past year, secured around 1,000 pallets of additional stock through Investment Buy, and generates thousands of dollars a week in ongoing value — with no added workload for the team, because the process runs automatically in the background.

Does EM Cloud™ work with Metcash and other supplier host files?

Yes. EM Cloud™ integrates with host file and warehouse ordering for Metcash, ALM, SPAR, Foodland, Tasmanian Independent Retailers, New Sunrise and Foodworks, among others, along with IGA Online and IGA Rewards.

What happens when a delivery arrives short?

EM Cloud™ generates a supplier credit note automatically when there is a discrepancy between what was ordered and what was received. The point is removing friction — small shortfalls typically go unclaimed because the paperwork costs more attention than the claim is worth.

Sources

ECR Retail Loss — Measuring the Sales Impact of Improving Inventory Records (2020; 7 European retailers, ~100 stores)
ACCC — Supermarkets Inquiry Final Report (February 2025)
Convenience & Impulse Retailing — Metcash FY26 result (June 2026)
van Donselaar et al. — Ordering Behavior in Retail Stores and Implications for Automated Replenishment
Desai, Koenigsberg & Purohit — Forward Buying by Retailers, Journal of Marketing Research (2010)
Gruen, Corsten & Bharadwaj — Retail Out-of-Stocks: A Worldwide Examination of Causes, Rates and Consumer Responses, Grocery Manufacturers of America (2002). Global study; consumer-response figures cited above
GaP Solutions — EM Integration
Jones Retail Group results: confirmed by Michael Tucker, Jones Retail Group, in interview with GaP Solutions, August 2026

Find out what your stock levels should be

Book a demo and we’ll walk through Auto-Order on your own categories — including what the forecasting logic says your holdings should be, and where it differs from what you are ordering now.

BOOK A DEMO

Or call 1300 722 289 · marketing@gapsolutions.com.au

Fuel Price Reporting in SA and Victoria: What Retailers Must Report and When

corneliaf@gapsolutions.com.au (Cornelia Freysen) — Sat, 12 Sep 2026 11:25:38 GMT

Fuel retailers in South Australia and Victoria must report every price change to a government system within 30 minutes. Victorian retailers must also submit a maximum daily price cap for each fuel type between 8.30am and 2pm the day before it applies.

Those two obligations sound simple. In a live forecourt, they are not. Prices move, staff are busy, and every change creates another task in another portal. Miss the window and the penalties are now significant — in South Australia, an on-the-spot expiation fee rose from $550 to $5,000 on 30 July 2026.

This article sets out exactly what each state requires, what the penalties are, and how EM Forecourt™ from GaP Solutions can help eligible sites communicate automatically with state fuel pricing systems instead of relying on manual updates.

Rules and enforcement figures in this article were verified against Consumer and Business Services SA, SA.GOV.AU, Service Victoria and Consumer Affairs Victoria in August 2026. Fuel pricing regulation is changing quickly — always confirm current obligations with the relevant regulator.

What are the fuel price reporting rules in SA and Victoria?

Both states require reporting within 30 minutes. Victoria adds a daily price cap on top. This is the practical difference:

Requirement	South Australia	Victoria
System	SA Fuel Pricing Information Scheme	Servo Saver, via Service Victoria
Price change deadline	Within 30 minutes of the change at the bowser	As soon as practicable, within 30 minutes of any change
Fuel unavailability	Must be reported, temporary or permanent	Availability shown per fuel type in the app
Daily price cap	Not applicable	Submit next day's cap per fuel type between 8.30am and 2pm the day before
Scope	Per station, per fuel type	Per station, per fuel type
Penalties	$5,000 expiation fee, up to $20,000 maximum penalty (from 30 July 2026)	Infringements of more than $3,000 per breach, court penalties exceeding $24,000
In force since	2021 (penalties increased 30 July 2026)	6 August 2025 (price cap added 10 March 2026)

South Australia: report price changes and outages within 30 minutes

Under the Fair Trading (Fuel Pricing Information) Regulations 2021, a fuel retailer must enter the normal fuel price for each fuel type into the aggregation system "as close in time as possible" to when a price change takes effect, and in any event no more than 30 minutes after that time. If a fuel type becomes unavailable, temporarily or permanently, that must be reported too.

South Australian retailers can report in several ways:

Direct entry into the aggregation system
Upload by API or flat file
A third-party agent submitting bulk data on your behalf, which suits multi-site operators
By phone to the aggregator on 08 8356 1020 if the internet is unavailable

SA penalties increased sharply on 30 July 2026

This is the change most South Australian operators need to know about. Amending legislation passed the SA Parliament in June 2026 and took effect on 30 July 2026. The on-the-spot expiation fee for a breach rose from $550 to $5,000, and the maximum court penalty rose from $10,000 to $20,000.

"Significantly increasing the penalties for breaches helps act as a strong deterrent and sends a clear warning that service station operators need to abide by the law and update prices and availability within 30 minutes of any change."

Brett Humphrey, Commissioner for Consumer and Business Services, 31 July 2026

Victoria: 30-minute reporting plus a daily maximum price cap

Mandatory fuel price reporting through Service Victoria began on 6 August 2025. On 10 March 2026, Victoria added a second layer: the maximum daily fuel price cap. Victorian fuel price reporting is no longer a single price update. It is a daily compliance workflow.

How the Victorian daily price cap works

8.30am – 2pm: submit tomorrow's maximum price cap for each fuel type at each site. You can keep editing it right up to 2pm.
2pm: the cap locks. After this you can only decrease the price, not increase it.
By 4pm: the cap is published on Servo Saver so motorists can see tomorrow's maximum price.
2.30pm – 6am: optionally submit a scheduled 6am price, which must be lower than the cap you have already submitted.
From 6am: the published cap becomes the maximum you can charge for the next 24 hours. You can reduce prices during the day, but once reduced you cannot raise them again until the cap resets at 6am.
Throughout: any price change, including same-day reductions, must be reported within 30 minutes.

Two details are easy to miss. The cap is a ceiling, not an opening price — you are not required to start the day at the cap. And if you do not submit a cap by 2pm, the system automatically carries over the previous day's prices, which may not be what you intended.

Victorian penalties are set out in the Australian Consumer Law and Fair Trading (Code of Practice for Fuel Retailers) Regulations 2025. Infringement notices exceed $3,000 per breach, and court penalties can exceed $24,000 and may result in a conviction.

What happens if you don't report on time?

Both regulators are actively inspecting and publicly naming non-compliant sites.

In South Australia, Consumer and Business Services reported on 31 July 2026 that it had conducted more than 1,000 fuel price inspections since March, issuing nearly $20,000 in expiations and naming 26 service stations. The breakdown is instructive: 18 breaches were for showing a fuel as available when it was not, and 8 were price discrepancies. Fuel availability, not price, is where most operators are getting caught.

In Victoria, the most recent published figure is from 13 April 2026, when the Victorian Government reported more than $80,000 in fines issued to more than 25 retailers since the price cap commenced on 10 March. Servo Saver had passed 520,000 users at that point, and Consumer Affairs Victoria is sharing fuel data with the ACCC.

The message from both states is the same. Fuel price reporting is not background admin any more. It needs to be accurate, timely, and easy for your team to manage.

Why manual reporting creates avoidable risk

Manual reporting creates three problems for fuel retailers:

It adds administration. Every price change becomes a second task in a second system.
It increases the risk of missed or delayed updates. If the price changes on site but the government system is not updated inside 30 minutes, the business may face compliance action — now at $5,000 per expiation in South Australia.
It can damage customer trust. Motorists check real-time fuel apps before they choose a site. If the reported price does not match the pump, they notice.

Fuel price reporting is not only about compliance. It is also about customer confidence.

How EM Forecourt™ reduces manual fuel price reporting

EM Forecourt™ is the GaP Solutions forecourt management and point-of-sale system for fuel retailers, integrating pump control, fuel transactions, shop trading and reporting in one platform. For eligible sites in South Australia and Victoria, it can also support automatic communication with the relevant state fuel pricing system — the SA Fuel Pricing Information Scheme in South Australia, and Service Victoria for Servo Saver in Victoria.

Instead of changing the price at the site and then re-entering it in a government portal, the reporting step is connected to the pricing workflow that is already happening.

One price change.
Less double handling. More control.

Five reasons this matters for fuel retailers

Save time. Removing a manual reporting step gives time back to a team that is already managing pumps, stock, staff and payments.
Reduce risk. Both states require reporting inside 30 minutes. Automation reduces reliance on someone remembering.
Improve accuracy. Manual entry leaves room for error. A connected process keeps reporting tied to the actual pricing change.
Support multi-site operations. State rules differ. A single system helps create a consistent process across locations and states.
Build customer trust. Accurate reporting means the price motorists see online is the price they pay at the pump.

