Windward System Five Erfahrungen

This softwear has made our business extremely essential to operate.

Kommentare: the main function of our business, our retail set up revolves around the software making it easy to operate day to week, to month to yearly. it has been absolutely essential. recording & keeping track of everything form our substantial amount of inventory, along with accounting, reports, staff, ect. our main source of operations for sure. :)

Vorteile:

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.

Nachteile:

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

it has been great and have found it very user friendly and easy to use

Kommentare: more up to date information and tracking of items with serial numbers, it was easy to set in place policies and see where we lacked and brought in a lot of controls in the company

Vorteile:

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

Nachteile:

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

Stay Away, poor Company and Poor program full of glitches

Kommentare: spent alot of resources and time to get their web module to sell online and they discontinued it the next year just as inventory came online

Vorteile:

Windward is just there for your monthly fees, not to support you

Nachteile:

glitches in the system for inventory control, does not count correctly stock constantly out

The ecommerce support is not 7 days a week unfortunately. Otherwise a great software and support.

Kommentare: I thoroughly reviewed 4 different POS software systems prior to making a purchase. It was important to choose the software that would grow as my business grew. Out of the POS systems available at that time (6 years ago) this was the best to fit the needs of my business then and into the future. Now, 6 years into it, this has proven to still be the best choice. It has allowed us to continue with the same software system as the business has grown and evolved.

Vorteile:

It fill all of our needs as a retail store as well as a webstore. It integrates both of those nicely. The accounting and the POS in one system is a great way to run a business.

Nachteile:

In my business it would be useful to give employees access to a variety of information screens. Windward does allow this to some extent, but not to the extent that makes it practical in our situation. Which sometimes forces me to give people access to confidential information which they don't need in the coarse of their job.

WWS5 is a workhorse!

Kommentare: Ease of Use
Inventory control
Order management
Work flow Simplification and tracking
Emailing
Invoicing
Accounting

Vorteile:

Windward System 5 has been a workhorse for our business for over 12 years! We can control our inventory, track special orders, email clients and much more with WWS5. We have been able to grow into this software. There are many features that we are still learning that are simplifying our workload! I highly recommend System 5 to anyone who manages inventory. BTW the reporting capabilities are almost endless.

Nachteile:

It is a little quirky, but the benefits far outweigh the quirks. I wish that it had more web integration or that they would offer cloud based databases.

I've been a Windward user for close to 20 years. Overall, my experience is frustration.

Kommentare: The system has a good POS system. It is quite easy to use but does have serious flaws. You can integrate VISA processing with the system, however, this opens another set of problems.

Vorteile:

The ability to expand on transactions no matter which module you are in is a nice feature. The GST function is also very good.

Nachteile:

With every update, there is a new set of problems. In addition, you can not add additional data bases, terminals nor change your company information such as address, phone etc. Windward's main goal seems to be collecting licence renewal fees and support fees at higher than market rates. They control the number of users - unlike Simply Accounting who allows up to 10 users for a basic license. Windward also charges a licence fee PER DATA BASE. This is bogus! Overall, I am disenchanted with Windward and moving away from the product after over a decade of use.

Wondward Software is taking us to the next level of POS sales, service & support.

Kommentare: An All in One Sales, Customer tracking, Promo & follow up, Bookkeeping & Accounting Software With Great Support.

Vorteile:

Back office accounting is saving us money by tracking inventory vs sales, as well as less cost with accounting fees by running an all inclusive bookkeeping/accounting program.

Nachteile:

The occasional glitches, after each windows update, with form display screens freezing up the software.

overall pretty good. As good as others in the market

Vorteile:

POS screen is very easy for staff to learn. Transactions easy to process. Lots of reports available

Nachteile:

Update to windows 10 a costly extra. Payroll function lacking. Designing forms takes a lot of work,

Overall a very versatile product!

Kommentare: Having a true view of the numbers on all levels of the business.

Vorteile:

They've made reporting very simple to really dive into the numbers. The inventory side of things has made it a breeze to keep track of inventory as a great feature is costs vs landed costs.

Nachteile:

They online feature is outdated and not mobile friendly for today's marketplace. The actual software would be great to have availability for web based.

software is OK. tech support is THE WORST!

