Introduction
Choosing the right software for your business is an important decision. It will have an effect on your customer experience, internal operations and daily activities that keep your business going. From the simple to the complex, many options are available that can be custom tailored to the specific needs of your business. As our client found, what seemed to be the best fit came with unexpected costs and complexity.
Story
Our client was utilizing a management software they had chose as a good fit for their business. It had every tool that could be imagined and was built for growth. These exceptional tools also came at an exceptional price, initially to setup and monthly to maintain.
After working past the learning curve in the first few years of use, our client soon realized the complexities of the software were beginning to cost more than the thousands already spent. The software utilized Quickbooks for inventory management which was causing inventory issues. Simple updates often crashed the computers and communication issues constantly existed. Money was now being spent on lost labor for system issues and accounting adjustments, the software was not working.
How We Helped
In the course of any business, employee turnover happens and hiring new employees does cost money. Having complex software can increase these labor costs substantially. Our client contacted us with a simple objective: Replace the current Point of Sale system with something that is easy to use for sales and inventory and also functions simply for the daily operations of their business.
We identified the software functions currently being utilized by our client on a daily basis and reviewed the processes in place to determine a solution that would fit their business. Having no current Inventory Management System in place and utilizing Quickbooks for their accounting, we recommended Quickbooks Point of Sale as the best solution.
We deployed a server installation of Point of Sale to communicate with the client installation in the retail store. This installation also allowed for growth if additional sales stations were to be added in the future. We customized the software for our client’s business and synchronized it with Quickbooks so data would remain accurate. This also automatically populated customer information, vendors and account balances in the Point of Sale system which made the transition seamless.
Being an easy to use system, we created some basic service items within Point of Sale as a template and also loaded supplier data into the system. After a brief training session on-site, we provided a run-down tutorial for our client as a reference and also provide remote support as it is needed.
The Point of Sale system we installed proved to be the solution our client needed. For less than the annual cost of their previous software, we were able to deploy a solution that had no monthly fee and also saved on their credit card processing fees. Inventory and accounting errors were now being avoided and customer billing was streamlined.