Windward System Five Erfahrungen

A powerful POS with unlimited flexibility, reliable stability, and great support staff.

Kommentare: Saved our company time and money in the ling run. Being able to customize the look, feel, and functions of the application let us implement EXACTLY what our company needed. We evaluated MANY other products before choosing Windward, and nothing comes close. It was one of the better decisions made in our organization, and is a big personal red-feather in my hat.

Vorteile:

- Extremely customizable. Allows you to customize anything from report, to custom price-labels, to customized POS screen (even changing the size/color/look of virtually every button). If you are a little more adventurous, you can even write code that allows you make your own functions. - Easy to learn. For as advanced as this is, most people can pick up on the majority what thy need in a day. For those who want to do more, their is a complete 'Windward Academy' that you can watch videos and read comprehensive guides. - LOTS of support. If I ever have a question, there are about ten people I can call. Of-course, they have 24/7 technical support, but virtually anyone in the company is eager and willing to help. I can call my account manager, or any number of others I have talked to throughout the installation process. Even the lovely receptionist is awesome has walked me through issues on more than one occasion. - Philippines support. You might think this would be under the "Cons" section; but it isn't. The Philippines support is not outsourced like other companies, but they are actual employees working in a Windward office in Cebu. They all speak great English, are EXTREMELY knowledgeable about the product, and aim to please. No matter how frantic I am when I call, they never get upset and are always positive. And they are not going to give up until it's fixed. - You typically don't find this level of customer service in Western support groups.

Nachteile:

- Price tag will be your biggest hurdle. And some features will cost you extra. Having to pay extra to have the software integrate with our merchant account is probably the biggest complaint I have with the company. But even this is vastly outweighed by the Pros. If you want the best, it probably isn't going to be the cheapest. - There are occasional errors that pop up and random issues. But 90% of these are self-resolving (very intuitive software). For the other 10%, support is right there to remote in and stay with you until it's resolve.

Great system management

Kommentare: When we first took over this long-time local business, previous owners did most reports or tracking by hand (ie hand-written invoices entered into QB and hand-written price books) WWS5 helps us keep track of items in inventory, current prices and mark-ups for inventory, general price increases from vendors, EOD reports and sales, and AR accounts much more easily. We do not currently use the accounting portion, but hope to move over to the accounting option with the new data set.

Vorteile:

We currently use Windward for our POS and AR needs. This helps keep us on track for monthly billing to AR clients and keeps up with the daily till. We do very much like the additional features such as inventory management, price checks/updates, but have trouble at time keeping it current due to staffing issues. With more staff, this system would be absolutely amazing.

Nachteile:

When we first installed Windward, there were issues with understanding the larger picture during set-up. Understanding more about the system prior to set up would have helped. We are currently setting up a new database now that we understand more about the full operation of WWS5.

I wish I never heard of Windward Software

Kommentare: Our overall experience was extremely poor and detrimental to our business. All our staff were frustrated ( I nearly lost staff), some customers were frustrated, we invested so much money, and have in turn lost so much money. Oh and did I mention the time invested. All that time I spent, all a waste, the time my staff spent which I paid for, such a waste. So much stress that my whole team went through only to end up worse off. Before we went live, in my gut I had doubts due to my experience with Windward staff in the lead up transition period. But unfortunately I have faith in people, and faith that people tell the truth, and they assured me that the Windward System 5 was an investment in my business- to have confidence, to go live and realise the benefit. Oh so wrong. The system just plain and simple had so many glitches and caused more harm than good to my business. Once live, it just got worse and worse. In hindsight, I should have listened to my gut in implementation, written the money invested off as a bad business decision and aborted. By pushing on, I cost my business so much more, and then blindly I stayed for the full 60 days as required by the refund clause, further harming my business, only to be told they were not giving me a refund anyway. Also if you are in a different timezone, that is another thing to be wary of. When I signed up they promised local support as they had two people in Australia. But these staff left and no one replaced them.

Vorteile:

We are a retail shop with a mechanic workshop out the back. The special order process was a positive, but unfortunately when you think of all the difficulties, costs and time loss from the rest of the system I can't go so far as to say it is a pro. The idea of the detailed security and reports options is good, but due to extensive glitches never realized any benefits. Unfortunately the reports and exports were missing data, which meant reconciliation was problematic, and the security just caused glitches and locked my staff out of the system. Due to this, the amount of bookwork to fix the mess is just huge, this system is continuing to cost me in staff costs and time even though I have left Windward. Ultimately this POS system was one of the worst business decisions I have ever made and I do not recommend it all.

