Some help from the pros choosing a POS. 1

[hubtechsolutions]

I've got a client who currently owns 7 locations of a national chicken franchise. He came to me tonight wanting POS system that he could centrally track cost/profit/etc. Cloud based preferred but that can run in "offline" mode in case of ISP outage. I own an IT company. I Can help with POS setup, config, etc, but I am far from having a deep knowledge of all POS offerings. He let me know that he's planning on growing to 20 locations spread out over a couple states. What offerings should I look into? I've been wanting to focus my business on POS, and I've got a few clients using Restaurant Manager, but it does not offer the central view he'd like of his businesses. Aloha, while great, would basically cut me out of the picture and i've heard rumblings among a few restaurant owners that it's not what it used to be since radiant took over. Any insight is appreciated, this could be a great boost for my business. Thanks all.

 

[360fish]

Aloha has strong enterprise features but is overly complicated and expensive for small businesses. Would his 7 sites be enough to make the enterprise features worth-while? It's a close call, you would benefit from them but $100-150/month/site is steep considering the ongoing costs (you) and the upfront ones.

Aloha recently improved: It has gotten significantly better in the last 2-3 years under Radiant though before that it was really quite awful, the enterprise level software they've rolled out in the last 18 months has solved a lot of the issues.

Aloha technical support: For any medium sized deployment Aloha requires a trained administrator - for 7 sites I'd expect 2-5 hours per week maintenance and 5-10 hours on site per location and another 40+ planning and lab-ing it out when rolling out big upgrades or adding complicated new features like customer rewards programs. That's if you're a trained, experienced integrator.

Hardware: I recommend you go with on-line independent sellers they will significantly undercut Radiant hardware unless you make a special deal (good luck with just 7 sites). If you are running Aloha spec your terms on the high-end. Do *not* go cheap, that goes for the server as well, but a mid-level modern pc will be fine there.

New Aloha Installs: learning the install procedures, especially the prep work for Win7 before you install, is 20+ hours and doing the install can be as high as 1 day for each 2-3 terminals if all the network prep was done beforehand. Read up in the Radiant knowledge base (you should have access with your enterprise contract)

What I don't know much about (partial list): I have not administered Micros so I can't compare but I hear they are simpler to admin. I have seen one of the iOS (iPad/iPhone) point of sale systems and they seem excellent for small businesses but for 7 sites they lack functionality.

Future trends: I think small POS systems running on tablets is the future direction. Aloha has pointed all its development efforts towards the Big enterprises because they see the small ones will soon be using much cheaper, simpler systems running on tablet. The explosion of smart phones followed by the tablet fad and services like Square (squareup.com) were big factors in the early growth, and now I'd call it an emerging trend which is overdue for becoming a full market. Within 5 years tablet based POS will overtake Aloha/Micros with single and small businesses and some startups will be eying the big enterprise market.

But that's not today. Hope this helps some.

 

[cgdiaz]

Not to hijack this thread, I hope someone can answer the original posters question, but I was curious if any future posters could talk about a good POS for a single location as well. Right now I have a customer who has an Aloha system but he is very unhappy with it. I am admittedly not super knowledgeable in it but have been learning as I go providing what support I can.

I think that Aloha can be implemented well but it seems to be a hard system to maintain.

If anyone can recommend a good alternative POS I'd love to hear some thoughts.

 

[Knectech]

Hi,

We offer a Cloud based POS solution that allows for enterprise management as well as single location management from the cloud. I would be glad to set up a demo for you if you would like and go into details of the pos.

Some of the features that it offers include customer loyalty, online ordering/future orders, Take out/delivery, integrated credit card processing, enterprise reporting, web based setup and configuration.

Knectech POS

 

[pmegan]

360fish started off with a good question. A good, reliable, feature rich, enterprise POS is going to be expensive. If your friend plans on expanding the company it may be worth the expense. If not, has he looked into enterprise reporting tools? Micros offers MyMicros, and there are always 3rd party reporting companies like Avero and Mirus.