Kommentare: OK POS system
works OK for our business

Vorteile:

easy to install works as advertised, barely customize able with difficulty stable to run small footprint on system

Nachteile:

hard to update bug fixes are non-existant tech support is worthless security isn't worth sales team never calls back EXCEPT for payments

Windward

Vorteile:

Invoicing. It is easy with Windward for all invoicing.

Nachteile:

Needing more specialized reporting---hard to create

From your friends at Bob's

Kommentare: Windward 5 does so much above and beyond the POS/accounting systems I have used in the past, and I know I haven’t made it through all it has to offer. The integrated CRM is very useful for keeping track of appointments and follow ups. I’m able to see that staff has made these appointments and keep them accountable for follow ups.
There is so much that can be done to organize and track inventory. Set multiple selling prices, build kits out of existing parts. Add pictures for staff and customers to reference, and way more.
Booking orders use to take me days to put together. Now the system tells me what I need based on past years. Some orders now take me less then a hour. Information and automation. Windward tracks so much for you and automates tasks. Saving you 100’s of hours and $1000’s of dollars a year. I am very happy I made this investment

Vorteile:

Windward 5 does so much above and beyond the POS/accounting systems I have used in the past, and I know I haven’t made it through all it has to offer. The integrated CRM is very useful for keeping track of appointments and follow ups. I’m able to see that staff has made these appointments and keep them accountable for follow ups. There is so much that can be done to organize and track inventory. Set multiple selling prices, build kits out of existing parts. Add pictures for staff and customers to reference, and way more. Booking orders use to take me days to put together. Now the system tells me what I need based on past years. Some orders now take me less then a hour. Information and automation. Windward tracks so much for you and automates tasks. Saving you 100’s of hours and $1000’s of dollars a year. I am very happy I made this investment

Nachteile:

It does take some time to set up, but you do get some great help. There is allot to learn. Be prepared to give this some attention, it will be worth it.

windward system 5

Kommentare: Overall system 5 is an end to end solution which we count on to mange our business. We would like to see regular scheduled maintaince as part of our annual subscription plan. We have invested heavily in to the software on the years and would.lien to feel we can get value added serviced included.

Vorteile:

The software is an end to end solution for our business - we like this alot. This last year the software has slowed down which has created inefficiencies.

Nachteile:

The software performance has dropped as we add more users and increase the date base. The length of time it takes to book appointments has been increasing over the last two years

Would like to set up the system again knowing so much more now than was first told.

Vorteile:

Windward is easy to navigate and manipulate. Inventory items are easy to add and change. Like the way the payroll system integrates with Windward so no need to journal . Love the support I have received when requiring assistance from the team in the Philippines . They are prompt in getting back to you and try to assist at all times.

Nachteile:

When trying to customise the system to suit our requirements alot of manual hours are required to change simple things like updating prices and modifications. When we needed to collect information from the system we required a special programme be written to fulfil government requirements. This additional reporting is cumbersome to produce. There is also alot of double entry when making a payment and then having to do a journal entry to reflect the same. A journal entry should be automatic. Would like the ability to make ledger numbers inactive Although we have a very confusing payroll and tax system, we experienced many issues with setting up the payroll system with this year being the first year we have successfully produced a payroll summary. Even then it required alot of double/triple checking to ensure the information was correct. Adding a new employee is once again difficult and time consuming. It would be great to be able to copy an existing one.

Inventory Management

Kommentare: This software is actually causing us more work than it is relieving. We are having to manually check a lot of our inventory as we cannot trust the system to track it effectively.

Vorteile:

The upfront interface is easy to follow.

Nachteile:

Once we moved to the cloud the program became very unstable. Everyone is running a different version. It seems that you only get to upgrade to a new version if you complain about functionality not working. It is slower than a server version as you are logging onto their remote server. Running reports has become cumbersome as you have to run on their remote desktop and copy to your own. We have had issues with inventory which is a critical part of our business. It can take them up to 2 weeks to get critical fixes completed or for you do discuss with a developer because tech support can't help you.

Gets the job done. Do not do the updates.

Vorteile:

Very thorough software with lots of room/areas to store Information and very easy to use. The point and click ability of the software makes it easier to train new staff. Can access the software from anywhere in the world using remote desktop connection.

