* NOTE: POSTED BY JACK ON BEHALF OF s.purgavie@users.sf.net * As receiving Sourceforge Moderation queue error
Hello all,
I'm looking for thoughts about switching to uniCenta POS, perhaps people with experience can give some helpful tips...
Basically, I've been brought in to try and 'fix' a proprietary system called LOC SMS. The system as it stands has had no maintenance done to it in 7+ years of use, and the users have continued to add and delete records without thought to the impact on the relational database. The number of errors currently in the system, compounded with obfuscated table structures and limited methods to deal with large amounts of records, is starting to lead me towards considering "fresh start" alternatives.
The retail environment that I have been brought into is seasonal; currently out of season and about 6 weeks before season starts. We also have the staff hours to do a complete inventory during that time. Not all items have standard UPC codes; many have barcodes printed from the old system, linking to the item tables.
To consider a switch to another POS solution, I would need to be able to:
Deploy on existing hardware (Windows based, touchscreens, receipt printers, and Canadian Debit/Credit systems)
Export existing Item tables and Import into uniCenta, process both
Main Code and Alternate Codes so they are scanable, linked to a single
item Print end-of-day information for Accounting Dept Import CSF
inventory counts as physical inventory Modify Fiscal Year and Periods
for reporting purposes Keep inventory levels for separate stores
separate Have a front POS terminal that is easy to use, especially
to search for items by description / brand Reason codes (hopefully
customizable) for Inventory Transactions, Customer Returns,
adjustments An easy way to deal with Clearance / Demo product (be in
its own category separate from Dept / S.Dept structure that seems
inherent in uniCenta, but still belong to the Dept/S.Dept structure)
Manage employee accountability, access restrictions, and reports
Related: restrict $ discounts and % discounts per access level (level 1: 10% / $10 max; level 2: 20% / $30 max; level 3: 40% / $100 max; etc.... to level A: no restrictions)
Everything else I need seems to be explicitly stated as available in the system as-is. I saw in a quick perusal of the forums that import functions exist but are broken in the current version, but that installing the previous version and upgrading after import functions are done would work.
Thanks for slogging through my wall of text; I have tried to be concise, and I am wondering if this solution would work well for our situation. I will be sandboxing the program next to see what it is capable of for myself, but experience based comments would be very helpful.
Thanks!
If you would like to refer to this comment somewhere else in this project, copy and paste the following link:
Perhaps this is an unnecessary reply, but during my exploration of uniCenta I didn't find a number of things that I was looking for. Perhaps the things I was looking for are part of the advanced code-it-yourself fields I found, but as I am only with the company for a limited amount of time and can't ask someone to learn code to maintain the system, I suppose I'll be looking elsewhere. The banking hardware was the other concern - though I haven't been able to confirm 100%, I strongly suspect that this system won't be able to connect to our existing hardware.
Some of the inventory control features are also a bit clunky, and I didn't find a way to assign employees to specific locations like you can do for stock. Alternate barcode tracking seems odd as well, I was hoping for a comma-separated or carriage-return-separated text box but found alternate products instead?
Reporting was one of the other things, would have liked a GUI interface for choosing what gets reported on i.e. report inventory value per category per timeframe or something similar, currently it all has to be coded manually.
Anyways the system as it is shows a lot of promise! I will be following development for sure, but as it stands I can't see my company going for it.
If anyone has elegant fixes for the above (perhaps a plugins community I missed?) please feel free to respond to this thread, and thanks for your time!
If you would like to refer to this comment somewhere else in this project, copy and paste the following link:
Well, I'll take a crack at this, even though Jack himself would probably be the best person to answer! :-)
The formatting of the list got messed up but I'll do my best to figure out what you were asking. Here goes, others please feel free to chime in as well:
Deploy on existing hardware. I only run on basic PCs myself but according to the docs, one of Unicenta's strengths is its ability to run on just about anything.
Export existing Item tables and Import into uniCenta. Yes, definitely. There is an import process which is reported to be broken in the current release (3.80) but if all else fails you can always do this directly in the database. The db schema is not hard to understand.
Process both Main Code and Alternate Codes so they are scanable, linked to a single
item. NO. I need this also -- the ability to link multiple scannable barcodes to a single product -- and it doesn't exist. Each product can have one barcode only. I may write a patch for this at some point but it's not high on my priority list.
