Does anyone have experience with Resturant Pro Express?

[POSNewbie75]

Hello Everyone,

I am looking into POS systems for a business venture, and I have stumbled upon a few that I found interesting. There are three Restaurant Pro Express, Aloha, and Comcash. The most promising one I have seen seems to be RPE, but I would like to get some feedback before I invest in anything. If anyone has worked with this company before and could tell me their thoughts on not only the software but also the technical support and customer service that the company provides I'd really appreciate it.

Thanks,
POSNewbie

 

[Circle9]

If you are a restaurant, I would recommend not using RPE. I have downloaded the demo and Aloha has a lot more features and is more user friendly. I would go with Aloha.

 

[POSNewbie75]

Thanks for the quick response, and I appreciate the input. It looks like my partners are leaning towards a situation where restaurant pro would have to be in use, does anyone have experience with the full version and if so do you have any thoughts?
But again Mitchell, thanks for your response!

 

[SwampGas]

When you say the partners are leaning towards a situation where RPE would need to be used... That really means cost, right? There is nothing RPE offers that Aloha can't do.

You get what you pay for, and if this is just a small mom-and-pop type concept then you're probably ok.

 

[Techmedix]

Before you decide on any of those three.....take a look at Dinerware.

 

[Techmedix]

I also want to mention that using Aloha in a coffee shop would be like trying to kill a fly with a sludge hammer. It would be overkill with out a doubt. It's geared more toward high volume multi-site establishments. Restaurant Pro is a Dell product. The problem there is that RPE lacks the intuitive design needed in a restaurant environment. I'll also add that it is not very user friendly. Seriously....look at Dinerware.

 

[POSNewbie75]

I wish I had posted this earlier, but it seems like we are stuck with RPE. It seems like it will be a tedious operation, but if anyone has any advice I'd really appreciate it.

 

[posflorida]

I agree with techmedix. Rpe is reasonable for a quickserve environment aloha would be a overkill. I have never used dinerware but it looks like a good software.

http://www.posflorida.net

 

[POSButch]

Have you programmed your menu yet in RPE? This can be quite tediuos to a new user. If you need help or help maintaining it in the future, let me know.

 

[alex3278]

I have installed pcAmerica in a few restaurants. As far as my business goes, I am EXTREMELY dissatisfied!! PcAmerica does not support their software very well, outsourced to India. When you have split checks and credit card transactions, BE CAREFUL.

Some Problems that I have had, but not limited to:

Mid Dec 08

Terminals will not communicate... Something with the
Windows firewall activated and the client was not seeing the server. Nearly any time that I have Called the tech support, I get the message "There are 5 customers ahead of you... wait time is 1 minute... Usually it is about 15 minutes for each person whom is ahead of you.
try back later.

As far as the credit cards and Split checks, They have
been nothing but a night mare. The tech support team was asking to recreate the problem. I walked the lady on the tech support team through the steps to recreate the problem and her remark was "Oh... I see. This is a problem.
I will have it turned over to our development Dept for further investigation."

Someone else, has had some of the problems as well.
Obviously, when one of the later patches 11.5157 and 11.5160 werereleased, it messed up one of his clients. The Split check problem thatwas fixed with the 11.5155 was erased and that problem was "back at square 1"
when he called the tech Department and the person was obviously new and kept putting him on hold. What ever the tech did remotely to that computer, The 2 computers would not talk to each other. He was on thephone for over an hour with the tech and then finally he called me. I got his system back working within 10 minutes.

Mid Jan 09

We are tired of sending e-mails and not being able to speak with a live person regarding these issues. When Calling the Tech Support, a wait time of over 1 ½ hour is absolutely ridiculous! Then when we finally get through the person from India can NOT speak English, nor can she get the problem resolved. We had a computer fail. So we went to change the system, Back up the data base, and install the new computer. After we got all of the software installed, the printers set up, the database transferred, and the 2 computers talking to each other, The ONLY thing that we needed was to RESET the registration code. All that person could do for us was to tell us that she needed to log into our computer through showmypc and could fix it. We told her that that was not a need, all we need to do is RESET the code. When she logged in, she told us to reenter the code and it got EXACTLY the same what we were telling her. All she could say was “I can not do that. You need to call your office.” Currently at 4:00am , the Restaurant was over half way down. Only one Station was working and the other kept giving us the message that we have used our 200 demo invoices and we need to register. This is EXTREMELY unacceptable for the Restaurant to open the following morning working in this condition.

May 09

I am having a problem at with the credit cards. I am currently using PC Charge to process the credit cards through TSYS. I was using the 11.6 version and it just started to process them automatically. It could not be disabled. When the Credit cards are swiped and tips are applied, everything is working fine. However, at the end of day, when we try to batch the credit cards out, through RPE, we get these messages/errors: "Still tables open w/ no Tips. Apply 0 to All?" Then "CC Failed to process." and "Invalid record or Trout IDs" It does not matter if we answer yes or no to the first question. I have not received any calls or replies from him for further assistance in this matter. I am SICK and TIRED in calling the tech support and getting someone from India, who can barely speak ENGLISH, and whom I can hardly understand. When I called one day, I think that one person told me "Let me log in you computer and I can fix the problem." After these people from India have messed up systems from another customer customers, I really do not want them logged into my systems. I do not have a problem when I call in and receive quality help (stateside) having people who can fix the problem logging into my system and getting the problem resolved. I need Help in getting this problem resolved ASAP so that the restaurant is not having the problems with the credit card processing.

And the list keeps going.

 

[dgosman]

I'm one of the owners of pcAmerica, who makes Restaurant Pro Express. It's an easy to use system that is affordable and has countless features within the software. If you can tell me more about your restaurant, I can tell you what features would be a match.

Dell is one of our resellers, however it is a pcAmerica product.

It's simple to use -- we have over 40,000 terminals installed and the sheer majority of our users set it up by themselves, enter their own menu and have a pretty easy time with it.

POSNewbie, if you have any questions, please let me know.

Alex, if you want to private message me your phone number, we can look into helping you out...firewall configuration is standard for any multi-user system using SQL Server, and if you are having issues with PC Charge, we can work with you to figure them out (even thought its a third party product.)

As for putting in the menu...95% of our restaurant clients put it in by themselves. Once you set up your departments, you can add a new item to a department in under a minute -- adding modifiers only takes a short amount of time extra. We're around 24x7x365 to help you out.

If anyone has any challenges -- just let me know, we're here to help.

Regards,

David

http://www.pcamerica.com

pcAmerica Retail and Restaurant POS