Frequently asked questions

How quickly must fuel retailers report a price change in South Australia?

Within 30 minutes of the price changing at the bowser. The Fair Trading (Fuel Pricing Information) Regulations 2021 require the price to be entered into the aggregation system as close in time as possible to the change, and in any event no more than 30 minutes after it takes effect. Fuel unavailability must also be reported.

What is the fine for not reporting fuel prices in South Australia?

From 30 July 2026, the expiation fee is $5,000 and the maximum penalty is $20,000. These replaced the previous $550 expiation fee and $10,000 maximum. Consumer and Business Services has conducted more than 1,000 inspections since March 2026 and publicly names non-compliant service stations.

What time do Victorian fuel retailers have to submit their daily price cap?

Between 8.30am and 2pm the day before the cap applies, for each fuel type at each site. The cap is published on Servo Saver by 4pm and takes effect from 6am the following day for 24 hours. If no cap is submitted by 2pm, the previous day's prices carry over automatically.

Can Victorian fuel retailers change prices during the day?

Yes, but only downwards. The published cap is the maximum price for that 24-hour period. Retailers can reduce prices at any time, but once reduced they cannot raise them again until the cap resets at 6am the next day. Every change, including reductions, must be reported within 30 minutes.

Do fuel retailers have to report each fuel type separately?

Yes. In both South Australia and Victoria, obligations apply per service station and per fuel type. Multi-site operators must register and report for every location they are responsible for.

Can a POS system report fuel prices to the government automatically?

Yes. For eligible sites, EM Forecourt™ from GaP Solutions can support automatic communication with the SA Fuel Pricing Information Scheme and with Service Victoria for Servo Saver, reducing the need to re-enter prices manually in a separate portal after every change.

Sources

Ready to reduce manual fuel price reporting?

Talk to GaP Solutions about how EM Forecourt™ can support automatic communication with the SA Fuel Pricing Information Scheme and Service Victoria, and what it would take to set your sites up.

CONTACT GaP SOLUTIONS

Supplier Invoice Processing for Retailers: How EM Invoicing Cuts Manual Admin

corneliaf@gapsolutions.com.au (Cornelia Freysen) — Sat, 12 Sep 2026 11:25:37 GMT

EM Invoicing brings supplier invoice processing into EM Cloud™. Invoices arrive by email or scanner, import automatically, and are matched against received quantities and costing — so your team reviews the exceptions instead of keying every line.

Supplier invoices sit upstream of almost everything: stock accuracy, supplier management, cost visibility, pricing and margin. When they are processed by hand, every one of those things inherits the delay and the error rate.

This article covers what manual invoice processing actually costs, how EM Invoicing changes the workflow, and where it fits for grocery, fuel, liquor, bakery, butcher, seafood and multi-store retailers.

THE COST OF MANUAL INVOICE PROCESSING

10+ hrs

Per week on invoice processing, reported by 63% of AP teams

66%

Still manually enter invoice data into their ERP

22%→9%

Invoice exception rate, typical performers vs best-in-class

$27–$30

ATO estimate to process a paper or PDF invoice

Figures verified August 2026 and sourced at the end of this article. Benchmark data is indicative — results depend on invoice volume, supplier mix and your current process.

What is EM Invoicing?

EM Invoicing is the supplier invoice module inside EM Cloud™, the GaP Solutions cloud back-office system. Your team sends invoices to a designated email address, or submits them using a dedicated scanner. In most cases, original supplier invoices sent by email give the best results — a clean digital original reads more reliably than a scan of a printout.

Once EM Cloud™ imports the invoice, your team reviews it against received quantities and costing. The system surfaces what needs attention: quantity variances, supplier cost changes, and the retail price impacts that follow from them.

How much time does manual invoice processing actually take?

More than most retailers assume. The Institute of Financial Operations & Leadership’s Accounts Payable Automation Trends 2025 found that 63% of respondents spend more than 10 hours per week on invoice processing, and 66% still manually enter invoice data into ERP systems. In the 2024 edition of the same research, the leading process challenges were too much manual data entry (51.4%) and data errors or discrepancies causing delays (47.1%).

The benchmark gap is starker. Ardent Partners, surveying 212 AP and finance leaders, found best-in-class organisations process an invoice for $2.78 against $12.88 for everyone else, in 3.1 days rather than 17.4 days, with an exception rate of 9% versus 22%. Closer to home, the ATO estimates paper and PDF invoices generally cost between $27 and $30 to process, and that eInvoicing can bring that under $10.

Meanwhile the cost side keeps moving. Deloitte Access Economics reported in May 2026 that the Australian retail cost base rose 2.1%, with real wages down 1.3% year-on-year and discretionary spending growth slowing to 0.7%. Award minimum rates rose 4.75% from 1 July 2026. The Australian Retail Council’s Chief Economist has described the situation plainly:

“Retailers are dealing with rising costs across energy, logistics, wages, rents and regulation, all while working hard to keep prices affordable.”

Glenn Fahey, Chief Economist, Australian Retail Council, March 2026 — describing a “cost-of-doing-business crisis”

When margin is under that kind of pressure, hours spent re-keying invoice data are hours not being spent on the decisions that protect it.

How does EM Invoicing work inside EM Cloud™?

Six steps, from supplier to accounting system:

Submit — supplier invoices arrive by email to a designated address, or via a dedicated scanner
Import — EM Cloud™ ingests the invoice and reads the line detail
Match — the invoice is compared against received quantities and costing
Review — variances and supplier cost changes are surfaced on screen for your team
Adjust — retail pricing is reviewed where a cost change affects margin
Export — the processed invoice moves to Xero, MYOB or another accounting platform

The shift is from checking every invoice line from scratch to working a filtered list of what actually differs. That is where the time comes back.

Matching invoices against received quantities

Invoice matching is the checkpoint between receiving stock and paying for it. With EM Invoicing, your team compares what the supplier invoiced against what the store actually received, inside EM Cloud™.

If the invoiced quantity does not match the received quantity, that difference is visible before the invoice goes any further. Caught at this point it is a two-minute query to a supplier. Caught three weeks later, after the stock has sold and the retail price was set off the wrong cost, it is considerably more expensive.

Reviewing variances before they reach your reporting

A variance might be a quantity difference, a supplier cost change, a product issue or a straightforward invoice error. EM Cloud™ highlights them on screen so your team reviews them before they flow into reporting, pricing or margin decisions.

This is the difference between a process that catches small problems and one that accumulates them.

Seeing supplier cost changes in time to protect margin

This is the quiet one. A supplier raises the cost of a line. Nobody reviews the retail price. The product keeps selling at the same rate, so nothing looks wrong on the sales report — but the margin has gone, and it keeps going until someone notices.

EM Invoicing puts cost changes in front of your team during the invoice process, while there is still a decision to make. For retailers running high product volumes on thin margins, catching that at invoice stage rather than at month-end is the whole point.

Exporting to Xero, MYOB or your accounting system

Once reviewed and processed, invoices can be exported to accounting platforms including Xero and MYOB, connecting store operations to the finance workflow. Xero’s own guidance makes the case for automating this step:

“Automate your accounts payable tasks — such as scanning invoices, forecasting cash flow, and scheduling payments — to cut down on manual admin, reduce human error, and free up time for higher-value work.”

Xero, Accounts payable process guide (Australia)

Where eInvoicing and Peppol fit in

Worth being clear on this, because it is widely misreported. There is no mandatory business-to-business eInvoicing requirement in Australia. The Commonwealth mandate applies to Non-corporate Commonwealth Entities, which must lift eInvoicing to 30% of invoices received by 1 July 2026 and enable automated sending and receiving by December 2026.

What that means practically: if you supply a Commonwealth agency, expect to be asked to onboard to Peppol. If you don’t, there is no legal deadline — but more than 400,000 Australian businesses are already on the network, and the ATO’s cost figures explain why. Either way, the operational argument for reducing manual invoice handling stands on its own.

Built for grocery, fuel, liquor and fresh food retailers

Every segment handles supplier invoices differently:

Grocery — high supplier volumes and frequent cost changes
Fuel and convenience — reducing back-office admin in a busy trading environment
Liquor — invoice review across changing ranges, promotions and supplier pricing
Bakery — invoices spanning ingredients, packaging and retail stock
Butcher, seafood and fresh food — visibility over supplier costs and received quantities where weight and yield matter
Multi-store operators — one consistent invoice process across every location

Stop checking every line.
Review only what changed.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is EM Invoicing and how does it work?

EM Invoicing is the supplier invoice module inside EM Cloud™. Invoices are sent to a designated email address or submitted via a dedicated scanner, imported into EM Cloud™, then matched against received quantities and costing. The system highlights variances, supplier cost changes and retail price impacts so your team reviews the exceptions rather than keying every line. Processed invoices export to Xero, MYOB or another accounting platform.

