Aloha POS Reviews/Client Comments etc. 3

[Slicerdicer]

I currently run IT Administration for a restaurant group that is looking into Aloha POS as a new system. Currently the restaurant group is running a mix of different POS since they have 20+ stores in 5 states.

I am looking for information regarding Aloha POS systems from current/past customers in regards to expense, ease of use, ease of administration from an IT perspective etc.

Any information is welcome positive or negative.

 

[coorsman]

My 2 cents as an Aloha Support Tech for the past 5 years, a total mess as far as hardware and BOH software.

Radiant terminals 1220 and 1510 and the servers have bad capacitors, and we rarely get 2 years out of them "even using power conditioners". Make sure you keep your support agreements, even then you will be getting a refurb, not good when one dies within the first couple of months.

My top 5 dislikes are:
1. Almost every change has to be done on the back of house then requires a refresh " rebooting of the terminals", this requires everyone off the terminals until they reboot or chance a trans.log corruption.
2. The database is dos DBF based.
3. Requires microsoft windows on terminals.
4. No way to get a gross sales report.
5. Inventory or any kind of true food cost analysis cannot be done due to the way price changes and modifiers work.
6. Software can only be upgraded within the major version w/o purchasing again.
7. Reporting is really bad.


Likes:
FOH like any other POS systems are easy to learn and use.

Like I always say I Like #1-Squirrel b/c "no windows on terminals", and #2-Maitre'd
They are the best as far as IT supporting , reporting and funtionality,

But Aloha keeps me busy as a support IT. :>

Coorsman!

 

[DTSMAN]

Some information in this bar forum, may be a little dated, and mostly opinion. But you can find your way through it for the real information.

http://www.nightclub-business.com/forum/showthread.php?5496-POS-Systems

I've worked with old versions of PosiTouch, and some Restaurant Manager, but I'm partial to Aloha, I know it and know it pretty well. You do have the choice to load the flat file version or the relational DB version and use SQL and write your own custom IT interfaces. All the big companies hammer you on upgrades, especially currently, as CISP rules change every 6 months, and they blame them and pass the cost on to you. They have an enterprise interface and other add-ons, as all the big players do.

The dealer that implements the system will make the biggest difference. Find dealer references for the 5 states, for the dealer you choose make a store in their territory your first, and you can continue to use that dealer for the rest of your stores. Post the states here and you may get some leads.




Bo

Remember,
If the women don't find you handsome,
they should at least find you handy.
(Red Green)

http://www.redgreen.com

 

[alohaakamai3]

I agree with portions of the above posts, and I've supporting Aloha since somewhere around 1998.

Coorsman is right about the hardware, it's absolute crap. The debate is over, it really came down to Radiant trying to make a low cost hardware solution for their dealers to be more cost effective for smaller market customers. The downside to this is, Radiant assigns the dealers hardware quotas so that they more or less have to sell it, and they will try to push it on your whether it's good or not.

DTSMAN is right in that the dealer is going to make all the difference for you. Some are easy to work with, some aren't, and some just plain suck.

You actually have a pretty big advantage in that you're going to have some leverage in choosing which dealer you like (most restaurants MUST deal with the one in their territory) and that Aloha does seem to me more well suited to larger customers and chains. What I mean by that is the software is fairly solid, IMO, for those customers who carry some weight with their dealer and can afford to paid the costs involved. The reality for your average 1-5 location restaurants is that they are going to have a tighter budget and the dealer isn't going to be as concerned about whether or not you're happy or allowing customers to do their own support, etc. And the prices these dealers charge for support, etc, are sometimes cost prohibitive to smaller places.

The trickiest part for you is going to be determining what parts of the day to day you're IT department is going to handle, versus you'll be depending on your dealer for. Most dealers of ANY software let out a groan when they hear people wanting to do all their own support or provide their own hardware, etc... some will even refuse to work with you in those cases. Given the volume you're talking about, a dealer is definitely going to work with you, but make sure you iron out the specifics in advance. Some of them can get pretty fussy when it comes to handing over software or technical information, etc.

If you were anything less than a 5 store chain, I would say DON'T get Aloha. But in you're case, I think they're worth a closer look.

