Bransom Retail Systems, the Hemel Hempstead company behind the Bsmart jewellery EPOS and stock system, was bought by Clarity & Success Software Ltd on 11 June 2019; its managing director Chris Garland retired on the sale. Bransom's website, bransom.co.uk, now returns a permanent redirect to clarity-success.com, and Clarity - a Stafford-based UK company with a German parent in the SelectLine Group - is the only place Bsmart support comes from. Clarity said in 2023 it would support Bsmart "for as long as technologically possible" and move users to its own Evolution platform "when the right time comes"; no end-of-life date has been published. If you are still on Bsmart, the decision is not whether to move but when, and the work is getting six years of stock book, repairs and VAT records out intact before the old hardware makes the choice for you.

What actually happened to Bransom?

The dates, from the trade press and Clarity's own pages:

Date Event Source
11 June 2019 Clarity & Success Software Ltd acquires Bransom Retail Systems; Bransom MD Chris Garland retires; Bransom described as serving "hundreds of customers" National Association of Jewellers, Retail Jeweller (14 June 2019)
2018 Clarity launches Evolution, its current platform Jewellery Outlook, March 2021
March 2021 Clarity reports "Bransom clients moving over" to Evolution; UK offices in Stafford and Hemel Hempstead; German parent merges with ROQQIO Jewellery Outlook
January 2023 Clarity's "20 years of Clarity & Success UK" page: Bsmart supported "for as long as technologically possible", migration to Evolution when right for each client Clarity & Success
July 2024 Evolution gains a buy-in module for pre-owned and scrap gold purchases with margin scheme records National Association of Jewellers
November 2024 Evolution Standard edition launched at a lower monthly cost: till, stock, stocktake, labels, suppliers, staff, reporting; customer management, extra tills and repairs as add-ons Company of Master Jewellers
July 2026 Founder and MD Karen Russell announces retirement; Mike Oldroyd joins as MD from 3 August 2026 Retail Jeweller, Jewellery Focus
August 2026 bransom.co.uk returns HTTP 301 to clarity-success.com/en/ Checked by us, 19 August 2026

Bransom Retail Systems Limited itself (company number 02567402, incorporated 11 December 1990) is still an active company at Companies House with a Hemel Hempstead registered office and accounts filed to 31 December 2024, so the legal entity that holds your contract has not gone away - it has a new owner. Bransom sold to pawnbrokers as well as jewellers, which is worth knowing if your Bsmart install carries pledge records alongside stock.

Two things follow. First, the people who wrote and supported Bsmart are a diminishing resource inside a larger group whose development effort is on Evolution. Second, Clarity has just changed its managing director after two decades, which is a natural moment for any software company to rationalise legacy products. Neither is a reason to panic. Both are reasons to have your data exported this quarter.

Is Bsmart still supported?

As far as anything is published, yes, with no date attached. Clarity's statement is "for as long as technologically possible", which in practice means: for as long as the operating system Bsmart runs on is still patched, the database it uses is still readable, and there is someone on the support desk who knows it. Clarity's UK support runs Monday to Friday, 8am to 5pm, by phone and email, from Stafford.

What we could not find is a published roadmap, a last-supported Windows version, or a migration price list. Ask Clarity for all three in writing. If the answer to "what is the end-of-life date" is "there isn't one", ask instead "what happens when our server fails" - the answer to that question is the real support status.

What does Clarity offer Bsmart users today?

Evolution, in two editions. The full Evolution platform covers stock management, CRM, point of sale, and a set of mobile apps - Mobile POS Light, an Inventory app for stocktakes, a Repair app for taking in jobs away from the till, a Live Sales Tracker and a PICTURE app. Since July 2024 it includes the buy-in module for second-hand and scrap purchases, which records the transaction, grades the items, bins scrap for melt and keeps margin scheme records. The Standard edition, launched November 2024, strips this back to the till, stock and reporting core at a lower monthly cost, with repairs and customer management as paid add-ons.

Pricing is not published for either edition, and the site does not say whether Evolution is cloud-hosted or installed. Both are demo questions. The upside of staying in the Clarity family is that Clarity will do the Bsmart-to-Evolution migration itself and has done it for other Bransom clients since at least 2021. The downside is that you are choosing the incumbent by default; this is the one moment you will get to compare.

What are the alternatives?

For a UK jeweller leaving Bsmart there are four realistic directions, and our UK jewellery software comparison scores each in a table.