How much time do retailers spend on manual invoice processing?

The Institute of Financial Operations & Leadership’s Accounts Payable Automation Trends 2025 found 63% of respondents spend more than 10 hours per week on invoice processing, and 66% still manually enter invoice data into ERP systems. Ardent Partners benchmarks put manual processing at $12.88 per invoice and 17.4 days cycle time, against $2.78 and 3.1 days for best-in-class operations.

Can EM Invoicing export to Xero and MYOB?

Yes. Once an invoice has been reviewed and processed in EM Cloud™, it can be exported to accounting platforms including Xero and MYOB. This connects store-level invoice review with your finance workflow without re-entering the data a second time.

Is it better to email supplier invoices or scan them?

Email, in most cases. Original supplier invoices sent by email as a digital file generally give the best import results, because a clean digital original reads more reliably than a scan of a printed page. A dedicated scanner is available for invoices that only ever arrive on paper.

How does invoice automation help protect retail margins?

By surfacing supplier cost changes while there is still time to act on them. If a supplier raises a cost and nobody reviews the retail price, the margin erodes silently — sales reports look normal because the product is still selling at the same rate. EM Invoicing puts cost changes and variances in front of your team during the invoice process, before they reach your reporting.

Is eInvoicing mandatory for Australian businesses?

No. There is no mandatory business-to-business eInvoicing requirement in Australia. The Commonwealth mandate applies only to Non-corporate Commonwealth Entities, which must reach 30% of invoices received via eInvoicing by 1 July 2026 and enable automated sending and receiving by December 2026. If you supply a Commonwealth agency you may be asked to onboard to the Peppol network, where more than 400,000 Australian businesses are already registered.

How do I get started with EM Invoicing?

Book a demo with GaP Solutions using our enquiry form, or call 1300 722 289. We’ll walk through your current invoice process and what EM Invoicing would change about it.

Sources

Institute of Financial Operations & Leadership — Accounts Payable Automation Trends 2025 (global survey, June 2025)
Ardent Partners — AP Metrics That Matter in 2025 (survey of 212 AP and finance leaders)
ATO — Benefits of eInvoicing
ATO — eInvoicing for government
Xero — Accounts payable process (Australia)
Deloitte Access Economics — Retail Forecasts, May 2026
Australian Retail Council — Retail spending shows steady start to 2026

Book an EM Invoicing demo

If your team still checks supplier invoices by hand, it is worth twenty minutes to see the alternative. We’ll look at your current process and show you what EM Invoicing would change.

BOOK A DEMO

Or call 1300 722 289 · marketing@gapsolutions.com.au

Why Your POS Slows Down on a Saturday — and What We Did About It

corneliaf@gapsolutions.com.au (Cornelia Freysen) — Sat, 12 Sep 2026 11:25:36 GMT

GaP Solutions rebuilt the database layer underneath EM Cloud™ and EM Pos™, moving from AWS RDS with MariaDB to Oracle MySQL HeatWave. The result: host processing times for concurrent transactions cut by around 50%, infrastructure costs down around 65%, and master product and price updates applied in half the time.

If you run a store, none of that is the interesting part. The interesting part is what it means when four registers are scanning at once on a Saturday morning, when you pull a margin report across twelve sites, and when a price file needs to land before you open.

This article explains what changed under the bonnet and, more importantly, what it changed at the counter.

WHAT THE MIGRATION DELIVERED

~50%

Reduction in host processing time for concurrent transactions

~65%

Lower database infrastructure cost than the previous setup

2×

Faster master product and price release patching

Minutes

To stand up a new store on the platform

These are GaP Solutions’ own measured results from internal testing and production workloads, as reported in an Oracle/MySQL customer case study. They are not independent benchmarks, and results in any environment depend on workload, data volume and configuration.

What this actually means in your store

Database performance is an abstraction until it isn’t. Here is the translation:

The technical change	What you notice
Concurrent transactions handled roughly twice as fast	Registers, scales, self-checkouts and the back office all hitting the system at once during a trading peak, without the lag that used to build up
Improved storage I/O performance	Reports that used to be a “run it and go do something else” job come back while you are still looking at the screen
Patching and price releases in half the time	Master product updates and new price files land faster, so your shelf and register pricing is current sooner
Greater database stability	Fewer outages. The queries that used to crash the old servers now run through
New tenants provisioned in minutes	A new store, or an acquired site, can be brought onto the platform quickly instead of waiting on infrastructure
Around 65% lower infrastructure cost	Cost that isn’t being spent on servers is available for product development instead

Why the database under your POS matters

Every scan, every price lookup, every stock movement, every invoice line and every report is a database transaction. In a single store that is a steady stream. In a multi-store group running registers, scales, self-checkouts, forecourt controllers and a back office simultaneously, it is thousands of them competing for the same resources at the same moment.

This is what “concurrency” means in practice, and it is where cloud retail platforms either hold up or don’t. A system can look perfectly quick in a demo and still crawl at 11am on a Saturday, because the demo was one user and Saturday is forty.

“Due to the multi-tenant nature of our SaaS product, the ability of our database management system to handle more transactions concurrently is paramount, especially when scaling out.”

John Goodacre, Founder, GaP Solutions

The problem we set out to fix

GaP Solutions’ retail software started on the MySQL Community edition. As the business grew and the product moved to the cloud, the platform ran on AWS with MariaDB behind it.

That setup ran into four problems, and they compounded:

Concurrency. Performance degraded during simultaneous database transactions, which showed up as slower query response times for retail clients — exactly when stores were busiest.
Stability. Corrupt indexes and memory issues were causing downtime on production workloads. Some queries reliably crashed the servers.
Cost. Operational costs were high, and rising with scale.
Support economics. Getting help meant navigating support tiers with upfront fees attached — a real friction cost when a production database is misbehaving.

Taken together, this is the kind of problem that quietly limits what a software company can promise its customers. You cannot commit to fast reporting and high availability on infrastructure that is unpredictable.

Why MySQL HeatWave

The selection criteria were speed, efficiency, reliability and cost. Several providers were evaluated, and the decision came down to internal testing rather than vendor claims — GaP measured the workloads that actually matter to retail customers and compared the results.

MySQL HeatWave on Oracle Cloud Infrastructure won on measurable performance against the existing AWS RDS and MariaDB setup, and on cost.

“OCI continues to offer more cost-effective MySQL solutions compared to other cloud service providers, while driving innovation and enhancing performance through software updates and allowing us to use new hardware architecture as it becomes available through Oracle’s hardware partners.”

John Goodacre, Founder, GaP Solutions

What changed after the migration

Speed under load. Host processing times for concurrent transactions dropped by approximately 50% compared with the previous AWS RDS and MariaDB environment. For a multi-tenant platform, that headroom is what allows more stores to run harder on the same infrastructure.

Stability. Downtime on production workloads reduced. The queries that had been crashing the old MariaDB servers now complete.

“So far, MySQL HeatWave has not failed us when it comes to stability in the cloud. Problematic queries that crashed our previous MariaDB servers are running smoothly in MySQL HeatWave.”

John Goodacre, Founder, GaP Solutions

Reporting and data throughput. Improved storage I/O performance made transactional data easier to work with at volume — which is what turns a nightly batch report into something a manager can run mid-shift and act on.

Speed to onboard. A new tenant can be provisioned in minutes, which matters more than it sounds.

“We are often faced with unexpected clients turning up at the last minute, and we need to move quickly to secure those deals. MySQL HeatWave on OCI infrastructure enables us to do this.”

John Goodacre, Founder, GaP Solutions

Support. The migration itself was guided by MySQL and Oracle support teams, and the ongoing support model changed character.

“With AWS, there were cumbersome support tiers, with upfront fees just to be able to seek help for a problem with a particular server. But with Oracle we just contact the representative directly and receive on-the-spot assistance.”

Isara Arunanondchai, DevOps Engineer, GaP Solutions

Cost. Around 65% lower than the previous AWS RDS and MariaDB arrangement, with additional savings on network fees and related database service costs.

Why a retailer should care who runs the database

When you choose a cloud POS and back-office platform, you are not only choosing the screens your team will use. You are inheriting decisions your vendor made about infrastructure — and you will feel those decisions on your busiest trading day, not on the day of the demo.

Worth asking any vendor, including us:

How does the system perform with every register, scale and self-checkout transacting at once?
What is your history of downtime, and what caused the last significant outage?
How long does a new site take to bring online?
How quickly do master product and price updates propagate?
Where is the data hosted, and what happens in a disaster?

EM Cloud™ and EM Pos™ run on the platform described above. GaP Solutions has been building retail technology since 1992, moving into back-office software in 1999 and point-of-sale in 2003, and the database migration is part of the same pattern — changing the foundations when the foundations become the limit.

Fast in a demo is easy.
Fast at 11am on a Saturday is the test.

