Australia Post’s new point-of-sale platform has been beset by multiple technical troubles, including outages and missing transactions, since its launch last year.
The cloud-based point-of-sale platform, known as POST+, was brought in as part of a modernisation program to replace Australia Post’s 30-year-old legacy EPOS system.
However, since its staggered roll-out began last December, licence holders operating Australia Post branches have regularly complained about till shortfalls, disappearing transactions and system shutdowns — the longest of which reportedly lasted 90 minutes.
Although complaints were regularly escalated with Australia Post’s internal IT helpdesk, the organisation appears to have been at a loss as to the root cause of the issues.
iTnews has seen correspondence that shows complaints were raised about POST+, as far back as January.
In addition to failing transactions, complaints also concerned POST+’s inconsistent interface and usability; its incomplete, slow and convoluted reporting process and poor observability functionality.
iTnews understands that Australia Post brought in Deloitte to carry out a technical two-month review of the issues.
In particular, Deloitte was tasked with uncovering potential errors between POST+’s frontend software and its backend cloud architecture, to pinpoint performance bottlenecks in the end-to-end transaction process.
Deloitte is also understood to have looked at whether POST+’s architecture is consistent with accepted best-practice standards.
The outcome of this review, which was due to have been completed in July, remains unclear.
An Australia Post spokesperson said in a statement that “the system has been independently audited and is fit for purpose.”
‘Teething problems’
According to the Licensed Post Office Group, which represents the interests of 2800 licensees operating under Australia Post’s franchise model, the new system is causing a “significant financial burden” to licensees.
“We have evidence that transactions have been missing, or just not completed, for almost 12 months,” said LPO Group executive director Angela Cramp.
“The evidence was gathered due to a number of outlets being continually short in their balance, and they began to print off transaction history reports more often so they had a paper trail when they experienced shortages.”
According to Cramp, the alleged 90-minute outage, which occurred in May, collectively cost licensees $200,000 in lost revenue and downtime.
Franchisees of Australia Post, which make up two-thirds of Australia Post’s overall network, are remunerated on the number of “tasks” they process, such as banking sales and bill payments. As such, if a transaction fails to complete, the licensees are not paid.
iTnews understands that licensees were told by the Australia Post IT helpdesk to make up any shortfalls with their own money, as per the process under the former EPOS system.
However, when questioned in a recent senate estimates hearing, Australia Post CEO Paul Graham strongly denied any suggestion that licensees were asked to pick up the shortfalls.
“We do not ask the post offices to put money back in to balance it out,” he said in response to questions about POST+ from Senator Malcolm Roberts.
“What we did was provide a report for all those transactions that had not processed through.”
Graham added that POST+ is a modern system built on “state-of-the-art architecture” and described the complaints as coming from a “minority” of people.
“It’s fair to say that when you implement a brand-new system at the scale we’ve implemented it, there will be teething problems,” he said.
However, as of this month, iTnews understands that bugs affecting cashflow and reconciliation continue to be uncovered.
iTnews asked Australia Post a detailed set of questions about the issues.
In response a spokesperson said: “Australia Post has introduced a modern, new point of sale system called POST+ to replace its aging 30-year-old system. It is providing a better experience for team members and customers as well as enhanced transaction security.
“We involved many stakeholders, including licensees and post office team members, at all major stages of the design and implementation. This collaboration has continued including fortnightly meetings with licensees from across the country who are using POST+ in their outlets.”
The spokesperson added that the system was independently reviewed and audited, during roll-out and post implementation and found fit for purpose.
“We are constantly investing in the system and developing enhancements collaboratively with our team members, including licensees,” the spokesperson said.
