The Albert EFTPOS tablet offers time-saving technology that improves the Point of Sale (POS) experience for customers and businesses alike.
Albert EFTPOS is an innovative approach to POS solutions, offering payment flexibility and business tools such as stock management and a variety of productivity apps. It is a little bit expensive for smaller businesses, but offers something of potential value for those looking for more than just payment processing.
- Highs: AppBank. Stock management. Australia-based 24/7 support.
- Lows: Expensive for smaller businesses. Lack of transparency. Not yet the finished product.
- Buy if: You want to benefit from increased functionality and useful business insights that go beyond what a normal in-store payment processor can offer.
What is Albert EFTPOS?
Albert EFTPOS tablet is a point of sale terminal that is also capable of handling more advanced business functions such as stock management, loyalty programs and varying payment cases. The service was launched by the Commonwealth Bank of Australia in early 2015. If you are looking for an integrated payment solution that can also be used for operational matters than Albert EFTPOS may be worth looking at.
To learn the basics about the EFTPOS system in Australia, see What exactly is the Australian EFTPOS system?
How Albert EFTPOS works
At a basic level, the Albert tablet is a portable and standalone device that allows you to process payments from within your store. The device works over either 3G or WI-FI and is rented on a monthly basis.
How much does it cost?
Albert EFTPOS comes with a considerable price tag attached. For an agreed monthly card turnover of up to $6,000, you will pay $90 per month. The monthly cost is $120 and $150 for turnovers of $9,000 and $12,000 respectively.
This service is therefore intended for businesses who are already doing a reasonable amount in sales on a regular basis. In the case where you exceed the agreed limit, you will be charged an extra 1.5% on top of the fixed monthly fee.
Moreover, if you would like to use more tablets in your store, then this will cost you an additional $29.50 per device. It should be noted that signing up for Albert EFTPOS gets you a Business Transaction Account with CommBank, free of charge. This might be something to consider if you were looking to open a business account anyway or want to diversify who you make daily transactions with.
There are also some additional fees to consider, such as a $30 chargeback fee and $110 service cancellation fee as well as a $1,500 charge for not returning the Albert EFTPOS tablet! In our view, these extra costs are pretty reasonable – they are also identical to CommBank’s Emmy mPOS service.
Flexible payment options and an AppBank are nice touches
Albert is quite an innovative solution which offers a whole range of flexible payment options, including splitting the bill, tipping and email receipts. You can allow loyal customers to keep an electronic tab to pay later as well as providing a platform for making donations to charity.
In addition, the AppBank provides even more added functionality. For example, the Daily IQ app gives you business insights into your sales data, such as when your busiest times of day are and how your spending patterns are looking. You can apparently even make your own apps, although we are not sure how this would work in practice.
Clearly, this tablet has a lot of potential to be used for streamlining your business data and daily operations. The question is to what degree regular businesses will make the most of this tablet when they are constantly bombarded with marketing for other solutions in the productivity space.
Finally, the Australia-based 24/7 support is good to see with so much outsourcing going on in the industry these days. What’s more, any troublesome Albert device will be replaced within 4 hours (provided you are located in a metropolitan or regional area) which is reassuring for those of you who can’t afford to be without your card processor for any extended period of time.
Albert is a bit expensive for many small businesses
It has to be said – it would seem to us that Albert is not aimed at small businesses per se. Indeed, the quoted turnover limits hint at this and we found the monthly price to be a little steep.
Many merchants and sole traders may not want to dish out $90 a month (over $1,000 annually) just to accept card payments in their shops. That said, it might be worth it if you foresee yourself making full usage of the extra functionality and apps on offer. For the smaller businesses, then, CommBank’s Emmy mPOS service may be more appropriate.
In addition, as was also noted in our Emmy mPOS review, CommBank are not very open with regards to their additional and miscellaneous fees. You will eventually find out what these conditions are before signing the contract, of course, but it’s unclear to us why they can’t be clearly displayed on the CommBank website. This would allow you to make a more informed decision before applying.
Albert EFTPOS – an innovative service that could be interesting for the right business
Overall, we rated Albert as a 3.5 star service. It certainly achieves what it sets out to do, providing some potentially useful tools for businesses who are looking for a payment solution that goes beyond just processing transactions. The AppBank is a nice added touch and it will be interesting to see how it develops over time.
On the other hand, we got the impression that Albert is not yet the finished package. To be fair to CommBank, the service was only launched in 2015 so it still has time to improve and expand. We also felt that the pricing, though not unreasonable, is a little steep for a large chunk of our readership.
All in all, it’s an innovative service that could certainly be interesting for the right business who is looking for more than just a card payment processor.