Frequently Asked Questions

What database does EM Cloud™ run on?

Oracle MySQL HeatWave, running on Oracle Cloud Infrastructure. GaP Solutions migrated from AWS RDS with MariaDB after internal testing showed measurable performance and cost advantages for the kind of concurrent, multi-tenant workload that retail software generates.

What difference does the database make to a retailer?

It determines how the system behaves under load. Every scan, price lookup, stock movement and report is a database transaction, and in a busy store or a multi-store group thousands of them compete for the same resources simultaneously. Faster concurrent transaction handling means registers, scales, self-checkouts and the back office can all work at once without lag building up; better stability means fewer outages; faster patching means price and product updates land sooner.

How much faster is the platform after the migration?

Host processing times for concurrent transactions were reduced by approximately 50% compared with the previous AWS RDS and MariaDB environment, and master product update and price release patching now takes about half the time. These are GaP Solutions’ own measured results reported in an Oracle/MySQL case study, not independent benchmarks.

Why did GaP Solutions move away from AWS?

Four reasons. Performance degraded during concurrent database transactions, which slowed query response times for retail clients. Corrupt indexes and memory issues were causing downtime on production workloads. Operational costs were high and rising with scale. And the support model required navigating tiers with upfront fees before help could be sought on a specific server.

How long does it take to bring a new store onto the platform?

A new tenant can be provisioned in minutes. This matters for retailers opening a new site or acquiring an existing one, where the constraint should be your own readiness rather than waiting on infrastructure.

Are these figures independently verified?

No. They are GaP Solutions’ own measured results from internal testing and production workloads, published in an Oracle/MySQL customer case study. Oracle also publishes its own MySQL HeatWave benchmarks, which are vendor-sourced. Any performance figure depends on workload, data volume and configuration, so treat these as one organisation’s outcome rather than a guaranteed result.

What should I ask a POS vendor about performance and uptime?

How the system performs with every register, scale and self-checkout transacting simultaneously; their history of downtime and what caused the last significant outage; how long a new site takes to bring online; how quickly master product and price updates propagate; and where the data is hosted and what happens in a disaster. Ask for measured answers rather than demo impressions — a system with one user behaves nothing like a system with forty.

Sources

See how it performs with your trading pattern

Tell us how many registers, scales and sites you run and what your peak looks like. We’ll show you how EM Cloud™ and EM Pos™ behave under that load — not under demo conditions.

BOOK A DEMO

Or call 1300 722 289 · marketing@gapsolutions.com.au

Plain English Allergen Labelling: What Your Labels Must Show in 2026

corneliaf@gapsolutions.com.au (Cornelia Freysen) — Sat, 12 Sep 2026 11:25:35 GMT

Plain English Allergen Labelling is now fully in force across Australia and New Zealand. The transition period ended 25 February 2024, and the two-year stock-in-trade period for old-format product ended in late February 2026. There is no grace period left.

If you print ingredient labels on a scale or labeller in a deli, butchery, seafood counter or bakery, this affects the words on those labels and how they are formatted.

This article covers what PEAL actually requires, how the rules apply differently to food packed on your own premises, what non-compliance now risks, and how Ezi Scale and Ezi Labeller handle the formatting through EM Cloud™.

PEAL AT A GLANCE

25 Feb 2021

PEAL gazetted into the Food Standards Code

25 Feb 2024

Three-year transition period ended

Feb 2026

Stock-in-trade period ended — no grace period remains

38%

Of all 2025 Australian food recalls were undeclared allergens

Requirements verified against FSANZ, the Food Standards Code and state food regulators in August 2026. This is general information, not legal or compliance advice — confirm your specific obligations with your state or territory food regulator.

What is Plain English Allergen Labelling?

PEAL is the set of allergen labelling rules introduced by FSANZ Proposal P1044, approved in December 2020 and gazetted into the Australia New Zealand Food Standards Code on 25 February 2021. It changed how allergens must be named and formatted on food labels.

Three requirements matter most:

Specific required names. Allergens must be declared using a prescribed plain-English name. Tree nuts and molluscs must be named individually — “almond”, “cashew”, “walnut”, not just “nuts”. Generalised allergen declarations are not permitted.
Bold formatting. Required names must be printed in a bold font that provides a distinct contrast with any other text, in a size of type not less than the size of the other text.
A summary statement. A separate statement must commence with the word “Contains”, list the required name of each declarable allergen, and contain no other words. It must sit in the same field of view as, and directly next to, the statement of ingredients.

That last requirement catches people out. “Contains milk, wheat” is compliant. “Contains milk and wheat. May contain traces of nuts.” is not, because the summary statement must contain nothing else.

What a compliant label looks like

The same product, labelled the old way and the PEAL way:

Old format — no longer compliant	PEAL format
INGREDIENTS Wheat flour, water, vegetable oil, milk solids, natural flavours, mixed nuts, salt, sodium metabisulphite. No summary statement	INGREDIENTS Wheat flour, water, vegetable oil, milk solids, natural flavours (contains soy), almond, cashew, salt, preservative ( sulphites). Contains wheat, gluten, milk, soy, almond, cashew, sulphites

Illustrative example only. Note what changed: “mixed nuts” becomes the individual nuts; the allergen hidden inside “natural flavours” is declared; “sodium metabisulphite” carries its required name “sulphites”; every required name is bold; and a “Contains” statement sits directly beneath.

Does PEAL apply to deli and butcher scale labels?

This is where a lot of published guidance gets it wrong in one direction or the other, so it is worth being precise.

Under Standard 1.2.1 of the Code, food made and packaged on the premises from which it is sold — along with food packaged in the presence of the purchaser, and food in assisted-service display cabinets — is exempt from carrying a full label. Unpackaged food does not require a label either.

But the exemption is from the label, not from the allergen declaration. The Code still requires that mandatory declarations for this food be displayed in connection with the food, or provided to the purchaser on request, using the required allergen names. You cannot simply not say.

The practical rule: if you choose to print a label that carries a statement of ingredients, the PEAL formatting rules apply to that label — bold required names, and an adjacent “Contains” summary statement. The moment your scale prints an ingredient list, you are in scope.

Two further points that catch multi-site operators. The exemption is premises-specific: product packed at a central kitchen, production room or another store and transported to the selling store is not “made and packaged on the premises from which it is sold”, and needs a fully compliant label. And imported deli lines re-portioned in store must not lose their allergen information in the re-labelling — the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry has been actively enforcing PEAL on imported food since issuing Imported Food Notice 10-25 in October 2025.

What happens if labels are wrong?

Undeclared allergens are the leading cause of food recalls in Australia, and the numbers went the wrong way last year. FSANZ coordinated 92 food recalls in 2025, above the ten-year average of 87. Undeclared allergens accounted for 38% of them — 35 recalls. The most common allergens involved were milk, wheat or gluten, and tree nuts.

The root causes are the uncomfortable part for anyone printing labels in store. Across 2021–2025, FSANZ recorded 197 undeclared-allergen recalls, with packaging errors, label errors and cross-contamination leading the list. These are not exotic failures. They are a wrong template, an out-of-date ingredient record, or the right label on the wrong product.

Enforcement sits with state and territory food regulators and local councils under state Food Acts. Penalties are substantial — under the NSW Food Act 2003, for example, failing to comply with a Code requirement carries up to 500 penalty units for an individual and 2,500 for a corporation. Beyond the fine, a recall costs you stock, staff time and customer trust.

How Ezi Scale and Ezi Labeller handle PEAL formatting

If you run an Ezi Scale or Ezi Labeller from GaP Solutions, the formatting side of PEAL is handled in software rather than by whoever is building the label.

Once the ingredient list for a product is captured in EM Cloud™, the system applies the required format automatically:

Declarable allergens are identified within the ingredient list and set in bold
The “Contains” summary statement is generated and placed adjacent to the ingredient statement
The required plain-English name is used rather than the technical ingredient name
The same product record drives every connected scale, so a correction made once applies everywhere

That last point is the one worth dwelling on for multi-store operators. Given that label errors are among the leading causes of allergen recalls, the risk is rarely that a business does not know the rule. It is that the ingredient data is maintained in more than one place, and the versions drift apart.

Ezi Scale and Ezi Labeller are compatible with a number of other back-office systems, so this does not require replacing everything else you run. Support is available by phone and email during business hours, with online help videos available at any time.

Capture the ingredients once.
Let the label format itself.

One caveat worth stating plainly: software formats what you give it. The accuracy of the underlying ingredient and allergen data for each product remains the business’s responsibility, and it is worth auditing that data rather than assuming it is right.

Frequently Asked Questions

What does Plain English Allergen Labelling require?

