Windward System Five Reviews

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.

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.

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.

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

Hi Marie, thank you for taking the time to provide feedback relating to your experience with Windward System Five. We're very happy to see that it's significantly helping the operation of your business! With regard to maintenance & updating, please contact your Account Manager at +1 (800) 663-5750, at your convenience, to discuss options to determine the most cost-effective solution. For example, it may be optimal to transfer to Windward System Five on Cloud, which includes automatic data backups and installation of updates and does not require your business to use a server.

Knowing that you can pretty much always get a hold of someone in support- My all time favorite support person really knows what she is doing and is a very pleasant wonderful personality! It is nice that there are a variety of reports for each department

The bookkeeping part of Windward - everything is journal entry based and not check book based - The payroll system is Canadian based and is not United States friendly on the forms that need to be done at year end for payroll and the government. Some of the reports don't print dates and other pertinent information on them and if they do you have to click on everthing to just read the notes. Also an awful lot of "errors" that occur and some that never get fixed- it tends to be frustrating! Also having to wait for someone to call you back when there is a urgent issue that needs addressing asap can get frustrating, although you do always get a call back

Hi, Michelle -- thank you for taking the time to provide your feedback relating to your experience with Windward System Five. We're pleased to hear that you are satisfied with our Customer Support team; we ensure that all of our clients are answered by a real person at any time, day or night. In terms of your concerns, we are confident there are in fact methods to overcome your stated issues. We encourage you to please contact your Account Manager at +1 (800) 663-5750 in order to gain access to The Windward Learning Academy. This comprehensive online training resource is easy-to-use and will answer questions related to any type of System Five functionality, including Payroll.

Order Management, POS, Inventory Tracking.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

Hi Ronald. Thank you for your positive review of System Five: we're pleased to hear that you find it to be well organized and user friendly. In terms of the system errors that you mention: this could indeed be related to your hardware setup. Please contact your Account Manager at your earliest convenience and discuss whether you have the minimum hardware requirements in place. In addition, if there is a recurring error that is causing you problems, please do let us know what it is and we will investigate to determine if it something we can permanently resolve.

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

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.

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

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.

There are many ways to find what ever it is you need to know. Much of the system is logical. From finding customer to products ,it has a report for everything.

Data entry is easy unless your dislexic. Upgrades are hard to keep updated again ,the users fault.

The sales aspect is good. POS is acceptable. Easy to find a product and sell it. Kits work well. Reporting is somewhat good. Support tries to resolve issues.

Financials - If you are serious about your business, this is not for you. It is not comparable to Quick books. They have flatly refused to integrate with QB. Their financial side scores a 1/10. The Multi currency module is full of promise but has many problems and bugs like display and operational issues. You have to be very careful when dealing with multi-currency. Procurement is quite basic and could...

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Our old system was very outdated and Windward has made it so much simpler and quicker to get our monthly/quarterly reports. Integration between order taking and purchasing has helped speed up the ordering process & stop mistakes being made. Love the virtual warehouse option.

What i feel is missing is: 1. Freeform 1 & 2 can be data loaded in. Freeform 1 can be on a report, but Freeform 2 can not. 2. Sales/Upsell warnings can be on a report, but not data loaded. 3. Purchase warnings can be data loaded, but not put on a report. (Invoice Warnings can be data loaded & put on a report) 4. There is no where to search "Non-Stock Special Orders" by number or supplier in history. 5....

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Hi Todd, Thanks for taking the time to write this! Other lighting showrooms that may be considering Windward will find this helpful. As for your reporting concerns, we may be able to help through a project plan from the professional services catalog which would be a great place to start to explore existing functionality. https://www.windwardsoftware.com/resources/professional-services.html There is also the option to do some custom programming if you have requirements that cannot be handled by the current reporting tools. We are looking forward to many more years of service to Grand Rapids Lighting. Thanks again Todd!

I like the auto data up loads for inventory. I like the adjustability of all the categories of forms and labels, such as invoices, purchase orders, packing slips, inventory tags, delivery tickets, etc. we can utilize and customize to suite all kinds needs for many different aspects, and situations. Being able to use the tag-a-long kits for suggestive selling, helps out the sales staff considerably,...

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I think the data up loads can function easier, be less complicated. We don't use the accounting part of the program. We use QB for our payroll and it will integrate with System 5 so that is good. There are more aspects of the program I like to be using and I wish the learn curves would be easier. We have an extra large amount of inventory and data stored in the system, since we have been using it since 2008. When generating reports or gathering information, the delays to the system or the machine's think processes, are way too long for me, before the abort button shows up, if it shows up at all or the option to quit the process and try another way. Again think of what I like least is difficult to do because we always find a work around to fulfill our needs.

