Windward System Five

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.

Kommentare: Reduced IT costs, Improved staff experience and greater overall efficiency of our business practices.

Vorteile: 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.

Nachteile: 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.

Kommentare: One of the most recent benefits is the available training in many different areas of the Windward software program. This is an incredible asset to streamlining and improving day to day business practices for us. When we find out things the program can do for us that for years has just been sitting there not being used, we're like a kid in a candy shop....Excited...Wow!!

Vorteile: 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!!

Nachteile: 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.

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

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.