Three things. Allergens must be declared using prescribed plain-English names, with tree nuts and molluscs named individually rather than grouped. Those required names must appear in a bold font that contrasts distinctly with other text and is no smaller than the surrounding type. And a summary statement beginning with the word “Contains” must list every declarable allergen, contain no other words, and sit in the same field of view directly next to the statement of ingredients.

Is PEAL still in a transition period?

No. The three-year transition ended 25 February 2024, and the two-year stock-in-trade period — which allowed product packaged and labelled before that date under the old rules to continue being sold — ended in late February 2026. All food available for sale must now comply. There is no grace period remaining.

Do deli, butcher and seafood counter labels have to comply with PEAL?

It depends on what the label carries. Food made and packaged on the premises from which it is sold is exempt from having to bear a full label, but the allergen declaration itself still applies — it must be displayed in connection with the food or provided on request, using the required allergen names. If you choose to print a label that includes a statement of ingredients, the PEAL formatting rules apply to that label, including bold required names and an adjacent “Contains” statement.

Does the on-premises exemption cover product packed at a central kitchen?

No. The exemption is premises-specific — it covers food made and packaged on the premises from which it is sold. Product packed at a central kitchen, production room or another store and then transported to the selling store falls outside it and requires a fully compliant label.

Which allergens must be declared?

Wheat, fish, crustacean, mollusc, egg, milk, lupin, peanut, soy, sesame and the individual tree nuts — almond, Brazil nut, cashew, hazelnut, macadamia, pecan, pine nut, pistachio and walnut. Barley, oats and rye must be declared where gluten is present, and added sulphites must be declared at 10 mg/kg or more. Check the current Schedule 9 of the Food Standards Code for the required name to use in each case.

What are the consequences of non-compliant allergen labels?

Undeclared allergens are the leading cause of Australian food recalls. FSANZ coordinated 92 recalls in 2025, of which 38% — 35 recalls — were for undeclared allergens, most commonly milk, wheat or gluten and tree nuts. Label and packaging errors are among the leading root causes. Enforcement sits with state and territory regulators and local councils; under the NSW Food Act 2003, failing to comply with a Code requirement carries up to 500 penalty units for an individual and 2,500 for a corporation.

Does my Ezi Scale or Ezi Labeller produce PEAL-compliant labels?

Yes. Once a product’s ingredient list is captured in EM Cloud™, the software identifies declarable allergens, sets the required names in bold, and generates the adjacent “Contains” summary statement. Because the product record drives every connected scale, a correction made once applies across all of them. The accuracy of the underlying ingredient data remains the business’s responsibility. If you are unsure whether your current scale or bakery printer model can meet the requirements, get in touch or call 1300 722 289.

Does PEAL apply in New Zealand?

Yes. The Australia New Zealand Food Standards Code is joint, so Standard 1.2.3 and Schedule 9 apply in New Zealand too, administered by the Ministry for Primary Industries, on the same February 2024 and February 2026 timeline.

Sources

Not sure if your scale can produce compliant labels?

Tell us the make and model of your label-printing scale or bakery printer and we’ll tell you where you stand — and what it would take to get your allergen formatting handled automatically.

CHECK MY LABELLING

Or call 1300 722 289 · sales@gapsolutions.com.au

Retail Stocktake Checklist: What AUS Retailers Need to Do by 30 June

corneliaf@gapsolutions.com.au (Cornelia Freysen) — Sat, 12 Sep 2026 11:25:34 GMT

Australian retailers must undertake a stocktake as close as possible to the end of each income year, which ends 30 June. Small businesses can skip the formal count under the simplified trading stock rules if the value of their stock changed by $5,000 or less.

That is the tax obligation. The operational case is bigger. A well-planned stocktake tells you what you actually have, what is not selling, where the margin is going, and which product records need fixing — answers that keep paying off long after the return is lodged.

This guide covers what the ATO requires, how to prepare, and a ten-point checklist you can work through with your team. It applies to grocery, fuel, liquor, bakery, butcher, seafood and multi-store retailers.

STOCKTAKE AT A GLANCE

30 June

End of the Australian income year

$5,000

Stock value change at or below which a formal stocktake may not be required

Approved methods for valuing trading stock

5 years

How long stocktake records must be kept

The 10-point retail stocktake checklist

Work through these before the first count begins. Each step is explained in detail further down.

Review product file accuracy — descriptions, departments, pack sizes, supplier links
Check barcodes — a wrong barcode stops a counter mid-aisle
Review deleted and inactive lines so they don’t confuse the count
Investigate slow-moving stock and decide on markdowns before you count it
Review no-scan products to find barcode, ranging and placement issues early
Check supplier invoice variances against received quantities
Review supplier cost changes that have not yet flowed into retail pricing
Assess retail price and margin impact on affected lines
Confirm stocktake devices are charged, updated and tested
Brief your team on areas, tools, exceptions and sign-off before counting begins

Tax requirements in this article were verified against the Australian Taxation Office and business.gov.au in August 2026. This is general information, not tax advice — confirm your obligations with your accountant or registered tax agent.

Does your business have to do a stocktake?

It depends on how much the value of your trading stock has moved over the year, and on your aggregated turnover. The ATO states: “You are required to undertake a stocktake as close as possible to the end of each income year.” Two sets of rules then determine what that means for you.

	General trading stock rules	Simplified trading stock rules
Applies when	Stock value changed by more than $5,000, or you choose to count anyway	You estimate stock value changed by $5,000 or less
Turnover test	No turnover test	Aggregated turnover under $10 million, or between $10m and under $50 million for income years starting on or after 1 July 2021
What you must do	Do an end-of-year stocktake and record stock value at the beginning and end of the income year	No formal stocktake required, and no need to account for the change in value
Closing value	Actual counted and valued stock	Treated as the same as the opening value

If you rely on the simplified rules, the estimate still has to stand up. The ATO expects you to undertake it “in good faith following a rational process” and to be able to explain and prove that process if asked. Relevant factors include how you store and value stock, your purchase and sales records, and — directly to the point for retailers — “your inventory systems and how accurate they are”.

That is worth sitting with. Under the simplified rules, the quality of your point-of-sale and back-office data is not just an operational convenience. It is part of what makes your estimate defensible.

How do you value trading stock at the end of the year?

The ATO allows three methods, and you can choose a different method each year for different items of stock:

Cost price — all costs of bringing the stock to its current condition and location, which may include freight, insurance, customs and excise duties and delivery charges
Market selling value — the current value of the stock if sold in the normal course of business
Replacement value — the cost to obtain an almost identical item on the market on the last day of the income year

Two things retailers regularly get caught by. The closing value of an item at the end of one income year automatically becomes its opening value at the start of the next. And if you are entitled to GST credits, you generally exclude the GST component when calculating stock value.

Start with clean product data

A smoother stocktake starts before anyone picks up a scanner. Review your product file for accurate descriptions, barcodes, departments, supplier links, pack sizes, cost information and retail pricing.

A small product file issue slows the whole count. An incorrect barcode, an outdated description or an inactive line creates a decision point for a staff member standing in an aisle at 6am — and every one of those decisions is a chance for an error to enter your data. Clean product data reduces rework once counting finishes.

Review slow-moving stock before you count it

Slow-moving stock quietly costs you cash flow, shelf space and margin. Reviewing it before the count gives your team time to act rather than simply record the problem. You may need to:

Mark down selected products
Review product ranging
Reduce future ordering
Speak with suppliers
Clear discontinued lines
Investigate why a product is not selling

business.gov.au also suggests running a stocktake sale to lower stock levels before you count, noting benefits including higher sales, improved customer satisfaction, and selling inventory before it goes out of season or out of date. For fresh-food departments, bakeries, butchers and seafood retailers, that last point is not a nice-to-have — slow-moving stock in those departments becomes waste.

Use no-scan reports to find problems early

A no-scan report identifies products that have not moved through the point of sale as expected. A no-scan line may point to a barcode issue, a ranging problem, an incorrect stock record, damaged stock, poor placement, or simply low demand.

Reviewing no-scan items before the stocktake lets your team fix the cause rather than record the symptom. In high-volume retail, these issues hide easily inside daily trade — the stocktake is often the first time anyone notices, which is too late to do anything but write it down.

Check supplier invoices and cost changes

Supplier invoices sit upstream of stock accuracy, costing and margin. A missed cost change or invoice variance flows straight into pricing and reporting, and it will not announce itself.

With EM Invoicing, supplier invoices can be emailed or scanned and imported into EM Cloud™, where your team can match them against received quantities and costing. EM Cloud™ helps you review:

Quantity variances
Supplier cost changes
Invoice discrepancies
Retail price impacts
Margin considerations

Protect your margins with better stock visibility

A product can sell well and still lose you money. If supplier costs have risen and nobody has revisited the retail price, that line is quietly delivering less than you think. Stock discrepancies compound the problem by making margin reporting harder to trust in the first place.