Another question is why he prefers a cloud based POS. A lot of non-techies, and unfortunately a lot of techies, think of any business applications that run on the internet as cloud based. Personally I like the idea of cloud based data storage and business intelligence tools, wouldn't want the POS systems for my entire company dependent on an internet connection. I like to know that unless there's a power outage the kitchen will be getting orders, guests will be getting checks, and the servers/bartenders will not have the opportunity to "find" extra money for their upcoming vacation.

If he decides that buying a whole system is worth it, I'd suggest he get a demo of the Micros 3700 w/Enterprise Management during his research. It's been a solid product for over 10 years and isn't that hard to maintain. The initial setup is complicated, but I think that's pretty standard for an enterprise POS system. Setting up a new restaurant is relatively easy. You enter the config options on the master server and it will generate a setup file.

This is not a cloud based system, but If he's looking for web based reporting he can get it through MyMicros almost real-time, (it can be set to post every 15 minutes). If you only have 3-4 workstations per location you can also get one with a hard drive to act as the local server, eliminating the need for, and cost of, a full sized pc/server in the office. Micros has also recently started offering a tablet workstation.

I've never done more with Aloha than taken it out for a test drive so can't say anything pro or con.

People are going to recommend the system they like so you'll get conflicting recommendations in a forum like this. One thing I'd definitely suggest is to have you friend send his managers out to other restaurants in their area and ask about the quality/reliability of service on their POS system; it may be the deciding factor if all else is equal or close. These things take a beating and are going to have problems. Bad service can make even the best POS systems miserable to work with.

 

[hubtechsolutions]

Any of you guys have experience with Restaurant Manager from ASI? I've done some work for 10 or so local restaurants that use them, and they have a central manager for global menu mods, food cost mods etc. I have contacted ASI and they are interested in a new re-seller in my area, the closest is 5 hours away. Any of you guys supported it before?

Cloud based is not necessary, central management is. I realize this post contradicts my previous post, i had a bit of wine and didn't do my research before posting.

 

[coorsman]

Squirrel pos

Cheers,
Coorsman

 

[cgdiaz]

Hey coorsman,

Love your input around the forums regarding Aloha, can you give some pros and cons for Squirrel POS?

Thanks,

 

[posrescue]

Just to be clear.

There is a big diifference between "Cloud" and "Web" based systems and many variants of each.

For instance, most of the iDevice systems out there are Web Based. Functionally the POS runs in a brouser of sorts. Internet goes down you are down. Not cool.

The better Cloud based systems are designed to run on their own at the store level. They pump reprotable data up to the cloud and the cloud server pumps any changes down to the site. If the internet goes down you cannot change menu and employee data but in this day and age internet should not ever be down for long. I do have sites that I have setup with backup internet just to keep them comfortable.

I was employed in the POS industry for many, many years. Aloha is the product I have worked with the most but there are other products I have had the pleasure of installing, programming and supporting. I am now a reseller for a "Cloud" based system and I am sold. It is so convenient in any size organization but is fantastic for multi location. Enterprise reporting and database management fron one location at no extra cost. The best thing with this product has been the stability. Of course I do still love the other products because I get paid to keep them running. Don't feel you have to have a fileserver in the office to be stable and secure.

 

[hubtechsolutions]

can you, in accordance with the forums rules perhaps contact me at my website .com my user name, there may be a contact form. I'd be interested to hear what system you sell, etc.

 

[alohapier]

I love this topic... I'd like to hear other pos system recommendation

 

[360fish]

@posrescue your point is well taken there are some POS systems that rely on the internet to function which is rather insane for anything other than a small shop that can fall back to paper easily. There is much confusion about the buzzword cloud your analysis is correct.

I too am always happy to check out information on alternatives, I've had beef with Aloha for years and while they have gotten better as I said, I think a POS system written from the ground up following modern coding practices, with PCI already in mind, etc. etc. would be very competitive. I even considered writing my own until I came to my senses.

I appreciate the forum ruleset, it's very helpful, but let's say, if I google cloud POS will I find a system you know in depth in the top 10 results? If yes, I'll bother to do it