Windward System Five

Pros

I give this review after having tried many different software packages over the last 15 years. Some costing x10 the price of Windard, some costing x10 less.

What I'm left with over these years is perspective, and that perspective was hard earned.

You will not find a more complete point of sale, inventory control, accounting, crm, etc. for this price range.

With the ability to fine tune it to your exact business needs, it's easiest to configure, maintain and operate...especially compared to the "enterprise" software world where your eyes will water from pricing.

Its got lightning fastest Point of sale with the absolute best part find search tool I can recall using. The special order management is the best complete solution from any I've tried.

If your serious about your Business, you should consider Windard. I honestly think that in the long run it has improved our business, staff and bottom dollar.

Cons

There is no such thing as perfect software.

With that being said, there are issues...but then it's technology. You have to considering that it is a highly customizable product that able to serve an amazing range of business types with thousands of options.

What Windward has that sets it apart is a fantastic support team with Canadian staff and an out-of-country team that is admittingly fantastic...probably the best off-shore support that I have ever experienced in IT. Tech support is typically same day, commonly instant or within a few hours of placing a call. If you have an urgent problem, they will find someone for you RIGHT NOW.

If you have problems using Windward software...you will most probably have problems using another piece of software. The key with any software, especially if you are new to it, is to have patience and use every opportunity to learn.

Pros

Over the years there have been many areas of the program that we never took advantage of. One of the greatest things is with all the recent available training on and off line it has allowed us to find these nuggets that have helped us tremendously to make processes within our business so much easier. This had to be one of the best implementations that Windward has made, keep the training coming!!

Cons

The one thing we dislike about the program are updates. We get very nervous! A few years ago we did an update and it totally messed up the whole program. We had to work offline (paper work) for more than 3 weeks, which was a nightmare after the fact. Though Windward programmers worked for over 6 months to find a fix, they never ever did. So here 5 or 6 years later our Point of Sales Transaction Report figures are still unusable. We recently updated Pervasive and were told it should really speed up the program. Unfortunately it didn't, actually saw absolutely no difference even though it had been several years since we'd done an update, so are looking at other areas now.

Pros

Immediate processing of credit card transactions. The fact that System 5 is in the cloud is one of the primary reasons we purchased the product.

Cons

Not enough explanation of defaults in System 5 caused redundancy in our chart of accounts. The monthly reconciliation requires that several routines be performed before you can have a reliable balance report of income/expense reports. Modifiers were disappointing as we learned that they must be setup on an item-by-item basis, rather than a category or brand basis. Custom reporting is extremely lacking and doesn't allow for us to produce the reports we need.

Pros

that is is absolutely fluent in keeping all of our information organized & keeps me able to do my job as a 1 woman Owner/Operator. without this softwear we would not have been able to stay open for the past 11 years without the ease of Windward System 5, for my retail business.

Cons

for us a small retail shop, the maintenance & updating costs are quite high & out of our price range on a year to year basis.

Pros

the software is easy to use and customizable. we have found a it works well and have not had too many problems. there are a lot of options in the setup and we are able to change if it does not work. the implementation staff was great and the support is great. when ever I have contacted support they responded very quickly and the webinars have helped make the software better

Cons

it takes a long time to get a feature added and a lot of pestering, there are a few things in the software that does not make sense with the labels