Stock control, invoice visibility and margin management are not three separate jobs. They are one job viewed from three angles.

Prepare your team before the first count

business.gov.au sets out seven practical steps for conducting a stocktake:

Plan it — have stocktake sheets ready and make sure employees know what to count
Decide when — consider running it outside business hours
Have a supervisor at each location to coordinate workers and keep things moving
Don’t do it too often — a stocktake is costly and time consuming
Train and guide your employees and give them the tools they need
Consider using casual employees so your regular team can keep serving customers
Consider running a stocktake sale to reduce stock levels beforehand

On top of that, your team should know:

Which areas they are counting
Which devices or tools to use
How to handle products that do not scan
How to report discrepancies
Who approves corrections
When the count must be completed

Brief them early. Last-minute training during an already busy period is how avoidable errors get into your numbers.

What stocktake records do you have to keep?

If your business is required to do a stocktake, the ATO requires records showing:

A list describing each article of stock on hand and its value
Who did the stocktake
How and when it was done
Who valued the stock, and the basis of the valuation

Note that last one. It is not enough to record who counted — you also need who valued the stock and on what basis. Most records must be kept for five years, starting from when you prepared or obtained the record or completed the relevant transactions, whichever is later. Records must not be altered, must be in English or easily convertible to English, and must be produced if the ATO asks.

How EM Cloud™ supports retail stock control

EM Cloud™ is the GaP Solutions cloud back-office and head-office system, managing point-of-sale, stock control, invoicing, reporting and pricing in one place. During stocktake season it gives your team visibility into product data, stock movements and the back-office processes that feed them.

For grocery, fuel, liquor, bakery, butcher, seafood and multi-store retailers, that turns stocktake from an isolated annual event into part of an ongoing stock control process — which is exactly the position you want to be in when the count comes around.

Count once.
Trust the number all year.

Frequently asked questions

When do Australian businesses have to do a stocktake?

As close as possible to the end of each income year, which ends on 30 June. The general trading stock rules require you to record the value of all trading stock on hand at both the beginning and the end of the income year.

Do small businesses have to do a stocktake?

Not always. Under the simplified trading stock rules, a business with aggregated turnover under $10 million — or between $10 million and under $50 million for income years starting on or after 1 July 2021 — does not have to conduct a formal stocktake if it reasonably estimates the value of its trading stock changed by $5,000 or less during the year. The closing value is then treated as the same as the opening value.

How do you value stock for a stocktake?

Using one of three ATO-approved methods: cost price, market selling value, or replacement value. You can choose a different method each year for different items of stock. Where you are entitled to GST credits, exclude the GST component from the value.

How long do you have to keep stocktake records?

Five years, starting from when you prepared or obtained the record or completed the relevant transactions, whichever is later. The records must show a list describing each article of stock and its value, who did the stocktake, how and when it was done, and who valued the stock and on what basis.

Can a POS system replace a physical stocktake?

No. Under the general trading stock rules a stocktake usually involves physically counting stock and valuing each item. Good point-of-sale and back-office data makes the count faster and more accurate, and the ATO expressly lists “your inventory systems and how accurate they are” as a factor when estimating stock value under the simplified rules — but system data supports the process rather than replacing the count. Check your position with your tax agent.

What should retailers do before a stocktake?

Clean the product file, verify barcodes, review inactive lines, investigate slow-moving and no-scan products, reconcile supplier invoices and cost changes, check margin impact, test the stocktake devices, and brief the team on areas, exceptions and sign-off. Doing this in the weeks beforehand rather than the night before is the difference between a count that confirms your data and one that exposes it.

Sources

Make the next stocktake easier than the last one

Talk to GaP Solutions about EM Cloud™ stock control, EM Invoicing and the reporting tools that give your team better visibility long before 30 June.

CONTACT GaP SOLUTIONS

Cloud POS and Back Office for Independent Retailers: How EM Cloud™ Works

corneliaf@gapsolutions.com.au (Cornelia Freysen) — Thu, 20 Aug 2026 01:56:38 GMT

EM Cloud™ is the GaP Solutions cloud-native back-office and head-office platform for Australian and New Zealand independent retailers, with EM Pos™ as its front-end. One portal handles sales, stock, pricing, promotions, purchase orders, reporting and store communications across every site and device.

Retailers switch to it for a simple reason: the alternative is doing the same job in several places at once and hoping the numbers agree.

Below is what the platform does, what it connects to, and where it fits — along with an honest account of where the evidence is strong and where it isn’t.

The EM Cloud™ advantage at a glance

Capability	What it replaces	Who feels it most
Centralised live control	Ringing each store to find out what happened	Multi-store owners and area managers
Inventory and stocktakes	Overnight counts and manual reconciliation	Long-trading and fresh-heavy stores
Promotions and pricing	Store-by-store price changes and missed specials	Groups running shared campaigns
Cloud architecture	On-site servers and manual software updates	Anyone without on-site IT
Integrations	Re-keying between systems that don’t talk	Stores on a buying group host file
Reporting	Exporting to spreadsheets to answer basic questions	Owners tracking margin and category performance
Store communications	Notes taped to the register	Stores with high casual turnover
Checkout experience	Slow lanes and long staff training	Every store, every trading day

1. Real-time centralised control

EM Cloud™ gives multi-store operators one dashboard with live sales, stock, pricing and campaign data across every location and device. The practical gain is not the dashboard — it is that head office and the store are looking at the same number at the same moment, so there is nothing to reconcile afterwards.

2. Inventory management that keeps up

Store, warehouse and delivery data stay in sync rather than being brought together later. EM Cloud™ adds:

Barcode-based stocktakes, including live counts while the store trades
Custom warehouse management for groups running their own distribution
Live purchase order tracking, so ordered versus received is visible in one place

3. Promotions and campaigns across every store

Schedule promotions with custom rules, push pricing and promotional changes instantly, and track performance from head office — without needing anyone at store level to action it.

For an independent group, this is often the clearest single argument for the platform. A promotion that lands in six stores on Monday morning and in the seventh on Wednesday is not a promotion, it is a customer complaint.

4. Lower IT overhead, and it scales

Being cloud-native removes on-site servers and manual software updates. Updates are pushed centrally, and adding a store, a till or a channel does not require new hardware in a back room.

An honest note on cost. You will see a lot of specific claims about how much cloud saves against on-premise systems. We are not going to quote one, because there is no independent, retail-specific figure worth citing — the numbers in circulation come from software vendors. What we can say plainly is architectural: no on-site server means no server to buy, house, patch, back up or replace, and no engineer visit to apply an update. Whether that nets out better for your business depends on what you are running now, and we would rather work that out with you than assert it.

5. What EM Cloud™ integrates with

Integration is where most retail software either earns its place or quietly creates a second job. Rather than say EM Cloud™ “connects to accounting platforms”, here is the actual list:

Category	Named integrations
Host files and buying groups	Metcash, ALM, SPAR, Foodland, Foodworks, New Sunrise, Tasmanian Independent Retailers, Pharmex, UCB
Accounting	Xero, MYOB, Finance One, XchangeIT
EFTPOS	Tyro, Linkly, Till, Quest, DataMesh, MX51, Posgate, Live Payments, Skyzer Technologies, Volt
Digital payments	Apple Pay, Google Pay, Samsung Pay, WeChat Pay, Alipay, Zip Pay, ePay
E-commerce and delivery	Shopify, Deliverect, MyFoodLink, IGA Online, Banana Blue, Doshi, E Grocery, Cellarbrations Online Store
Loyalty and rewards	Ezi Reward, IGA Rewards, ShopBack
Marketing automation	Mailchimp, Klaviyo, Dotdigital
Scales and weighing	Bizerba, Ishida, Avery, Wedderburn, Ezi Scale
Electronic shelf labels	Solum, Pricer
Fuel and forecourt	Shell, Caltex, BP, Viva Energy, Liberty, Mogas, Metro Petroleum, Fleet Card, Motorcharge, Motorpass
Gift cards	Blackhawk Network, Givex, Vii, ePay
Cash management	Consillion, CashGuard, Prosegur Cash
Workforce management	Tanda, BuRPS
Other	CCTV (EM CCTV, Geovision) · vending (Doms, Postec, ITL, VDMS) · carwash (ICS) · card schemes (Visa, Mastercard, Amex, JCB, UnionPay, Diners Club)

Current as at August 2026. See the EM Integration page for the live list. Custom integrations can also be built.

Reporting sits on top of the same data: item sales, hourly trading trends, EFTPOS summaries, loyalty performance and category margin, without exporting to a spreadsheet first.

6. Store communications

Coordination that does not rely on someone being on shift to pass a message on:

Messages from head office direct to POS lanes
Triggered alerts — excess cash in a drawer, price messages, exception prompts
Staff permissions managed from one console rather than register by register

7. The checkout itself

EM Pos™ is the front end: visual button layouts, EFTPOS integration, loyalty at the point of sale, receipt-based marketing and customer-facing screens showing promotions and running totals.