On small item worth consideration here... a common (and rather greedy, imo) practice among some of the big players, is that when a chain is over X amount of stores gets handled by Radiant directly. I thought it used to be 25 stores. However, I am not sure if they all have to be the same exact chain (it sounds like you have a mixture) or what the exact figure is, even if they still do it.

 

[Slicerdicer]

As a followup and I really appreciate the responses and would encourage more from others, what other slick software offers reporting capability, ease of use etc that we should be looking at?

We are currently using Aspect/BackOffice which is plain horrible both from a reporting aspect, IT Mgmt aspect and their support is limited in technical knowledge.

I appreciate the comments on the hardware and have been thinking about using our existing hardware as most of it is <5 years old and just going the software replacement route at least for the next 2-4 years until hardware replacement becomes a necessity.

With regards to the IT Management our group would like to manage it internally but still have access to enterprise support from Radiant when our IT guys need it. I have a meeting with a rep in our territory coming up.

The reason we are looking at Aloha is our restaurant group secondary concept they are starting is mandatory Aloha systems and I would like to put both concepts on Aloha for centralized management and reporting so my guys have 1 platform instead of 2, but if there is something out there that can trump Aloha I'd be willing to investigate managing 2 different platforms.

 

[ajmak]

I've been supporting Aloha for a bar/restaurant/nightclub chain for approx 3 1/2 years and it's been pretty good. The software's reliable and we haven't had too many problems with the P1220s - with the exception of the biometric readers.

The reporting isn't great but we use enterprise and MenuLink for most of that and manage multi-sites through CDM. That's a big improvement. Training's been easy enough, the front of house is easy to pick up and we only have a few staff at each site that use the boh.

We moved from Maitre'D and Aloha was a breath of fresh air. I definitely wouldn't go back.

 

[alohaakamai3]

After reading your second post, I would say that would have the possibility or trumping Aloha in terms of enterprise features and support, in the food/table service industry, would probably be Micros.

There are a lot of suitable POS systems for chains of all sizes, but not many that due true enterprise solutions, and do them well. There are, IMO, not a ton of options there.

Interesting to hear how bad everyone thinks Aloha's reporting is... not that care one way or another, I am not formally affiliated with Aloha... I just never thought it was *that* bad.

 

[ajmak]

Just to clear up my point on the reporting - there's nothing *wrong* with the built-in Aloha reporting. Our users found it less 'pretty' than what they had from Maitre'D but it's still functional and reliable. The biggest gripe I had with it was the lack of customisation options compared to what we had before. We could pretty much write our own reports with Maitre'D in Crystal but have been limited doing similar in Aloha.

Enterprise takes most of these complaints away though.

 

[alohaakamai3]

Amjak, you are probably accurate in your comments, and it's interesting because the lack of customization, in some crazy way, was partly responsible for Aloha's success, IMO.

When I first started supporting Aloha in the late 90s, POS systems were not nearly as defined as they are now. Most of them have a pretty standard look a feel these days. But back then, they didn't, and many systems actually suffered from too much customization and just allowed you to do too many things.

In short, many systems allowed for too much variability, too much deviation from the basic concepts (users could also "take away" from the user friendly aspects inherent in a system by changing to many things), and all those functions could overwhelm both FOH and BOH users.

When Aloha was developed by Ibertech, it was about a simple as they come. It was a good design flow, easy for servers, and though not the easiest for the back office functions, it was very scalable.

I think that's worth mentioning for the OP- non technical users typically don't like Aloha's back office, it's kind of confusing and requires a lot of explanation just to add basic menu items. But that might not effect you since you are from an IT background.

Anyway, the concept of simplicity basically held true for the system as a whole, and I was actually surprised initially with how many things you could NOT change compared to other systems I'd worked with. It's not that way anymore, but back then, when computers weren't part of every day life for almost everyone- I think it worked in Aloha's favor.

That being said, from a dealer/technical perspective, I'm sort of glad the reporting customization is limited to what you can do within the interface. I've become fond of the WYSIWYG approach, where these crazy restaurateurs can't dream up all these crazy reports that most of them don't need. In effect, it's like saying "If you don't see it out there on the shelves, we don't have it". At first glance, I liked the ability to customize reports too, but it just turned into a nightmare with too many sales people promising stuff, or non technical people just assuming all they had to do was snap their fingers and whatever info they wanted would appear. If they do it right the first time, no customization should really be necessary (with the exception of the most finicky users).