Pos software suggestions

redned_2

Just wondered if anyone has any suggestions. My uncle has a diy shop which also carries out repairs. They currently have a till but all the paperwork is done by hand so would really like to look into using some kind of pos software to make life easier. It would need to be fairly simple to use once setup. Any suggestions gratefully received TIA

paulwf

Could you expand on what you mean by paperwork please? Are you looking for the till to do your end of day stuff or are you thinking of creating customer accounts?

paddyrg

erply.com is all online and integrated, the paperwork should be much simpler from there?

patman99

GNUCash is free and can do the invoice and stock control stuff as well. Add-on GNUPos and you have a very usable system for no cost whatsoever.

redned_2

Thanks for your replies, Sorry yes I can see now that I should have been a bit more informative! At present there is a cash register which works fine for customers paying there and then. The main problem is with account customers/repairs/deliveries. Tickets for these get written out by hand which and then invoices typed up once delivered. This can be very time consuming and someone forgets to take a phone number, price mistakes etc. that kind of thing. Accounts are done on Sage at the end of the month anyway so Im thinking that a better system where delivery tickets can be printed out once all required details have been input and invoices are generated automatically then this would cut down on a lot of extra work, hopefully.

BSD_2

You could try eposfreedom.com - Their system is already used by independent DIY stores, handles account sales and deliveries, exports accounting data, and if you are a small store with one till it will probably be completely free to use.

Mistral001

It all depends on what you have been asked by your uncle to provide. Is it a completely automated system or a just a few suggestions to deal with what he thinks are the time-consuming aspects of his present system.

I have been in business for oevr 14 years and although I use quite a bit of computer software for my accounts and administration, I have found that sometimes hand written methods can be quicker and more reliable than some of the computer-based methods. So in small firms I would not assume that changing from hand methods to computer methods always have advantages.

proxitech

I suggest a customised solution, perhaps built using Microsoft Access, or by using C# or VB.net with a Database. Is this supposed to be run locally (was he specific?) or could it be run from the internet? If that is the case, it shouldn't be too hard to make something in ASP or PHP.

paddyrg

proxitech wrote: »

I suggest a customised solution, perhaps built using Microsoft Access, or by using C# or VB.net with a Database. Is this supposed to be run locally (was he specific?) or could it be run from the internet? If that is the case, it shouldn't be too hard to make something in ASP or PHP.

I would recommend the opposite - speaking as someone who used to make decent cash building such systems, there are now enough decent COTS and FOSS systems with the bulk of the bugs ironed out to cover pretty much all eventualities far far cheaper than custom software will. To fully spec, code, test, install, debug and support any networked system of any complexity is a 5-figure job, only to reproduce the behaviour of a product that can be used for less cash.