We are based in Canning Vale, which means the businesses closest to our workshop are warehouses, wholesalers and distributors. It is one of Perth's two main industrial precincts, and the pattern in there is consistent: an operation that runs perfectly well until one specific thing fails, and then nothing moves at all.
A warehouse is different from an office. In an office a failed PC is one person having a bad morning. In a warehouse, a scanner that will not connect stops the whole pick, and a label printer that goes offline stops despatch entirely. The work does not slow down, it stops, and it stays stopped until someone fixes the thing.
What goes wrong in a warehouse
The failures in this sector are specific and they repeat. Almost all of them are preventable with the right arrangement in place.
- Scanners dropping off the wifi mid-pick because racking is a wall of metal and a network that tested fine in an empty shed stops reaching the back aisles once the racks are full
- Label and despatch printers going offline after a driver update or an IP change, usually at the worst possible point in the afternoon run
- The warehouse management system slowing to a crawl when the database sits on an ageing server under a desk that nobody has looked at in three years
- One despatch PC that everything depends on with no documented build, no spare, and no recent backup, so a failed drive costs a day rather than an hour
- Office and floor on the same flat network so anything that gets onto the guest or staff wifi has a clear path to the systems running the operation
- Stock and sales history living only on the system that generated it with backup retention set to whatever the software defaulted to, which is usually well short of what the ATO expects
Records, retention and what the ATO expects
The ATO requires most business records to be kept for 5 years, and if you trade through a company, section 286 of the Corporations Act 2001 requires financial records for 7 years. For a distribution business that means stock movements, invoices, despatch records and the reports your system generates, all of which usually live in one place.
If you handle food, the retention question gets sharper. Traceability records under the Food Standards Code have to show one step back and one step forward for every consignment, and that only works if the system holding them is still readable. Dangerous goods and freight documentation carries its own record requirements too.
We set retention to match the obligation rather than the default, test that the data actually restores, and keep a documented picture of how the operation is put together so a rebuild is a few hours rather than a guess. We are not accountants or food safety auditors, and we do not certify compliance. We make sure the systems holding your records are not the weak point.
What we cover for a warehouse
- Site wifi that reaches the whole floor, surveyed with the racks full rather than empty, so scanners hold their connection down every aisle
- Scanners, label printers and floor tablets kept connected, patched and replaced before they fail rather than after
- The machines your WMS and accounting run on, monitored for drive health and disk space so failures are caught early
- Network separation so the office, the floor systems and any guest access are not all sharing one flat network
- Backup with a tested restore and retention set to your actual record keeping obligation
- Your setup documented, so the answer to how despatch is configured is never "the last guy knew"
- New starters and leavers set up or locked out, which matters more in an operation with seasonal and casual staff
Get your warehouse IT sorted, starting with a free audit
We walk the floor, check your coverage where the racks actually are, look at what happens if the despatch machine dies, and tell you what a plan would cost. Most operations managers find it useful regardless of whether they sign up.
Why a local provider matters here
Our workshop is in Canning Vale. The industrial area around Bannister Road, and out through Kewdale, Welshpool, Jandakot and Forrestdale, is a short drive rather than a trip across the city. When despatch has stopped and the trucks are waiting, the difference between a technician arriving in forty minutes and one arriving after lunch is the difference between a delayed run and a lost day.
It also means we know the buildings. Tilt-up concrete, high racking and long spans are a genuinely hard wifi environment, and a lot of warehouse network problems are the result of a setup designed for an office being installed in a shed.
Other services we offer warehouses
Book a free IT audit for your warehouse
Tell us what your operation runs on and we will look at your floor coverage, what happens if the despatch machine dies, and what a plan would cost.
Request received.
We will come back to you as fast as we can, usually the same day. If it is urgent, call 0452 573 701.
Warehouse operations depend on a handful of systems that have to stay up during picking and despatch: the warehouse or inventory management system, barcode scanners and label printers, site wifi that reaches the full floor, and the accounting or ERP package behind it. FixMyPC Perth covers all of these under one fixed monthly plan starting at $149 a month, with no lock-in contract.
Plans start at $149 a month for up to 5 PCs, $199 for up to 10 and $299 for up to 20. Extra devices beyond the plan limit are $35, $45 or $60 a month depending on the plan. Scanners, label printers and tablets on the floor are counted as devices, so tell us the real number and we will price it properly rather than guessing.
Usually yes, and it is the most common problem we are called about in a warehouse. Racking is effectively a wall of metal, so a wifi setup that tested fine in an empty shed often fails once the racks are full and stock is moving. It is generally an access point placement and coverage problem rather than a broken scanner, and it is fixable.
We support the machines, network and connectivity those systems run on, and we work with your software vendor when the issue is inside the application itself. That covers the workstations, the scanners, the label printers, the site network and the backups. We are not a WMS vendor and we do not customise the software.
That is exactly what a managed plan is for. We monitor drive health and disk space so failing hardware is usually caught before it stops, we keep a documented picture of how your setup is configured so a replacement can be built quickly, and backups are tested so the data comes back. Emergency on-site attendance is within 4 hours on weekdays and 3 on weekends across the southern Perth corridor.
Yes, and it is close to home for us. Our workshop is in Canning Vale, so the industrial precinct around Bannister Road, Kewdale, Welshpool, Jandakot and Forrestdale is a short drive rather than a call-out across the city. Remote support covers anywhere in Perth.
We provide industry-specific managed IT support across Perth. Find your sector below.