Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Chad on January 17, 2012 at 8:16am

Thank you all for the great advice and comments.  We ended up going with Shopkeep for the IPAD.  So far we are just a couple weeks into and our really enjoying it.  If anyone is interested in more information let me know I would be happy to help you out.  The report feature is great, and it does everything we need it to do for fast service.  We decided to go with the Idynamo for credit card processing and stay away from square this time, just to keep the transaction simple and on the same app.  Initial cost minus the IPAD for setup up this POS is not too bad.  (around 800 bucks)  and 49 a month for the service.  We built a custom counter for it and stand for cash drawer and mounts.  Picture coming soon.  We are using square as a back up with the iphone and 3g just incase the wireless goes out or has a problem.  

Does anyone have any experience with the mercury payment gift card and loyality program?  Or have any different recs for a good credit card processer that supports the Idynamo?

Thanks again

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Permalink Reply by Chad on January 17, 2012 at 8:17am

What service do you use for your merchant account with the Idnynamo?  Mercury payment or payment revolution?

David Myers said:

If you use Shopkeep with the iDynamo processor, you'll have all the credit card data available via reports. The fees are typical for credit card processors although the swipe fees are lower than I had previously. If you don't want the data from your credit cards integrated and you can accept having Square hold your funds for 30 days, then that's quite a bit cheaper. From what I understand, flat rate credit card processing will be coming.

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Permalink Reply by Kathy Fadorsen on January 17, 2012 at 11:38am

Would stay away from mecury all things change after the first year start charging more and more fees tell you to read item 33 of the contract whch says they can do anything they want. They charged me 25 cents for every declinded transaction one day someone told my cashier it cant decline run again the cashier ran 14 times got charged 25cents each time. Which was my cashiers fault but they where just out for the money did not want to take care of the me had to pay the almost 13 dollars for a mistake by my cashier. Not to mention I have never had anyone charge a declinded transaction fee

Chad said:

Thank you all for the great advice and comments.  We ended up going with Shopkeep for the IPAD.  So far we are just a couple weeks into and our really enjoying it.  If anyone is interested in more information let me know I would be happy to help you out.  The report feature is great, and it does everything we need it to do for fast service.  We decided to go with the Idynamo for credit card processing and stay away from square this time, just to keep the transaction simple and on the same app.  Initial cost minus the IPAD for setup up this POS is not too bad.  (around 800 bucks)  and 49 a month for the service.  We built a custom counter for it and stand for cash drawer and mounts.  Picture coming soon.  We are using square as a back up with the iphone and 3g just incase the wireless goes out or has a problem.  

Does anyone have any experience with the mercury payment gift card and loyality program?  Or have any different recs for a good credit card processer that supports the Idynamo?

Thanks again

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Permalink Reply by Denise Smith on January 17, 2012 at 6:54pm

We had Selby Soft SP-1 for the nearly the first 3 years. If you use them be sure to send them your full menu Before you go active with it and make sure they have time to program and make changes for you. We did not follow the normal procedures and I believe it led to too many conflicts. The worst with them was we the time difference between us didn't allow for proper support. We now have Coffee Shop Manger. It is hard to change but we are currently learning the system. The biggest issues are the clichés because of the new PC Compliance laws. Everyone has had to upgrade their systems and ours has been crashing. Coffee Shop Manager has good support and they have been working on it but it is never easy when you have a line of customers and someone's credit card crashes the system.  What ever you do, whom ever you choose, have a back office computer, learn how it works and learn how to manage the program yourself.

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Permalink Reply by Janice on April 11, 2012 at 3:42pm

Hey Chad,

Curious to see if you have a gift card program with the ShopKeep App? We are looking to switch, and I think ShopKeep might be the right answer for us, but the gift cards are the thing that are holding us back at the moment. 

We use Mercury right now - they ripped us off for two years, but now we have a kickass rate with them (so awesome that when people call to compare they are in shock). Would a Mercury gift card program be integratable with Shopkeep?

Thanks in advance!

Chad said:

Thank you all for the great advice and comments.  We ended up going with Shopkeep for the IPAD.  So far we are just a couple weeks into and our really enjoying it.  If anyone is interested in more information let me know I would be happy to help you out.  The report feature is great, and it does everything we need it to do for fast service.  We decided to go with the Idynamo for credit card processing and stay away from square this time, just to keep the transaction simple and on the same app.  Initial cost minus the IPAD for setup up this POS is not too bad.  (around 800 bucks)  and 49 a month for the service.  We built a custom counter for it and stand for cash drawer and mounts.  Picture coming soon.  We are using square as a back up with the iphone and 3g just incase the wireless goes out or has a problem.  

Does anyone have any experience with the mercury payment gift card and loyality program?  Or have any different recs for a good credit card processer that supports the Idynamo?

Thanks again

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Permalink Reply by David Myers on April 12, 2012 at 6:54am

I would investigate Payment Revolution for Shopkeep. The only downside is the iDynamo is specific to their processing so if you already bought one for MPS or other, you'll have to switch it. 