Worth a note of realism here. QUT research published in March 2025 found that while 78.8% of Australian shoppers consider themselves generally trusting, only 39.6% describe themselves as open to adopting new technology. New checkout technology has to be obviously better for the customer on first use, not just better on paper — which is an argument for fast, familiar and clearly signposted rather than clever.

EM Cloud™ in practice

Farro Group, New Zealand. EM Cloud™ runs across every store in the Farro Group. The rollout began in June 2024 with four Auckland sites — Smales Farm, Mt Eden, Grey Lynn and Epsom — and now covers the whole group, which as at early 2026 operated seven stores with an eighth planned for Newmarket.

Farro is a demanding environment to deploy into: a specialty fresh-food retailer with an in-house butcher and fishmonger, its own kitchen, a deli and more than 500 suppliers. Installations across a trading fresh-food business live or die on cooperation at store level, and GaP’s account of the project notes exactly that — everyone from management to staff at each location was supportive throughout.

Covering an entire growing group also makes the point about scaling. Each new Farro store comes onto the same platform rather than becoming a separate system to reconcile.

Heartland Market Grocer IGA, Beaumont Hills, NSW. Management can resolve issues remotely and run automatic ordering without needing to be in the store — which for an owner-operator is the difference between a business that requires their physical presence and one that doesn’t.

We would rather show you fewer claims with more behind them. Where we have quantified customer results, we publish the figures and name who confirmed them — see our EM Cloud™ inventory management article for an example.

Is EM Cloud™ right for your store?

It fits best if you are trying to:

Stop doing stock and pricing updates by hand
Run the same promotion consistently across several sites
Get off on-site servers and reduce IT maintenance
See transaction-level detail without exporting it first
Reduce how much of the operation depends on you being physically present

It is a less obvious fit if you run a single small site with simple ranging, few suppliers and no plans to add locations — in which case the centralisation benefits have less to work with. We would tell you that on the call rather than after the invoice.

One portal.
One version of the numbers.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is EM Cloud™?

EM Cloud™ is the GaP Solutions cloud-native back-office and head-office platform for independent retailers in Australia and New Zealand, with EM Pos™ as its point-of-sale front end. It manages sales, stock, pricing, promotions, purchase orders, reporting and store communications from one portal across every site and device.

What does EM Cloud™ integrate with?

Around 90 named integrations across host files and buying groups (Metcash, ALM, SPAR, Foodland, Foodworks, New Sunrise, Tasmanian Independent Retailers, Pharmex, UCB), accounting (Xero, MYOB, Finance One, XchangeIT), EFTPOS (Tyro, Linkly, Till, Quest, DataMesh, MX51 and others), digital payments, e-commerce and delivery (Shopify, Deliverect, MyFoodLink, IGA Online), loyalty (Ezi Reward, IGA Rewards, ShopBack), marketing automation (Mailchimp, Klaviyo, Dotdigital), scales (Bizerba, Ishida, Avery, Wedderburn), electronic shelf labels (Solum, Pricer), fuel and forecourt, gift cards, cash management, CCTV and workforce management (Tanda, BuRPS). Custom integrations can also be built.

Does EM Cloud™ work with Xero and MYOB?

Yes. Xero, MYOB, Finance One and XchangeIT are all named integrations, so processed data can move to your accounting system without being re-entered.

Do I still need an on-site server?

No. EM Cloud™ is cloud-native, so there is no on-site server to buy, house, patch, back up or replace, and software updates are pushed centrally rather than requiring an engineer visit. Adding a store, till or sales channel does not require new back-room hardware.

How much does moving to cloud POS save?

We do not publish a figure, because there is no independent retail-specific cost comparison worth citing — the numbers circulating on this topic come from software vendors, including our competitors. The architectural differences are real and listed above. Whether they net out better for your business depends on what you run today, which is a conversation rather than a statistic.

Can I run promotions across multiple stores at once?

Yes. Promotions can be scheduled with custom rules and pushed to every store instantly from head office, with performance tracked centrally and no action needed at store level. Pricing changes work the same way, and can drive electronic shelf labels through the Solum or Pricer integrations.

Can I do a stocktake without closing the store?

Yes. EM Cloud™ supports barcode-based live stocktakes while the store is trading, so there is no overnight shutdown and no manual reconciliation afterwards.

Is EM Cloud™ used outside Australia?

Yes. EM Cloud™ runs across every store in New Zealand’s Farro Group, a specialty fresh-food retailer in Auckland. The rollout began with four stores in June 2024 and now covers the whole group, which as at early 2026 operated seven stores with an eighth planned. GaP Solutions supports retailers in Australia and New Zealand.

Which retailers is EM Cloud™ built for?

Australian and New Zealand independent retailers across grocery, fuel and convenience, liquor, bakery, butchery and seafood, from single sites to multi-store groups. It suits operators wanting central control over stock, pricing and promotions. It is a weaker fit for a single small store with simple ranging, few suppliers and no expansion plans, where there is less for the centralisation to do.

Sources

GaP Solutions — EM Integration (integration list, current as at August 2026)
GaP Solutions — EM Cloud™ rollout across Farro Group New Zealand (16 June 2024)
Inside Retail NZ — New Farro Fresh store planned for Newmarket (26 February 2026)
QUT Centre for Future Enterprise — Consumer Perceptions of Retail Technology in Australia (March 2025)

See it on your own numbers

Tell us how many sites you run, what you order through and what you use for accounting, and we’ll show you EM Cloud™ against your actual setup — including an honest view of whether it is worth changing.

BOOK A DEMO

Or call 1300 722 289 · marketing@gapsolutions.com.au

How Much Food Does Australia Waste? The Numbers, and What Retailers Can Do

corneliaf@gapsolutions.com.au (Cornelia Freysen) — Thu, 20 Aug 2026 01:10:20 GMT

Australia wastes about 7.6 million tonnes of food a year — roughly 312kg per person — at a cost of around $36.6 billion to the economy. Retail and wholesale account for 527,000 tonnes of that, or 7%.

Seven per cent sounds like someone else’s problem. It isn’t, for two reasons. Retailers sit at the point where the 32% of waste generated in households gets decided — through range, pack size, pricing and date management. And since 1 July 2026, some Australian retailers have had legal obligations attached to it.

This article covers where Australia’s food waste actually comes from, what changed in NSW this year, the legal difference between “use by” and “best before” that governs what you can mark down, and how the EM Cloud™ Food Date Check module handles it.

AUSTRALIAN FOOD WASTE — 2018–19 BASELINE

7.6 Mt

Food wasted each year across the supply chain

$36.6bn

Annual cost to the Australian economy, around 1.4% of GDP

70%

Of Australia’s wasted food is edible

Share from retail and wholesale — 527,000 tonnes

National figures are from Food Innovation Australia Limited’s National Food Waste Strategy Feasibility Study (2021), which uses a 2018–19 base year. These remain the current official national numbers — no updated national baseline has been published as at August 2026. Verified against DCCEEW and End Food Waste Australia in August 2026.

Where does Australia’s food waste actually come from?

Most coverage stops at “households are the biggest contributor”, which is true but not useful if you run a store. Here is the full supply chain:

Segment	Tonnes per year	Share
Households	2,464,000	32%
Primary production	1,683,000	22%
Manufacturing	1,276,000	17%
Hospitality and food service	1,217,000	16%
Retail and wholesale	527,000	7%
Distribution	258,000	3%
Institutions	251,000	3%

FIAL, National Food Waste Strategy Feasibility Study, 2021, base year 2018–19. Retail and wholesale are reported as a combined figure — no published Australian source isolates supermarket-only tonnage.

The wider consequences of that 7.6 million tonnes:

17.5 million tonnes CO₂-e, about 3.5% of Australia’s national greenhouse gas emissions
2,628 gigalitres of water used to grow food that is never eaten — End Food Waste Australia puts that at roughly five Sydney Harbours
25.7 million hectares of land, an area larger than Victoria
$2,000 to $2,500 per household per year, and about 265kg per household

For scale, the UNEP Food Waste Index Report 2024 found 1.05 billion tonnes of food wasted globally in 2022 — around 19% of all food available to consumers, and more than a billion meals a day.

If retail is only 7%, why should retailers care?

Fair question, and worth answering honestly rather than inflating the number. Three reasons.

First, influence beyond your own bin. The UN’s Sustainable Development Goal 12.3 — the target Australia’s strategy aligns to — is explicitly worded to halve food waste “at the retail and consumer levels”. Range decisions, pack sizes, promotional structures, date labels and markdown timing all shape what happens in the 32% after the customer gets it home.

