Point-Of-Sale Software Advice Needed

I'm considering taking the plunge and opening a retail storefront business specializing in PC repair, upgrades and sales.

Now that the business plan is together, one of my issues is deciding on how to manage repair orders, inventory and my customer database.

Although I could start out with a simple cash drawer and printed repair order invoices, I suspect a Point-Of-Sale (POS) software package would be a good investment for reasons including:

• Less time and money spent on accounting and tax reporting.
• Better inventory control (not that my part time help would think about swiping something, but just in case....
• Easier access to warranty/RMA data (search by serial #, vendor, customer last name, etc.).
• Ability to send promotional e-mails without setting up a separate address book or database.

My issue is deciding what (if any) POS software to use.

The online customer reviews of Quickbooks Point-Of-Sale are almost all bad; I'm not going to drop $800-$1300 on it.

Other companies advertise "free" POS software ("free" so long as you don't mind being tied to their inflated merchant fees on credit card processing).

I've also seen a few open-source offerings; however I would prefer to pay a reasonable price for something I can load and use easily without hours of training or tweaking.

I need software that (in addition to scanning UPC codes for price lookup and inventory management) will allow me to enter work orders, convert them to invoices and (preferably) allow me to scan and save serial #s of parts on the repair order for easier RMA and inventory control. The closest thing I can think of is the type of retail POS software a tire store or auto repair shop uses.

There would only be one cash register, and I'd like to stay in the $500 range for the software (I'll provide the PC, cash drawer, printer, etc.). I'm also wary of "cloud" POS systems that require Internet access; I prefer something that is physically loaded on a hard drive.

If anyone has experience with this type of Point-Of-Sale software (good or bad), it would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance.

 

Quickbooks, or roll your on from scratch. Sersiously, i have worked and been in so many small time computer shops, that tried to roll there own or used random custom paid for software, and the only one that ever worked with shit was quickbooks. Yes it sucked and was not easy to use, but it was better then everything else i saw.

 

My main concern in the user reviews on the latest QB POS edition is frequent crashes of the software (not the PC itself). Any thoughts/ideas? :confused

 

Have only used slightly older versions, im out of the repair shop game I do resturant pos support and lots of video production services now mostly. Most reviews i read that complain of crashes i tend to attribute to user error tho.

 

Hey, Gman.

Agreed with CG about the Quickbooks. The learning curve is a little bumpy for some, but common sense will get you through. Once it's set up the way you want it, it's pretty much a click-and-forget process. Added pluses: customer support is fairly good, updates are usually smooth, and Uncle Sam/IRS are comfortable with it.