Print end-of-day information for Accounting Dept. Yes, depending on how much work you want to put into it. There's a daily "close cash" report with summary info only, but you can get the data out in whatever format you want, using the builtin reports or writing your own, or even going directly against the db. I posted another thread recently with a way to export daily summaries into IIF files for import into QuickBooks, for example.
Import CSF inventory counts as physical inventory. No idea. I don't use any of the inventory features myself.
Modify Fiscal Year and Periods for reporting purposes. Unicenta doesn't have any notion of periods. When you run reports, you specify whatever start/end date you want.
Keep inventory levels for separate stores separate. I think so, but again, I don't use the inventory features so I can't say for sure.
Have a front POS terminal that is easy to use, especially to search for items by description / brand. In terms of basic usability, yes definitely. Some of our staff have worked other retail jobs and they've all said that our POS is by far the easiest of any they've ever used. We have a fairly limited selection of products though, and do everything with the buttons. I've personally found the search features to be a little less than intuitive (e.g. some fields have automatic wildcards, some you need to remember to use %searchterm% for a wildcard match... the search results have only names, no pictures or other info to help you pick the right match... there are more minor gripes like this). Also there aren't many fields for product info, so if you wanted to store something like brand as structured data and search for it (rather than just putting it in the description and doing a text search), you may be outta luck. Products do support arbitrary properties (in an xml blob) but I don't think you can do much with this.
Reason codes (hopefully customizable) for Inventory Transactions, Customer Returns,
adjustments. Nope sorry, nothing like this. Returns are an ongoing point of contention as well -- they are not really linked to the original receipt so it's possible to refund the same receipt multiple times if you're not careful. I think a fix for this has been under development for some time but it's not so straightforward.
An easy way to deal with Clearance / Demo product (be in its own category separate from Dept / S.Dept structure that seems inherent in uniCenta, but still belong to the Dept/S.Dept structure). If I understand correctly, you want the product to be in one category for reporting purposes (e.g. "art supplies") but in another category ("clearance") on the sales screen, or possibly in both at the same time? No, this is not possible. Every product is in one category only. You can change a product's category during its lifecycle though, as Unicenta only does reporting based off of the current state. There is no as-of reporting that tracks changes in categories or other info over time.
Manage employee accountability, access restrictions, and reports. Yes this is all very customizable.
Related: restrict $ discounts and % discounts per access level (level 1: 10% / $10 max; level 2: 20% / $30 max; level 3: 40% / $100 max; etc.... to level A: no restrictions). This can be done through scripting. No modification of the source is required but you do need some Java coding skills. I posted my version of the discount scripts recently (line discount, total discount) and it wouldn't be hard to put additional checks in these scripts to look at the discount being given, compare it to the current user's role, and decide whether or not to apply the discount.
If you would like to refer to this comment somewhere else in this project, copy and paste the following link:
* NOTE: POSTED BY JACK ON BEHALF OF s.purgavie@users.sf.net
* As receiving Sourceforge Moderation queue error
Hello all,
I'm looking for thoughts about switching to uniCenta POS, perhaps people with experience can give some helpful tips...
Basically, I've been brought in to try and 'fix' a proprietary system called LOC SMS. The system as it stands has had no maintenance done to it in 7+ years of use, and the users have continued to add and delete records without thought to the impact on the relational database. The number of errors currently in the system, compounded with obfuscated table structures and limited methods to deal with large amounts of records, is starting to lead me towards considering "fresh start" alternatives.
The retail environment that I have been brought into is seasonal; currently out of season and about 6 weeks before season starts. We also have the staff hours to do a complete inventory during that time. Not all items have standard UPC codes; many have barcodes printed from the old system, linking to the item tables.
To consider a switch to another POS solution, I would need to be able to:
Everything else I need seems to be explicitly stated as available in the system as-is. I saw in a quick perusal of the forums that import functions exist but are broken in the current version, but that installing the previous version and upgrading after import functions are done would work.
Thanks for slogging through my wall of text; I have tried to be concise, and I am wondering if this solution would work well for our situation. I will be sandboxing the program next to see what it is capable of for myself, but experience based comments would be very helpful.
Thanks!
Perhaps this is an unnecessary reply, but during my exploration of uniCenta I didn't find a number of things that I was looking for. Perhaps the things I was looking for are part of the advanced code-it-yourself fields I found, but as I am only with the company for a limited amount of time and can't ask someone to learn code to maintain the system, I suppose I'll be looking elsewhere. The banking hardware was the other concern - though I haven't been able to confirm 100%, I strongly suspect that this system won't be able to connect to our existing hardware.