Second, it is margin. Every unit written off was bought, freighted, handled, refrigerated and then thrown away. Champions 12.3, analysing 1,200 business sites across 17 countries, found every $1 invested in food waste reduction returned $7 to $21 in savings. That is international rather than Australian data, but the direction is not controversial.

Third, and newest: it is becoming a compliance matter.

What changed for NSW retailers on 1 July 2026

Two NSW requirements commenced on 1 July 2026, and both are already in force.

1. Food donation record-keeping for large supermarkets

Supermarkets in NSW with a gross floor area of 1,000m² or more are required to keep monthly records of food donated, reportedly including the weight donated, quantities by prescribed food category, and details of the receiving organisation — and to record months in which nothing was donated. Records are to be retained for six years. Non-compliance is an offence.

2. Mandatory food organics separation for businesses

Businesses generating 3,960 litres or more of general waste per week must separate food organics from 1 July 2026. The threshold tightens to 1,980 litres from 1 July 2028, and 720 litres from 1 July 2030.

Check your own position. The FOGO separation thresholds are published by the NSW EPA. The supermarket donation record-keeping detail above is drawn from industry-body guidance rather than legislation we have read directly — if you operate in NSW, confirm your obligations with the NSW EPA before relying on this summary. Other states and territories have different arrangements.

The direction of travel is the point. Food waste is moving from a sustainability talking point to something a retailer has to be able to measure and evidence. Whatever your state, being able to report what you wrote off, what you marked down and what you donated is becoming an operational requirement rather than a nice-to-have.

“Use by” and “best before” are not the same thing legally

This distinction governs what you can and cannot do with stock approaching its date, and it is the foundation of any automated markdown rule.

	Use by	Best before
What it signals	Health and safety	Quality
Can you sell it past the date?	No — it is illegal to sell food past its use-by date	Yes, provided it has not deteriorated or perished and remains fit for consumption
Markdown candidate?	Before the date only. Must be withdrawn on the date	Before and after the date, subject to a quality check
Donation candidate?	Not past the date	Past-best-before donation is permitted

Both date types are governed by Standard 1.2.5 of the Australia New Zealand Food Standards Code. Note the practical implication: a date-driven rule alone is not enough for best-before stock. The date makes it eligible; a quality check makes it saleable.

Consumer confusion between the two is itself a source of waste. RMIT research published with End Food Waste Australia in June 2025 found that poor label design and inconsistent date labelling drive disposal of edible food, and recommended a unified national date labelling framework. End Food Waste Australia projects that clearer date labels and storage advice could help prevent close to a million tonnes of food waste by 2030 — a modelled projection rather than measured waste, but a significant one.

How the EM Cloud™ Food Date Check module works

The Food Date Check module inside EM Cloud™ tracks date-sensitive stock and acts on it before it becomes a write-off rather than after.

Date capture and visibility. Date-sensitive lines are tracked against their use-by or best-before dates, so approaching stock is a list your team can work rather than something a staff member happens to notice.
Staged markdowns. Prices reduce as remaining shelf life shortens, so the discount is proportionate to the urgency instead of being a single last-minute cut — or no cut at all.
Date-type-aware rules. Because use-by and best-before carry different legal consequences, they need to be treated differently in the workflow rather than as one “expiry” field.
Auto Order. Ordering informed by historical sales and usage reduces the overstock that creates date-sensitive waste in the first place. Not ordering it is cheaper than marking it down.
Reporting. A record of what was marked down, what was written off and what was donated — which is what the emerging reporting obligations require.

Worth noting that this approach is what the sector itself now recommends. End Food Waste Australia’s Guide to Food Waste Reduction for Australian Retailers (2025) advises retailers to use dynamic pricing models that discount as remaining shelf life diminishes, and digital shelf-edge price tickets to automate markdowns — which is EM Cloud™ Food Date Check working alongside EM ESL.

We should be straight about the evidence, though. There is no robust published Australian figure for how much waste markdown automation prevents. The Australian trials that exist have not published effect sizes. What can be said is that the practice is recommended by the national body, that the ROI evidence on food waste reduction generally is strong, and that the alternative — discovering the problem at write-off — has a known cost.

Waste is a decision made days earlier.
Usually by nobody in particular.

Australia’s 2030 target, and where things actually stand

Australia’s National Food Waste Strategy, published in 2017, aims to halve national food waste by 2030, aligning with UN Sustainable Development Goal 12.3.

Is Australia on track? There is no published government assessment answering that question — we looked. Globally, Champions 12.3’s 2025 progress report concluded the world is not on track and called for a radical rethink. Australia is not named in it.

The most encouraging Australian evidence comes from the Australian Food Pact. End Food Waste Australia reported that across 2022 to 2024, its 26 signatories achieved a 13% reduction in food waste, $57 million saved, 254 million meals donated and a 59% reduction in food waste sent to landfill. The Pact now covers around 83% of the Australian supermarket sector.

That is genuine progress from the businesses that opted in. It also shows what is achievable, which makes the absence of a national progress assessment more conspicuous rather than less.

For independent retailers, there is a straightforward version of all this. Around 70% of the food Australia wastes is still edible. Some of it is sitting in your chillers with four days left on it. Whether it sells, gets donated or gets thrown out is decided by whether anyone knows it is there in time.

Frequently Asked Questions

How much food does Australia waste each year?

About 7.6 million tonnes across the supply chain, or roughly 312kg per person, costing the economy around $36.6 billion a year — approximately 1.4% of GDP. Around 70% of that wasted food is edible. These figures come from Food Innovation Australia Limited’s National Food Waste Strategy Feasibility Study (2021), using a 2018–19 base year, and remain the current official national numbers.

Which part of the supply chain wastes the most food?

Households, at 2,464,000 tonnes or 32% of the national total. Then primary production (1,683,000 t, 22%), manufacturing (1,276,000 t, 17%), hospitality and food service (1,217,000 t, 16%), retail and wholesale (527,000 t, 7%), distribution (258,000 t, 3%) and institutions (251,000 t, 3%).

What is Australia’s 2030 food waste target?

To halve national food waste by 2030, set out in the National Food Waste Strategy (2017) and aligned with UN Sustainable Development Goal 12.3. There is no published Australian government assessment of whether the target is on track. Globally, Champions 12.3 reported in 2025 that the world is not on track.

Can you legally sell food past its best before date?

Yes. “Best before” is a quality indicator, and food marked best before may lawfully be sold after that date provided it has not deteriorated or perished and remains fit for human consumption. “Use by” is different — it is a health and safety date, and it is illegal to sell food past its use-by date. Both are governed by Standard 1.2.5 of the Food Standards Code.

What do NSW supermarkets have to report about food donation?

From 1 July 2026, NSW supermarkets with a gross floor area of 1,000m² or more are required to keep monthly food donation records, reportedly including weight donated, quantities by prescribed food category and receiving organisation details, and to record months where nothing was donated. Records are to be kept for six years and non-compliance is an offence. Separately, NSW businesses generating 3,960 litres or more of general waste per week must separate food organics from the same date. Confirm your specific obligations with the NSW EPA.

How does a POS system help reduce food waste?

By making date-sensitive stock visible early enough to act on. The EM Cloud™ Food Date Check module tracks stock against use-by and best-before dates, applies staged markdowns as remaining shelf life shortens, treats the two date types according to their different legal consequences, and records what was marked down, written off or donated. Auto Order reduces the overstock that creates date-sensitive waste in the first place. End Food Waste Australia’s 2025 retailer guide recommends exactly this approach — dynamic pricing that discounts as shelf life diminishes, with digital shelf-edge tickets to automate markdowns.

Is a retailer legally protected when donating surplus food?

All Australian states and territories have Good Samaritan-style provisions limiting civil liability for food donors acting in good faith. Coverage differs by jurisdiction — notably, several exclude food recovery organisations that redistribute others’ donations. Past-best-before food may be donated; past-use-by food may not. Check your jurisdiction’s current legislation, and speak to Foodbank, OzHarvest or SecondBite about how they handle it.

Does reducing food waste actually pay for itself?

The best available evidence says yes, though it is international. Champions 12.3 analysed 1,200 business sites across 17 countries and found every $1 invested in food waste reduction returned $7 to $21 in savings. In Australia, End Food Waste Australia reported that Australian Food Pact signatories cut food waste 13% and saved $57 million across 2022–2024. There is no robust published Australian figure specifically for markdown automation.

Sources

See what your date-sensitive stock is costing you

Tell us which departments give you the most write-offs and we’ll show you how the EM Cloud™ Food Date Check module handles staged markdowns, date-type rules and the reporting behind them.

BOOK A DEMO

Or call 1300 722 289 · marketing@gapsolutions.com.au

Queensland's First Unmanned 24/7 Store | GaP Solutions

corneliaf@gapsolutions.com.au (Cornelia Freysen) — Tue, 18 Aug 2026 04:22:45 GMT