Nachteile:

The implementation is long and tedious. We worked hard with 'technicians' to ensure quality data was loaded. We had 5 different implementation technicians as 2 left the company, one they allocated to us didn't suit the timezone, one provided intermittent help, & one was finally helpful. Windward waived some licencing fees to compensate for lack of support as we were paying for a licence we could not use. Windward then deleted all my data and we had to start again. The daily technical staff in are in a Philippines call centre, they failed to fix most issues. Due system glitches we had no choice but to leave despite due to it harming our business. A huge amount of funds and time invested. Windaward refused to provide refund despite us doing the mandatory 60 days. Glitches include BUT WERE NOT LIMITED TO: mixing up data across customer records showing machines that belonged to other customers on accounts (nothing to with our data); showing bills and outstanding amounts for other customers on accounts; continuously locking our staff out; full system outage; slowing down sales; daily sales reports inaccurate; export reports missing data. Windaward technicians use a licence you have paid for to investigate their system's issues further undermining your business as you've less workstations. We wired the internet throughout our shop as they suggested, this resolved no issues. We found usability to be poor, search functionality poor, & it would take us many steps to do basic things.

Windward Software is an amazing program to help you run your business in every aspect.

Kommentare: Inventory was a huge issue for us before we started using System Five. We absolutely cannot imagine running our business without Windward System Five at this point.

Vorteile:

The Support is A1 and the features of everything from Inventory to Sales Invoices, everything is connected and very user friendly. Reports are easy to run, reconciliations, sales and purchase invoicing, ageing, financials are easy to read and all other functions are again, user friendly.

Nachteile:

No cons at this time. We didn't like that it didn't have a payroll feature when we started with it but now it does.

Windward Review

Kommentare: Mostly positive when it comes to day to day interaction. Any negatives are more nit-picking issues.

Vorteile:

Required Orders system and ability to interact with the invoice easily throughout.

Nachteile:

Lack of multiple kits. Purchase orders with SO items become buggy with large quantities. If a user moves too quickly in the system, it can break.

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

Tami McQuown

Kommentare: Its been a great experience!

Vorteile:

Ease of use, technical support answers all questions

Nachteile:

Credit card transactions did not go well at first

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

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.

Using Windward in a Small Shop

Vorteile:

Windward offers a comprehensive set of features, more than we will ever use. What drove us to purchase Windward is that its POS features are fully and seamlessly integrated into its accounting software. That means that both our POS and accounting data is up to date and current at all times. No integration with other software is required. Windward does it all. Another thing I like about Windward is the quality of Windward's support. Windward not only sets the system up for you and makes sure that all you point of sale devices work (barcode scanners, printers, etc), but if you are a cloud customer or have a maintenance contract, Windward will also remote in to your machines and fix any issues you may have. In addition, they have an on-line learning academy with training videos, documents, etc. that help you continue to learn the functionality of the system. They also offer live sessions on specific issues like maintaining inventory, year-end procedures, etc. We needed a lot of hand holding when we first started--I had no previous experience with POS software--and Windward successfully guided even a slow learner like me!

Nachteile:

Windward is continually upgrading its software to provide additional functionality or to streamline its processes. We recently moved to the cloud version of Windward, and that has reduced some administrative overhead for us--no need for backups, no need to install updates, and greater data security. So overall, it's a plus. But there is one feature I miss in the cloud version. When our software was installed on site, we were able to print barcode labels directly from Windward to our barcode printer, a Zebra ZT510. That feature no longer works for us in the cloud, and I'm told that the reason why is that the cloud version of Windward does not currently support our particular printer. I'm still looking for a better answer from Windward. But what that loss of functionality means for me is that I must now create a separate barcode database in Excel, link that database to Zebra's barcode software, and print my barcode labels through it. So you should pay close attention to the particular peripheral hardware that Windward supports.

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.

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.

This system is not worth the money, time, effort with no support

Kommentare: Windwards Systems INC gave a great sales pitch and were recommended by our Marketing Partner Spectra. Unfortunately, I should have researched their reviews better prior to spending a lot of money and 4 months of frustration with the implementation of the new system. I had really hoped we could integrate our Lights America system with Windward Systems as promised. However, the issue was reported at the beginning of February to their IT Support. After 2 months of not being resolved, us unable to go further in the implementation and being told only one (1) support person could resolve this issue in their company! Not to mention that one (1) IT support person worked night shift and would call us at 9:00 pm Eastern Time for us to login the system so he could troubleshoot! Are working hours are 8:00 am to 4:30 pm. That was just one issue. The other issue was moving our information from our old software to the new software. We were requested to provide them with spreadsheets of the information to upload. We paid our current IT Support to pull all the spreadsheet and I sent them to Windward only to be told the setting up of the spreadsheets from our old system to Windward was "a lot of work" My question to them was "a lot of work for you?" or "a lot of work for me?" The answer was for me to send the the spreadsheets after setting them up and work 40 + hours attending to my business. I feel that for the amount Windward was costing, their IT Support should have taken the "work" on them

Vorteile:

It seemed easy to use. Seemed easy to set up. Seemed to do everything I would need to run POS, Inventory, Payables and Accounting.