  • Clarity Evolution. The path of least resistance. Margin scheme buy-in, repairs, apps, UK support hours. No published price.
  • Jewel-Master. The other UK-built system, from Basingstoke, cloud-hosted on a fixed monthly fee that is also not published. Repairs are included with the EPOS, and its accounts links cover QuickBooks, Xero, Sage and MYOB. Its site does not mention the margin scheme; ask.
  • Milleso. Our product, so weigh this line accordingly. Built for the UK: margin, standard-rated and reverse charge decided at intake and all three in one sale; serialised stock with all-in cost; workshop with customer property held separately; gold desk; consignment; Chrono24, eBay, Shopify and WooCommerce channels; Xero and Sage export. Counter £99 a month, Trade £249 a month, ex VAT, one month free, and migration done for you. No multi-store yet and no US tax, so a chain should look at Clarity first.
  • A generic till. Lightspeed Retail at £75 to £189 a month or Shopify POS from £25 plus £69 per location for POS Pro, both with published GBP prices. Sensible only if you sell new stock and do no second-hand, no part-exchange and no repairs, because none of them handles the margin scheme or a customer-property ledger.

The US jewellery systems - The Edge, Jewel360 - are not on this list for a Bsmart user. You would be trading a UK system with a margin scheme module for one with no VAT model at all.

The migration checklist

Whatever you move to, the data work is the same, and it is yours to own. The vendor receiving the data will help; the vendor losing it has less incentive to.

1. Export everything, in a format you can open without Bsmart. Stock (with purchase dates, purchase prices, suppliers and the margin or standard flag), customers, sales history, repairs history, supplier records, open purchase orders, open repairs, outstanding deposits and layaways, gift vouchers and credit notes. CSV or Excel, not a proprietary backup. Do this before you give notice, and do it again on the day you switch.

2. Keep the stock book continuous. Paragraph 5.2 of VAT Notice 718 requires a stock book for every margin scheme item with its stock number, purchase date, invoice number, price and seller, through to sale date, buyer, selling price, margin and VAT due. Items bought under Bsmart and sold under the new system need one unbroken record. Either carry the Bsmart stock numbers across, or keep a mapping table. Paragraph 5.5 says the records must be kept for at least six years. Our stock book requirements piece has the field list.

3. Keep the VAT records readable for six years. HMRC's VAT record-keeping rules require records to be kept for at least six years. "Kept" means retrievable in an inspection, not sitting in a database that only a decommissioned server can open. Print to PDF or export to spreadsheet the sales ledgers, VAT summaries and margin scheme calculations for every period still in scope before the old machine is switched off.

4. Keep the AML records too. If you are a registered High Value Dealer, the Money Laundering Regulations 2017 require customer due diligence and transaction records to be kept for five years. Cash receipts at or above the £10,000 threshold and the linked-payments history need to travel with you. Our High Value Dealer piece covers what that means.

5. Move the open work first. Every repair envelope in the workshop is someone else's property and needs a job number and a status in the new system on day one, not after the history import. Every deposit outstanding is a tax point already created under section 14.2 of VAT Notice 700, so the deposit and the VAT already accounted for must be carried across against the right sale.

6. Run both for one VAT period. Key the first month into both systems, or at least reconcile the new system's VAT summary to the old one before you file. A mismatch found in month one is a configuration error; found in month seven it is a correction on a return.

7. Get the hardware position in writing. If Bsmart runs on a server in the shop, ask Clarity which Windows versions are supported and what the replacement path is if the server dies before you migrate. Image the drive.

How long will it take?

For a single shop with under 5,000 stock records, a competent receiving vendor should import stock, customers and open repairs within a fortnight of receiving clean exports. Sales history is the slow part, because every system stores it differently; decide early whether you need it inside the new system or are content to keep it as a read-only export for HMRC purposes. Most jewellers choose the latter and are right to.

What we could not verify

  • An end-of-life date for Bsmart. None published. Clarity's 2023 wording is the latest we found.
  • Bsmart's platform and database. Not published; we have not claimed what it runs on.
  • Clarity Evolution pricing, migration fees and hosting model. Not published.
  • How many Bransom customers remain on Bsmart in 2026. Bransom had "hundreds of customers" at the sale in 2019; nothing since.
  • Whether the 14 June 2019 Retail Jeweller report adds detail beyond the NAJ notice. The page returned an access error to us; the headline and date are from its URL.

Sources

This is general information, not a recommendation to buy any product, and not tax advice. Vendor support commitments and pricing change without notice; every statement above was checked against the linked source in August 2026. Milleso is our product and is named with that disclosure. Confirm record-retention questions with your accountant before you decommission anything.