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Permalink Reply by Jeffrey Pollock on May 30, 2012 at 12:26pm

Thanks! Best of Luck to ya!

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Permalink Reply by Southeast Grind on July 5, 2012 at 5:29pm

Hey Chad, 

I would love to hear more about how your ShopKeep system is working. I paid the $5000 for Selby Soft a year ago and haven't ever felt like I got the service or product that I paid for. Lesson learned. 

I've also been using Mercury Payments for the last year. I do like that they don't have a contract but I just did the math and if I were to use the square reader, I would spend literally 1/2 the amount that I pay in fees now. HALF! 

I really wish that ShopKeep would integrate square or another comparable flat rate processor. 

Also, what do you use for a time clock?

Best,

Kacey

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Permalink Reply by Lori O on October 12, 2012 at 10:00pm

This is the first post that I've seen that mentions SalesVu.  From our research, it seems like it's better than Square, but I've yet to talk to anyone who's actually used the program.  Any more info you have on SalesVu would be greatly appreciated! 

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Permalink Reply by Mike McGinness on October 13, 2012 at 8:16am

We went live with Salevu POS on iPad with printer and cash drawer 8/5/12. All in cost including iPad for fully functional POS system and the printer and cash drawer ~$1k. Very happy. Was relatively easy to setup menu items modifiers etc. Very easy to add/change whatever on the fly from anywhere I have internet access. Supports second printer to send orders to kitchen/barista station but we aren't using that function at this time. Does not support kitchen/barista Monitor, just printed orders. Supports multiple stations and multiple locations. All managed in the Clouds.

 

Salevu cc processing works with tied tied in processor only. Flat 2.7% no swipe fees no monthly statement fees etc. Like Square (which we also have for backup) automatically settles and $$$ in the bank next business day. Unlike Square since you do setup a real Merchant Account nothing ever held back regardless of daily transaction volume. Does have minimum monthly processing required or small min fee kicks in - $15 fee IIRC (offset by 2.7% already from processed) - but it was of no concern since min was so low. Don't recall off the top of my head exactly what it was - IIRC something like about a $1k needed in cc's monthly but don't hold me to it. So unlike Square where occasional use has no fees, Salesvu is targeting actual businesses who do business on a regular basis. Salesvu does also work on iPhone with same menu automatically pushed as iPad. Currently Salesvu does not work on Androids. Also Salesvu only provides one free swiper, additional $99 each. FWIW swiper MUCH more solid than Square's btw.

 

I've heard some concerns like "what if the Servers in the Cloud go down". Guess what, what if your traditional POS running off an in house PC has it hard drive crash or power supply fail? How many shops back up their system daily? How many shops have a POS disaster recovery plan in place? As someone who formerly worked a couple decades for Digital Equipment Corporation bought out by Compaq bought out by HP I can guarantee you Salesvu has far better redundancies and disaster recovery in place than 99.99% of stand alone POS shops. If our Salevu iPad went belly up I could have a new one installed and fully functioning POS back up and running with full menu just as it was in less than a half hour.

Lori O said:

This is the first post that I've seen that mentions SalesVu.  From our research, it seems like it's better than Square, but I've yet to talk to anyone who's actually used the program.  Any more info you have on SalesVu would be greatly appreciated! 

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Permalink Reply by V lawhead on October 14, 2012 at 11:50am

the intuit POS is basic, gives reports, etc., but don't even TRY to get customer support....all outsourced.....takes about 45 minutes on the phone to finally reach the right person, then it's questionable.

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Permalink Reply by Michael Arnovitz on October 16, 2012 at 1:05pm

Whenever I see discussions of POS systems it seems that 80% of the talk is about which one costs less and/or which one has the cheapest merchant processing fees. Yes, this is important, but at the moment that is not my main concern.

I am looking for feedback from anyone who owns an iPad (or other) POS system that allows you to check real-time stats from your phone and edit register items yourself. My question is this - if you have a POS system like this and are happy with it, does it meet the following criteria?

1) If the internet connection goes down for ANY reason, can you still use the system? (I know that some iPad systems can use the iPad's internal memory until they are back on line. Others can't and you're just screwed. One of the system's I have been looking at is Lavu. I like what I see, but I've heard that their system is known for going down, and when it does you cannot use your register. That's crazy, and if true disqualifies them from consideration.)
2) Is your POS system dependable? If it goes down do you get quick and helpful customer service? 
3) Can your system both accept and create gift/reward cards?
4) Can your system track employee clock-ins?
5) Does your system offer a kitchen monitor option?
6) Is your system easy to learn? Did your employees pick up on it fairly quickly?

Also, is there anything you learned from setting up one of these that you wish you had known beforehand? And if you have a non-iPad system I would still very much appreciate any feedback. I like the iPad idea, but I'm not married to it. Thanks!

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