Nachteile:

Lack of IT Support. Please read my experience.

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.

Honest Thoughts

Kommentare: This system is chalk full of great concepts but it always falls short of our needs. The band-aids given for our issues are never a resolution, just a temporary fix and often more work. System Five does work, it crashes every few months but overall we can continue with business. We will continue with System Five.

Vorteile:

There are many features that could be incredibly useful. The reports have vast options which we utilize often.

Nachteile:

It seems every update an equal amount fixed gets broken. We always seem to be chasing down issues and fixing bugs. There is not one week we do not have issues in our system, user or system error. Every feature seems to tap out in functionality. They all have an amazing idea, but when we try to use them there is always a reason it does not work for our system or with our data.

Good POS Order Management Software

Kommentare: Very happy with the software. They worked with me in implementing and transferring our data with only a few hickups.

Vorteile:

Order Management, POS, Inventory Tracking.

Nachteile:

Not as customizable as I would like. Email feature lacks templates for the email body of the message when sending statements in bulk. Could have a better more customizable email feature for invoices and statements.

Customizable to a variety of business types. Fairly easy to use and learn the basics.

Kommentare: One software that we can use for the front end of the business and the back.

Vorteile:

I like being able to customize buttons at the cash registers and change them seasonally as we are a garden center and our products do change drastically with the seasons. Customer support is always very helpful and has fixed most issues that I have had in the past. We make our nursery signs, labels, and a variety of different types of price tags within System Five. No need for another program as we did need one in the past. I have not used them yet but having webinars and a learning area available to us is an excellent way to get more out of our software.

Nachteile:

Customer tech support is very good, however I think that it is a bit expensive annually. The label and form designers work but do not seem to be what you see is what you get. It takes a little finessing to create a label that fits your media properly.

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

easy to use as you learn one area at a time

Kommentare: Inventory management, historical data for customers, professional POS, and financial history and tracking all in one place , and working together.

Vorteile:

all encompassing full service software for the business starting from the POS, inventory tracking, customer history tracking, book keeping etc.

Nachteile:

help guide sometimes makes it difficult to find what you need to do to get the info you want, getting the terminology or areas to look correct first.

Amazing POS system that can be intergrated with payroll

Kommentare: It is a great software company and always willing to help and easy to access if there is a problem.

Vorteile:

Easy to use and teach employees. Easy to add and track parts.

Nachteile:

Have not figured out how to use the special order part and see if we are ordering a lot of one part and therefore should stock that item.

Basic programming and intigration issues.

Kommentare: Having trouble intigrating Windward System Five, with shipping programs.

Vorteile:

Easy for the sales people to use, once they are very familiar with the system.

Nachteile:

There are basic programming errors, such as date changes, Currency type, etc. that do not flow through the je, you have to change existing je's line by line. The control numbers should change what is in the je. When I addressed the issue, I was brushed off and just told to adjust the entries. When you try to use a date range for printing vendor accounts it does not work. Trying to get it to work with other programs has been a problem, and everthing has a price tag associated with it.

SOFTWARD THAT DOES IT ALL

Kommentare: It took a little time to learn the features but we have been very pleased with how this software works for us in our retail Hobby Shop. We have a huge inventory which is constantly changing - no problem for Windward. Windward handles our point of sale including receivables. Tracks our purchases and payables and allows us to create reports and bar codes and so much more. I can't imagine a type of business that could not function with this very extensive software at a reasonable price. Lots of good updates and fast help available when you need it.

Vorteile:

Ability to design inventory reports that provide us detail on what has been sold in a date range and allows us to purchase wisely.

Nachteile:

Only one thing I would like to see added: A report to show income and expense in a spreadsheet by month.

Not the right system for our type of business. Probably better for a small retail company.

Vorteile:

I really don't know what we like most about the software. We have had the system for almost 10 years and it has never worked well for us, even after investing tens of thousands of dollars...

Nachteile:

Not user friendly. Expensive. Support doesn't know how to fix the problem most of the time. System not capable of performing functions that are necessary for our business. Confusing. Have spent hours and hours trying to get the system to work correctly without success. Hired someone to come help us learn the system better that cost us almost so much money and we weren't any further ahead than before they came.

Using Windward software for our small business has saved hours of time

Kommentare: Improved inventory management and tracking of customer service orders

Vorteile:

We like the way we can track service and parts for our customers and how the point of sale system tracks our inventory

Nachteile:

The payroll module isn't as easy to use as the point of sale module and fine tuning forms can be very confusing