Nachteile:

The updates do not seem to go very smoothly. And update me fix one problem but two new problems arise that were not problems before. We have actually stopped getting updates and have continued to use our current version for years. We have developed our own internal ways to use the software to its fullest potential without getting updates. Software support is readily available however very expensive and a lot of the problems that we have encountered do not have the solution. In order to get the solution we have to pay for the entire resource development team and have to be very very patient to see results. The yearly license fee does not benefit our company as we do not complete the updates. So we paid the fee however are using an out of date software program Because we are afraid to update. Phoning for tech-support can be quite challenging when the bill is charged per minute and we are on hold for 80 percent of the call. We are usually on hold while the tech support discusses with superior or development team to solve our more complex problems. At the end of the day the software program helps us maintain our current business but is not helping us grow our business. We are not ready to commit thousands of dollars to the software program that still has many issues even if we were to update to most current version

Windward can't do that, but let's try to come up with a "Workaround" for you....

Kommentare: Headaches

Vorteile:

I like the ability to special order a product on a work order and have it directly linked to the purchase order. Great for tracking an item through.

Nachteile:

INVENTORY!!!! There is no direct link between the inventory sub-ledger and the ledger. There is no transaction list of what is recorded in the sub-ledger, so balancing inventory and determining where an outage may have occurred is a long, tedious process that involves tracking every purchase order received, bill, work order and invoice put into the system. Implementing the software is very time consuming and self-regulated. Enhancements to the software can be requested if your company agrees to pay for the programming time to develop it.

Review - Windward System Five

Kommentare: System is basically garbage in - garbage out, meaning if you provide correct data, it will give you accurate information and results.

Vorteile:

User friendly. POS system. A/R and A/P system. Inventory system. Financial reporting.

Nachteile:

No complain at all. System integration was smooth and encountered no problems.

This is NOT a Rental Software

Kommentare: We were running a good rental software program when we were approached by a Windward Software salesman who convinced us that we should give Windward a try. The salesman made us all kinds of promises, which we found out later were not all true. For example: don't believe it if
they tell you that they migrate your data, we ended up doing this all ourselves. On the surface, the Windward Program seemed to be a good rental system. It had a good inventory based set-up, We ended up repeatedly having this incomplete transaction screen popup. When we called for tech support to fix this problem, they would tell us to fix it ourselves, either by editing a single transaction or by p.o.s. This proved to be very difficult, and very time consuming. A program should never do this every day, and if it does the company should take responsibility to fix it, not the customer. This was the most unstable program from any we have used. We spent many days without our program working, due to their unreliable techs. This program was a nightmare for our accounting department. The accounting department had their workload tripled, due to the fact that the daily closing reports were not correct. We ended up creating a worksheet of every transaction for the closing period and transferring the data to make our journal entries for the day. In most cases their accounting techs didn't know what they were talking about, they never really fixed our problems, but instead told us, just reverse the transaction and do it again, the paper work piled up so much that we had to give an employee some time off for stress leave. This software would be a good inventory or p.o.s system , but it's definitely not designed for a rental or accounting system. All they did is add a rental module to an existing point of sale system, if you rented only 1 or 2 machines a day it would probably work, but if your main business is rentals, you would not want this system

Vorteile:

This software would be a good inventory or p.o.s system

Nachteile:

it's definitely not designed for a rental or accounting system

Garbage in Garbage out. This program is great, but you have to put in the time or resources to put in all the information and take time to set the switches.

Kommentare: my sales person has been very helpful. Even though I really complained to him when I had to upgrade the pervasive side of Windward. It was not that much, but as a business owner, I felt like everyone has there handed out to collect money. This is not Windwards fault, I had not upgraded pervasive in awhile and really did not know I had to. When my business burned in May of 2016 I had the backups but the three backups where all in the building. I dug through the debris and found the server and windward did not ask for any money to help me get the information back uploaded. I did not have a support package at that time and they could have asked me to upgrade the software and pay for a support package. Windward did not ask me for any money at all. Their technical department spent about 3 hours with my computer guy getting the information linked back up because some of the files where lost. I got locked out of the system and windward again helped me get back in. Thanks again Windward. Mike Kernea owner of Skyline Power Equipment

Vorteile:

What I mean by the switches. This program allows you to set up the program the way you want it. It does have a default setting, but I have found that each company is different and require certain information. When sitting up the program go somewhere quiet with no distractions. Also if the program does what you want it to you do not have to upgrade.

