Senior Product owner TemaBit (Fozzy Group) Olga Shcherbatova at RAU Expo 2024 told how the Silpo supermarket chain developed its own PPO software and with this saved 190 million UAH.
Now all Silpo cash registers work on our own BitPOS software. Thanks to this, we do not lose a single receipt, regardless of whether the cash register is online or offline. Using PPO software allows us to save on cash register equipment, record the quality of cash register operation and monitor the efficiency of cashiers at the cash register. For example, every month we identify the fastest cashiers who receive rewards for good work.
And another advantage of our PRRO is the ability to integrate with other systems. Thus, at our checkouts, customers can withdraw cash, top up their mobile account, or top up their bank card. And recently we also began cooperation with the National Lottery of Ukraine. Once at our checkout, a man who works at Lavina Mall and went to Silpo after work to do some shopping, bought an instant lottery ticket for 20 UAH and won 400,000 hryvnia.
Until 2022, all our cash desks operated on hardware PPOs. Unfortunately, after the start of the full-scale invasion, we lost stores in the occupied territories, which were looted and destroyed. Accordingly, we lost all the equipment along with the PPO devices and the fiscal information they contained. In addition, at the beginning of 2023, almost half of our hardware PPOs (their shelf life is seven to nine years) were due to expire and needed to be replaced. To do this, we needed to spend 40 million UAH. We wanted to save this money, so we started looking for a solution that would reduce costs and be reliable and provide secure storage of fiscal information.
At that time, a law had already been adopted on the possibility of business using software PPO, and we began to study this issue together with lawyers and the financial department.
First, we studied the market for ready-made products, among which there were many good solutions. But we understood that we are limited in time and have quite high requirements. Therefore, we decided to develop our own software based on BitPOS, which was done by the IT product company Fozzy Group.
So, already in October 2022, we had the first software cash register at one of the Silpo cash desks. Gradually, we began to transfer other cash registers to PRO, and first of all, we replaced hardware PPOs that were reaching the end of their shelf life.
The gradual replacement of hardware PPOs with software ones allowed us to respond in a timely manner to force majeure, which always exists when introducing new products, as well as to refine and improve our product.
In March 2023, some Silpo stores began operating exclusively on PRRO. For some time we observed how cashiers work with this product, how the cash register itself works online and offline, how checks are transferred, how customers react to the fact that they don’t have to print a check, and the like. After making sure that everything is working well, you decide to scale the project. And already in September 2023, the entire Silpo network was transferred to PRRO.
It turned out that the most difficult issue was to explain to our cashiers that now there is no need to seal the equipment and receive a bunch of documentation. It was difficult for them to understand, because visually nothing had changed for them. We discovered that not all buyers are ready to give up paper receipts, and therefore the question arose of purchasing printers, which cost UAH 10,000 each. For our network of 4,000 cash registers, this meant spending UAH 40 million on the purchase of new equipment. But we found a solution – we reflashed the old hardware PPOs, removed the fiscal function from them and converted them into printers. This is how we managed to save these 40 million UAH.
Our PPO software has a number of advantages. In particular, the fiscal function of the cash desk has been significantly simplified. The process of setting up a cash register has become easier and faster. Previously, this took about 72 hours (purchase of hardware PPO, its sealing, receipt of documents, commissioning, etc.). Software PPO is configured remotely, and data import takes only one to two hours. It is important that all our data is stored in secure cloud storage, so we no longer lose fiscal information.
It is also worth noting that the system itself notifies you about errors in the cash register operation. And another important advantage is the ability to eliminate paper checks. Now every seventh guest of the Silpo network prefers an electronic receipt.
The quality of our development has been confirmed by several audits. First, we carried out an internal audit, then our RRO was checked by representatives of the tax service. And at the final stage, our product was tested by one of the best IT companies in Ukraine, which gave it a high rating.
If we talk about savings, we saved 96 million UAH on the purchase of hardware PPOs, we saved another 40 million UAH on the purchase of printers, and we managed to save 39 million UAH as a result of partially eliminating printed receipts. And we saved another 15 million UAH, since we no longer need maintenance of hardware PPOs. Therefore, the total savings amounted to UAH 190 million.
Now Silpo stores and Trash chains operate on our premises. Trash, Fozzy, Fora and White Chamomile. And we also began cooperation with the Leroy Merlin Ukraine company to implement software PPO from BitPOS at the cash desks of their network.