North East Wales hospice charity’s Gift Aid revenue has increased fourfold since the management swapped its manual till system to an electronic solution.

In order to boost its Gift Aid income, Nightingale House Hospice rolled-out CHARiot Electronic Point of Sale (EPoS) system by Nisyst in its 11 shops and distribution centre in autumn 2015 and has since seen a great revenue boost.

John Donnelly, retail development manager, from Nightingale House, said: “We had always used a manual till system which meant we only collected Gift Aid on big donations such as furniture and white goods.

“We knew we were missing out on an additional 25% on other eligible items and wanted to introduce an EPoS system that would help us collect Gift Aid efficiently while being easy to use for our managers and volunteers.  We spoke to other charities and hospices to see what systems they had in place and came across the CHARiot system by Nisyst.”

CHARiot ensures that Gift Aid is captured consistently by all personnel and in all shops by preventing a sale from being completed until the unique bar code has been scanned for each item.

Following a successful pilot in two Nightingale House high street locations, Nisyst installed the CHARiot system in Full Scan Mode (FSM), in the remaining stores and carried out training with all the charity shop managers, who then trained the team of volunteers.

“CHARiot’s Gift Aid feature is the main reason we took the leap and switched to an electronic till system and the results have exceeded our expectations in the first year. In addition, we’ve started to use the system for management information and evaluating product performance, average transaction values and managing stock.

“Just recently we launched a scheme of refurbishing and selling donated bicycles across all stores. Thanks to CHARiot, we can quickly overview these transactions.

“We chose the CHARiot system because it’s so intuitive and the ongoing technical support provided by the Nisyst helpline gives us the peace of mind that comes with knowing that our team has experts to call upon for advice whenever they need it. We’ve been delighted with how quickly and smoothly we’ve been able to move across to the CHARiot system and our team of managers and volunteers has adjusted really well to the transition,” added John.