Nachteile:

If you don't upgrade then it is very hard for the company or technical support to help because they are running on another version.

why I use windward

Kommentare: When we first started with windward it was fantastic. If we needed support, we called in Australia and it was fixed. Now there is no point in using that phone number! It then seemed the support workers did not know windward very well and I was brushed off or it would take a long time to resolve the issue. I must say it is getting better but not as good as it once was.

Vorteile:

This system fits our needs with long part numbers. We are not computer people so the support is very important to us.

Nachteile:

Some times it takes so long to get the support we need. The was such an issue I did think about changing systems. It has got better.

Very flexible, comprehensive software package with a somewhat cumbersome user interface.

Vorteile:

the flexibility thanks to various data load and import options, the ability to chain import/exports and call external scripts; detailed permission settings; the numerous features; lots of customisable reports easily ported to spreadsheet or similar.

Nachteile:

- documentation is very fragmented, incomplete and sometimes just wrong. - the user interface is not intuitive and a long way from modern apps. I couldnt convince our sales team to use the tasks/appointment/history-comments section as they found it too complex (but feature wise I think it's good). - the one time we needed support, we received bad advise which would have crippled this company if it had been followed. - a selection of sample scripts would really help with implementation of more complex customisations. - the unique email feature is applied across both suppliers and customers. this is problematic where a customer is also a supplier. - no support for linux pervasive engines any more. - no support for Sys5Script.exe any more. - the template editor is very unpleasant to use. Very tricky to create a visually pleasing document.

13 years with System 5

Kommentare: I installed System 5 for my "brick and mortar" business in 2003. This is one of the best investments I have made for my business. I have thousands of parts & customers, and hundreds of suppliers. Most of my inventory is tracked by serial number. "Windward" is pretty quick in spite of my huge database, and the interface makes it very easy to look up info (such as customer past purchase history, showroom display serial numbers, etc). I've had great phone support when updating to newer releases, migrating the application from old servers to newer servers. Their support team has patiently even helped me through accounting questions. Once, my whole system was completely dead because my tech support guy did something on the server, and WW resolved it right away. For me, a key capability is being able to import and export information easily into and out of Excel, so that I can maintain pricing for so many parts from many suppliers. I also use Excel for sales analysis and budget reports (outside of WW), so we can "slice and dice" the data (13 years worth) to analyze leading indicators of sales trends, for example. Since work orders can be populated from an external data file, I've created an external visual interface to create the work order line items for our more complex customer configurations, and have them load automatically into a work order. After 13 years, I have a laundry list of things I would like to see added or changed in the system. However, reliability and dependability are my top priorities and on that front, WW has been excellent. Windward returns calls, answers questions, owns up if the issue is on their end, finds acceptable temporary workarounds, and makes me feel that my business success is important to them. They do NOT create barriers to communication, throw up brick walls ("that's just the way it is"), or tell me I'm running my business the wrong way ("most of our customers don't change their prices just because their costs change") - which I have actually experienced with other software vendors. During implementation, I designed my categories to support the ways I wanted to be able to analyze the data in both WW and in Excel. If you don't have any software background, I would strongly recommend working with a reseller/design consultant for the initial layout and installation (which I think would be true for any accounting system), because that will set you up for success going forward.

I have been using Windward System 5 as the Financial Controller for about 18 months

Vorteile:

Windward System 5 is well organized and intuitive for knowledgeable users. It is an extensive system doing just about anything you could want in a business management/accounting system. Reports are extensive and well laid out, and allow you to drill through to the details in most cases.

Nachteile:

It seems plagued with system errors. Not sure if this is just our platform, or if this happens to most users, but we get system errors on a very frequent basis (more than daily). Most are nothing and the system corrects them on its own, but some require more effort, and frequent assistance from Windward Support. Most of the support personnel are very helpful and knowledgeable, so your problems get fixed fairly quickly but they are still a nuisance.

Great fitting package for our business

Kommentare: System Five has been very good, and their support team is excellent and helpful

Vorteile:

Windward fits us great, the cloud system was a very important consideration for remote accessibility. It covers all of our needs in terms of sales, repair work orders, and inventory controls. It is just the right amount of software for us.

Nachteile:

There are some advance features that could add value for us, such as stock adjustments that post to G/L's, min/max's that make recommendations on PO's