PointOS Pricing, Features, Reviews & Comparison of Alternatives

Pros
So easy and understanding. Great valley with the money your spending. I’m so glad i end up with this awesome system

Cons
Sometimes it blocks and i need to restart the pc

Rating breakdown

Likelihood to recommend: 10/10

Pros
I like the set up of the software. I have three stations in my bar and they are all linked so you can add items to a tab from any station. The system is easy to use, based on my experience and that of my staff. Several of my staff report that PointOS is much easier to use than other software they’ve used at other bars. The item menu can be easily customized and alphabetized. I like that you can add recipes so if someone isn’t sure exactly what’s in a drink they can click on the recipe and see it at the station. It calculates cost per ounce when you add items to the inventory so figuring prices is easy. The sales reports are quick and easy so it’s simple to pull reports to figure tax each month. There are also employee reports and each employee clocks in so hours are very easy to figure as are tips collected.

Cons
It would be nice if there were more item tabs. We sell a high volume of alcohol and mixed drinks and we don’t have room to put all of it on its own tab. Another thing that would be nice, but really not a big deal, is if there were more icons to make the item tabs easier to find. There are some icons, for instance the more popular beers have an icon so it’s easy to recognize. For items with no icon, you have to type it in. You can highlight the items by color which is helpful. It is cumbersome to add everything in but I suppose every system is that way.

Rating breakdown

Likelihood to recommend: 7/10

Pros
I like the fact in a tablet world, that I could install the software on a Windows PC. You actually own the software and the service contract is reasonably priced compared to others. By switching to PointOS, the processor they required for direct integration has been great and has saved us a bundle.

Cons
While it's nice to own the software and run it on a Windows box but Windows 7 is getting harder and harder to find. While the software worked flawlessly for the first year it has become sluggish and there have been numerous remote reporting outages as of late. They have been promising a brand new version for over two years and they finally have picked a launch date. The software looks dated and you have to run the system at a very low resolution to function properly. Lastly, automatically added charges or discounts are a percentage. If you want a happy hour price you have to set a happy hour price for every item.

Rating breakdown

Likelihood to recommend: 6/10

Pros
Overall, it is a decent budget POS with a lot of high end functions. I did like the report functions, the weather reporting and incident reporting and inventory functions.

Cons
At this stage, it is a little dated. The cloud was never connected and always had to be manually started, which defeats the purpose of having a cloud back-up. There were many parts, like modifiers, that were really clunky and made operating difficult. I hated how you couldn't name reports that were emailed, and everything came across with the date and time you emailed them. You would have to write down what reports you were running so you could remember when you got in to email to see them. I would have been nice if you could name them, or if they were named the report that you were running. I didn't like the limited amount of modifiers and the limited about of characters you could write to the kitchen. But I mostly hated that the cloud never worked, leaving me feeling vulnerable to computer failures and loss of data. I also didn't like having the wait staff modify the tips, its so much nicer when the system adds it in, it leaves less room for errors.

Rating breakdown

Likelihood to recommend: 5/10

Pros
Working with the company initially, assistance with installation. Completely simple without extra fluff. Inexpensive. The credit card processing company is top shelf; helpful and pleasant to work with.

Cons
The Cloud is not reliable. Extra steps, like running a credit card, pop up with every order entry. Having to name every tab if it's not cashed out right away. The reports do not translate well to quickbooks for our accountant. If you hide or delete a menu item, it gets "ungrouped" which makes it impossible to get accurate reports by category. For example, we change Draft beers several times a week. We "hide" or delete those buttons because the page would be full several times over. When we run a report, we get a total for beer, and also for each "ungrouped' item, by name. We have to figure them out and add them back in to the total. I think that reports by hour are set up strangely. We open at 11 am, so if I want to add up shifts, I start there and add up until 3, then 3 -8, then 8 to 11 and have to go back to the top for the rest of the day until 3 am. I don't know how to tweak this or if it can be tweaked. We've had so many support calls, we all dread them. I'm sure there are more examples.

Rating breakdown

Likelihood to recommend: 5/10