ACR Shoptalk POS — bank compatibility

ACR Shoptalk is a point-of-sale system for retail, built by ACR Business Systems. Thirty-five years of Australian retail and distribution ERP, sold by its founders to a Constellation operating group in April 2024.

Certified on Linkly, running in the cloud. Linkly reaches more acquirers than any other middleware in the market, which is why most POS start there.

The Linkly integration runs in the cloud.

ACR Business Systems built ERP for Australian retailers and distributors — point of sale, finance, payroll, orders, inventory and customer management in one suite rather than a till bolted to an accounting package. The company has more than 35 years of trading behind it, which puts its origins well before most of what it competes with today.

In April 2024 Vela Software Group, trading through its subsidiary Vela APX, acquired the ACR assets and formed ACR Software Pty Ltd. Vela is an operating group of Toronto-listed Constellation Software. Founder Jason Heskett summed up the exit plainly: "It is with mixed emotions we step back from ACR, but now is the right time." He and fellow founder Mike Murray agreed to stay on casually through the transition. Vela APX chief executive Ian Whiting cited ACR's "reputation and track record for providing reliable and innovative software solutions."

This is the pattern across Australian retail software right now. ACR joined a portfolio that already included Tower Systems, Surefire, Independent Solutions, AdvanceRetail, Sympac, Apparel21 and Island Pacific. Founder-run local vendors are being bought and held by one Canadian group, and the merchant usually finds out when the invoice letterhead changes.

ACR Business Systems also has Hardware Shoptalk.