EPoS firm MHouse Business Solutions has outlined “big plans” for expansion in England, ahead of new services designed to improve staff and shop management for retailers.

The Motherwell-based firm currently has more than 1,000 partners, with approximately 150 of these based in England. MHouse founder Asif Ashraf told Better Retailing the firm has “big plans” to add more retailers south of the Scottish border over the coming year.

He said: “We’re easily the biggest EPoS firm in Scotland and we do have big plans to move down south and expand further into England. There’ lot of development in the pipeline and we’ve hired a lot of personnel to develop relationships. In the coming year, retailers will see a lot more from us.

“We’ve got to replicate what we’ve done in Scotland and build strong business relationships. Our growth in England has previously been organic but we’re making sure we step it up this year.”

The company is also set to release new services in November, designed to simplify how its partners run their stores. Ashraf said: “We’re integrating a lot of artificial intelligence and we want to get to a place where EPoS isn’t a tool, but a personal assistant for the store owner.

“For example, the system will automatically order milk on a Tuesday if it detects that’s when a store is selling more of that product. There are so many plates you need to spin when running a shop. We are retailers, so the MPoS system has been developed from a retailer’s point of view. We know what physically happens in a shop.”

Ashraf added other areas MHouse was examining included automatic staff clock ins when employees enter a designated area and automatic monitoring of suspicious behaviour through CCTV.