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Permalink Reply by Brian Van Lieshout on January 25, 2008 at 12:06pm

Hi Jeanette. We are a Wi-Fi service provider and our technology integrates with POS technology at the coffee shop as both the POS and Wi-Fi share the same Internet connection and need to maintain security, reliability, etc. The shop owners we work with use various POS vendors and we've heard very good things about Coffee Shop Manager POS from our customers. Lee Alexander is the guy to speak with there and I think he is a member of the barista exchange.

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Permalink Reply by Jeanette VanBelle on January 27, 2008 at 11:40pm

Thanks! They are on our short list.

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Permalink Reply by Z Bancroft on January 31, 2008 at 10:11pm

I spent a good amount of time looking into POS for our cafe. After looking at all the options we would utilize...Be careful to not get upsold. Do you really need all those features, will you really use it. We ultimately chose Coffee Shop Manager. As Brian said, talk with Lee. Super nice people, totally helpful. Sometimes a little hard to get ahold of for tech support. Usually best via email. But reliable and super affordable. Others were way more expensive. Like the featurs they offer. I like that it is a system built for coffee shops, not a system that was built for restaurants and modified to sort of fit for coffee.
That's my 2 cents.

Hope this helps.
Zach

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Permalink Reply by Chris O'Connor on February 22, 2008 at 1:45pm

We opted for the SP-1 POS from SelbySoft. For day-to-day use it is okay but be careful what you believe about using it to manage your business. The ability to generate custom reports is non-existent. For example, I wanted to look at hourly sales trends over a period of several days. Can't be done. And neither can many other things which require manipulation of data over a period of time. The SelbySoft support team often has a "why would you want to do that?" attitude which, having paid as much as we did for the s/w is pretty agravating.

Another thing to watch for with any system is the annual support contract. SelbySoft's fee is $750/year if you renew by the system purchase deadline. Miss the deadline and the price doubles to $1,500. Want to go month-to-month? Sorry, not available unless you consider it acceptable to pay $500/call.

You asked about returning equipment. Again, at least with SelbySoft it was not an option and neither was selling one of our two systems to someone else. We bought two thinking we needed one for inside and one for drive-thru. Business has been slow to develop and I wanted to sell one and use the cash for advertising and promotion. SelbySoft said I could sell the hardware but that my purchase only included one 2-station license and was, therefore, not transferable. Very dissappointing.

Regarding price. Our POS system was the single most expensive item we bought and we bought absolutely everything in the place brand new. Buyer beware! You are doing the right thing by asking opinions of those who have already travelled the road.

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Permalink Reply by Mike Spence on February 27, 2008 at 4:23pm

Hi Chris, Mike from SelbySoft here - I'd like a chance to talk to you a little about the issues you may have had here. One quick mention here is that we do not and never have had a $500 per call system. I think you may have mis-understood the support plan pricing some. Our support on a multi-user license is $1,500. If you maintain that support we do discount it to $750. We do not charge for retroactive years of support either - You will see companies that charge you for the years you were not on support.

We have actually added, free of charge, some of the functionality that you have requested here, including the ability to track the sales trends you would like.

As to the equipment, the license is sold as a single, two user, three user or multi user license. It is not able to be "split" in the way you wanted. We have never indicated otherwise. I'm sorry that did not work out for you.

I'd really like the opportunity to discuss this further and see what we can do to help you out. Every customer is very valuable to us and we hate to think that anyone is unhappy! Please call me anytime and I'll touch base with you on your page and via voice as well if that's ok.

Thank you,
Mike Spence
Vice President
SelbySoft, Inc.
800-454-4434

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Permalink Reply by Brian Muller on February 28, 2008 at 7:23am

Jeanette, I was hired as lead barista after my owner made an agreement to buy a POS. I came from another shop which didn't have one. MICROS is the one we have. I beleive it is really for a restaurant. We have a sandwhich profit center and the coffee profit center. We have been working to customize it to our operations. As it turns out we didn't have computer literate person working with it. That has changed and I expect dramatic changes soon.

Brian

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Permalink Reply by Ken Chappell on March 14, 2008 at 3:41pm

Something that I suggest is to obtain the number for customer support for all of the ones you are considering. Call them & see what kind of response you get. If you get a recording, tell them what you are doing & see when/if they call you back. You want support with whatever you buy. Just like in our business, customer service SHOULD come first.

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Permalink Reply by Jasmine_tea_princess on March 18, 2008 at 1:27am

Try Auphan Dining. I work for them and the systems are really affordable. Especially for coffee. They have a huge coffee and sub franchise using them its really flexible and easy. So its up your alley on what you should be looking for. They have 24/7 days a week tech support which is great.

If your system is not using proprietary hardware, they might be able to recover your system and reuse most of your hardware if its compatible with their software. But if it is proprietary hardware, then your out of luck.

Its worth giving them a call just to see if they can help but your current pos system should help you. Its just bad business practise!

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Permalink Reply by Shaun N. on March 29, 2008 at 1:15pm

Like many of you, I spend considerable time researching a suitable POS system before selecting one. And once I did, I have NEVER considered switching vendors.

We selected ART (Advanced Restaurant Technologies) based on the FOCUS interface. I've been very happy with the speed of customer service, pricing, training, and support. They were actually in a competing coffee shop who wildly referred us to them.

Like I said, I've never looked back.

ART POS
http://www.artpos.com
T: 53.638.9969
F: 253.638.8870
24419 140th Ave SE, Kent WA 98042
Sales@artspos.com

Let them know that you heard about them from Coffee Bar, if you need more information about them, I'd be more than happy to talk.

--Shaun

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Permalink Reply by Alex Galt on March 30, 2008 at 12:45pm

Anyone have a recommendation for a POS system that integrates with Mac OS X and MYOB?

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Permalink Reply by John Owens on March 31, 2008 at 6:48am

Shaun:

FYI -- The actual website address for Advanced Restaurant Technologies is www.artspos.com. You left the "s" out of the middle of the name. Just an FYI. Thanks for the suggestion!!!!! I'm doing tons of research on POS systems as well. It's not an easy process. Thanks again for the referral. I'll check it out. It's good to hear a ringing endorsement from you!

John

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Permalink Reply by Shaun N. on March 31, 2008 at 5:31pm

Ooops! Sorry, John. I must have copied it wrong.

If you have any questions, please feel free to shoot me a message. The system is very easy to use (training our 9 employees took less than an hour) and the back-end is exactly what I need to run my business.

I frequently login from home just to pull reports, check sales, and monitor time cards. We use it to track time cards, scheduling, discounts/coupons, drink specials, etc.

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