Overall it has been pretty easy to learn this program

Some of the reporting features make getting an accurate snapshot of what is occurring in the company a little difficult

Hi Victoria, Thank you for taking the time to write a review! More importantly, thank you for investing time in learning more about how Windward works for your business. We appreciate your comment about reporting. Since there are so many reports available it is sometimes hard to nail down one that works best for you. There's also the option to design your own reports. Here's some info on...

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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

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

Hi Ketan -- thank you for taking the time to provide us with your feedback. Great to hear that you're pleased with Windward System Five, our Implementation Team, and weekly webinars. In terms of custom feature development, we record all requests and work diligently to include this functionality (when possible) in subsequent product releases. To learn more about upcoming System Five features, please contact your Account Manager at +1 (800) 663-5750.

I like the ease of being able to run our day to day business. We use the software all day every day. The ease of checking our inventory is terrific. Setting up a new customer is very easy. The system is very easy to use. Moving the data from our old system to Windward was very easy. We were able to import with very little mistakes.

I really don't have any cons with the software except that it is sometimes hard to set up new reports that we would like to download. Some times the help feature is not very specific for the reports that I need

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.

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.

Nationwide Furniture Mattress Outlet looks forward to continuing and growing our partnership with Windward Software. Windward Software's system allows us to stay on track and be able to organize vital information. We rely on Windward Software to perform every day so we can deliver the best customer experience possible

The time it takes to load certain functions is excessive sometimes.

Hi Bill, Thank you for taking the time to write a review! It truly helps other business owners like yourself make a decision that will help their operation grow much like yours has. As for your speed comment, there have been some improvements within some of the reporting tools. If you haven't already done so, try upgrading to the newest version and if that doesn't resolve your issue, please place a ticket in your support portal at support.windwardsoftware.com. Thanks again Bill!

Inventory control and details that can be entered into each item is awesome. Customer sales tracking is great. Can be adapted to many types of businesses.

Reports side is not the best. Cannot get an accurate back dated inventory and designing reports is sometimes hard. Need bigger field for invoice numbers when adding bills to workorders.

Hi April, and thank you for taking the time to provide us with your feedback. We're delighted to hear that you are happy with System Five's tracking capabilities. In terms of some of the issues you are experiencing with reporting, may we suggest that you contact your Account Manager at +1 (800) 663-5750 and request registration for The Windward Learning Academy. This easy-to-use yet comprehensive online tutorial resource will guide you as to how to best utilize reporting and generate the exact reports you're seeking.

This program has a lot of features, many of which speed up the tasks we perform daily. Tracking our customers is now fairly easy. Most of the system is Excel compatible which makes invoices and other documents easy to export. Windward's tech support is very friendly and accommodating.

As useful as this software is I still find simple tasks that it cannot perform. I have made at least four requests of tech support concerning software functionality that resulted in an answer of "the software can't do that" (and my requests were far from complicated). It's as if the software is so good at doing a million different tasks that it wasn't built to do the simplest ones.

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.

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.

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.

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

Thank you, Ed, for taking the time to provide us with your feedback and for your positive comments: much appreciated! We are committed to ensuring that Windward System Five is 100% seamless in operation with all future Windows releases. That said, if you experience any issues please contact our Customer Support Team at any time for assistance: +1 (800) 663-5750.

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

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

Hi Ken -- thank you for providing your feedback relating to your experience with Windward System Five. We're happy to hear that you are pleased with System Five's level of functionality. In terms of the Payroll module, we encourage you to contact your Account Manager at +1 (800) 663-5750 to become registered for The Windward Learning Academy. This easy-to-use, yet comprehensive online training resource will provide everything you need to know about efficiently using our Payroll module, designing forms, and other system functions.

Inventory Control is very functional and easy to use.

Reports are difficult and you have to build most of your own reports so you need to be skilled with it. Also if a tax changes on a product you have to make a new product code and start over for that item.

serial number tracking and customer purchases tracking. Ability to do rental and the capability to track rental

consistent issues with day to day operations and functionality. Unable to work thru most issues without a call to the tech department which has to call you back

Hi Mike, thank you for taking the time to provide us with your feedback. We would like to assist you resolve any questions you have regarding functionality. Please contact your Account Manager at your convenience and we will discuss your needs in more detail. In addition, please ask your Account Manager to provide you with access to The Windward Learning Academy. This is a comprehensive online set of searchable tutorials that will provide you with clear direction in terms of using System Five for all types of functionality and is a resource that you can use at any time.

Journals are easy to do same with cheques and we have a lot of control in that area. The support people always try to help and are very pleasant, but very often even they can't figure out how to fix something.

Very hard to delete stock or move it around, certain GL accounts we can't access, puts in transactions in the back ground that we don't about and screws up the Balance Sheet and difficult to delete a PO. In general it's difficult to delete anything except for cheques and journals which should be a little more protected.