POS Systems

I had a business question.

For any industry members out there, and I guess small business owners, what POS software system are you using and are you happy with it?

Im intersted in moving towards this more efficient accountable direction but am scared away by the costs $15K for 4 terminals 1 register.

And the software Ive been shown seems not that great - BPA - I mean its only $70 intially for the software, but a mandatory $30 a month for life for updates/tech support.

I know there are other software packages out there, (Restaurant Plus, POSGuys, Aloha, even Dell) but Im unsure of making the leap without at leats hearing success stories, or at least satisfied customers.

Thanks and have a good evening,
Tony

at the restaurant where i work we use Aloha (i'm the office manager). We do not have a maintenance contract, and we do end up spending A LOT for maintenance. and because we opted not to have the maintenance contract, we would have to pay BIG BUCKS for any upgrades to the system. so our version of Aloha is older and doesn't provide many of the back-of-the house features that other systems I've used have had. and more times than not the customer service I've received from them was not so friendly. It works well for our front-of-the house needs, and I know many restaurants in the city that do use Aloha and are very happy with it - but I also know they have the annual maintence contract.

I've worked with the Micros system at a few other places I've worked, and was always pleased with their customer support and with the capabilities of the program.

in my experience, micros has the best system with the best support. pretty much the standard. aloha is decent. recently servpoint, a system i inheirited on a project i was doing, went out of business by not being able to support the product. seems even though they claimed they could reinvent the wheel to our unique specs, they couldn't support it and now they're gone. now i have one of their old techs doing it on the side for me.

maintenence contract is worth it unless you are a major tech geek or own one. they all get you one way or the other though.

I have seen people run the gamut of poor operating systems while trying to not pony up the micros dollars. The establishments i have worked for have spent more in maintenance and comps than they would have getting a very solid package from the get go. Micros is the least amount of headache, and the most expensive. It depends on your needs, some smaller systems will work well if you only need limited function from the system but i think with pos' the mentality is better safe than sorry.

I thought this may be of interest to someone: iPad POS use rising among restaurants

I'm on the hotel side of things, but have worked in many hotels that included a restaurant outlet.

Aloha was great and easy to use, but (and this goes for MOST of the POS systems out there) if you don't get the maintenance contract, you will spend BIG BUCKS every time you have an issue that requires support and/or maintenance. Even if you train someone to become the "pro" on the system, what is the guarantee that that person will be with your company as long as your POS system is? (We know that the unfortunate reality of our industry is the high turn over)

Just some things to consider:
Cost of Hardware; I know that Aloha will run on virtually ANY Windows based platform. Can & will Micros do that?
Self-Reliance; will you be paying a service fee every time you need to change prices or add items?
Open Architecture; which system will allow you to build your own reports using any 3rd party report program.

Also think Big Picture, are you going to expand in the future? You want a system that will allow for a certain amount of expansion so that in another few years you are not spending the money AGAIN to purchase a bigger and better system.
Hope this helps!

I realize this is an older thread but thought I'd chime in.

We looked at several providers for our restaurant and in the end selected Point Of Success for our POS system. With start up money tight being pretty selective on where we did spend was important. P.O.S. allowed us to build our own 4 station system, complete with printers, card reader, and all the necessary software including inventory, food cost/menu building, reservation control etc. and invest less than $2200 for everything.

We started with a used eMachine desktop to act as our 'server' and I purchased ELO touch screens and IBM workstations mostly via Ebay. Now that we've been up and running a bit when the need to swap out hardware does arise I'll simply purchase new, not that there's a ton more money but it is a lot better!

We run a full-menu from pizza and subs to pastas, chops and steaks with a full Pub menu of over 35 craft beers and local wines. It took me about 18 hours over 3 or 4 days to actually build my menu the first time. Doing any adjustments now is a matter of moments for new beers, specials or price changing.

The best part of the Point Of Success system...Jeff Ward and the folks at the home office. Passionate about their product, dedicated to making it perform in ANY situation, and understanding of what the phrase "customer service" is really about!