Some of the inventory control features are also a bit clunky, and I didn't find a way to assign employees to specific locations like you can do for stock. Alternate barcode tracking seems odd as well, I was hoping for a comma-separated or carriage-return-separated text box but found alternate products instead?
Reporting was one of the other things, would have liked a GUI interface for choosing what gets reported on i.e. report inventory value per category per timeframe or something similar, currently it all has to be coded manually.
Anyways the system as it is shows a lot of promise! I will be following development for sure, but as it stands I can't see my company going for it.
If anyone has elegant fixes for the above (perhaps a plugins community I missed?) please feel free to respond to this thread, and thanks for your time!
Well, I'll take a crack at this, even though Jack himself would probably be the best person to answer! :-)
The formatting of the list got messed up but I'll do my best to figure out what you were asking. Here goes, others please feel free to chime in as well:
Deploy on existing hardware. I only run on basic PCs myself but according to the docs, one of Unicenta's strengths is its ability to run on just about anything.
Export existing Item tables and Import into uniCenta. Yes, definitely. There is an import process which is reported to be broken in the current release (3.80) but if all else fails you can always do this directly in the database. The db schema is not hard to understand.
Process both Main Code and Alternate Codes so they are scanable, linked to a single
item. NO. I need this also -- the ability to link multiple scannable barcodes to a single product -- and it doesn't exist. Each product can have one barcode only. I may write a patch for this at some point but it's not high on my priority list.
Print end-of-day information for Accounting Dept. Yes, depending on how much work you want to put into it. There's a daily "close cash" report with summary info only, but you can get the data out in whatever format you want, using the builtin reports or writing your own, or even going directly against the db. I posted another thread recently with a way to export daily summaries into IIF files for import into QuickBooks, for example.
Import CSF inventory counts as physical inventory. No idea. I don't use any of the inventory features myself.
Modify Fiscal Year and Periods for reporting purposes. Unicenta doesn't have any notion of periods. When you run reports, you specify whatever start/end date you want.
Keep inventory levels for separate stores separate. I think so, but again, I don't use the inventory features so I can't say for sure.
Have a front POS terminal that is easy to use, especially to search for items by description / brand. In terms of basic usability, yes definitely. Some of our staff have worked other retail jobs and they've all said that our POS is by far the easiest of any they've ever used. We have a fairly limited selection of products though, and do everything with the buttons. I've personally found the search features to be a little less than intuitive (e.g. some fields have automatic wildcards, some you need to remember to use %searchterm% for a wildcard match... the search results have only names, no pictures or other info to help you pick the right match... there are more minor gripes like this). Also there aren't many fields for product info, so if you wanted to store something like brand as structured data and search for it (rather than just putting it in the description and doing a text search), you may be outta luck. Products do support arbitrary properties (in an xml blob) but I don't think you can do much with this.
Reason codes (hopefully customizable) for Inventory Transactions, Customer Returns,
adjustments. Nope sorry, nothing like this. Returns are an ongoing point of contention as well -- they are not really linked to the original receipt so it's possible to refund the same receipt multiple times if you're not careful. I think a fix for this has been under development for some time but it's not so straightforward.
An easy way to deal with Clearance / Demo product (be in its own category separate from Dept / S.Dept structure that seems inherent in uniCenta, but still belong to the Dept/S.Dept structure). If I understand correctly, you want the product to be in one category for reporting purposes (e.g. "art supplies") but in another category ("clearance") on the sales screen, or possibly in both at the same time? No, this is not possible. Every product is in one category only. You can change a product's category during its lifecycle though, as Unicenta only does reporting based off of the current state. There is no as-of reporting that tracks changes in categories or other info over time.
Manage employee accountability, access restrictions, and reports. Yes this is all very customizable.
Related: restrict $ discounts and % discounts per access level (level 1: 10% / $10 max; level 2: 20% / $30 max; level 3: 40% / $100 max; etc.... to level A: no restrictions). This can be done through scripting. No modification of the source is required but you do need some Java coding skills. I posted my version of the discount scripts recently (line discount, total discount) and it wouldn't be hard to put additional checks in these scripts to look at the discount being given, compare it to the current user's role, and decide whether or not to apply the discount.