PBSA POS

Pros: Offers the most software/product features of its kind and specific to a bulk food specific store

Very easy to use

Very good sales, technical and support teams from the PBSA company to ensure you are getting the most out of the product

Cons: The lack of DIY resources to further troubleshoot any issues which results in a call to the POS company (I can’t fault the support team, it’s just that it is expensive way to do it when it could easily be provided in more detailed troubleshooting guides)

Overall: Overall, the entire team are all easy to deal with and can comprehend issues very well over the phone & email don’t hesitate to have a complete remote service. Reliable support, honest feedback about system limitations and very minimal technical issues and disruption when setting the system up. Overall, I believe after lots of research that it’s the best in the industry for bulk food stores

Pros: We love how it streamlined our business, the ability to see reports live, graphs, pie charts, top selling products, sales per hour, discount reports, it really gives you a snapshot of your business in the palm of your hand.

Being a butchery and burger bar, we struggled to find a system that done both weights and scales and also docket printing for the kitchen, and in a font to be able to read.

Everywhere we turned the only option we could find was to be using two different systems, one for the butchery and one for the burger bar, this wasn't something we wanted to do, and then we come across PBSA!

Cons: I didn't like how long it took me to convince my hubby to make the change from our outdated software that didn't have the ability to support our two different business models under the one roof, the thing holding him back was simply change.

Overall: I started off chatting to Darren from sales, he was so lovely and helpful, very knowledgable on the software and its capabilities, after explaining everything I was looking for in a POS System, I was confident that this was the system for our Butchery & Burger Bar. NOW for the hubby convincing, Darren was extremely patient in this process and checked in every few weeks to see how I was going, Darren was very understanding of Hubbys initial uneasiness and worry of change. Darren done multiple video calls and phone calls with him and discussed all of his concerns and questions he had with the software, all of the things I had initially queried. I'm never really sure if hubby agreed to go ahead with PBSA, but everything he had queried there was a solution for, he secretly knew "id done good in finding this system" he likely wanted to jump with joy but didn't want to give it to me that easy haha, there were a few heated moments (bloke still writes cheques and isn't a fan of technology ) but we got there, he picked it up so well, I think he shocked himself, Fast forward getting through our first XMAS with PBSA and utilising the reports for quantities on products and being able to create an awesome online data base, one of many things that PBSA can do, he said thank you! he was happy , he wished we'd found it sooner ! His always on the reports on his phone keeping an eye on things and enjoys having that live feed!

The setting up and importing of our products I'm not going to lie here that was a HUGE job, simply because we had the burger bar aspect of the business and we needed every possible combination of burger options loaded in, then of course setting up the touch screen, this was fun with all the colours! I chose to group products via the colour of our supplier's logos, I find this helps a lot with our new and junior staff in locating the products which makes it much quicker, so simply but very practical.

Like I said a HUGE job, BUT after being moved on from sales to now support, I got lucky enough to work with Matt, Matt was absolutely sensational through this process, he took many calls, and returned many emails, there wasn't anything he didn't or couldn't work through with me, he certainly has a sound knowledge of the software and how it all comes together. We're almost coming up a year now and I still give matt a call for the odd support question, and he is still just as helpful and knowledgeable as he was the first time we chatted.

Darren and Matt certainly made this transition and big step with our business a smooth ride! I cannot recommend PBSA anymore! **** 5 STARS Team, keep up the awesome work! Oh and we LOVE the integrated EFTPOS, no more manual entering of sale prices for customers, we have already seen significant increase in sales, which we believe this is a contributing factor! Possibility of errors completely removed!

Pros: Returning to my company office after 3 months away with my family, no significant issues or problems and the systems in place have run perfectly.

My company Malone's Butchery have used PBSA for over 10 years now, with 3 sites across 2 states, I need to be able to operate, monitor and control what happens from my laptop, and my managers need to have accurate information to make good decisions.
PBSA has delivered this and more, integration with MYOB is priceless, we went from bank reconsolidation months behind to weekly, and month end finished days after EOM.

If you need a recommendation regarding how to grow your business, streamline management or just free up time to get a better balance, put in the effort to set up PBSA in your business, it takes time to get it right, but once you're all set up, the rewards begin to stack up.

Cons: Can't train my team fast enough to keep up with all the new features!

Overall: PBSA has helped the company grow and adapt to the ever-changing landscape of food safety standards and labelling laws. without listing every single area of growth and change the most important is the net return, the cost of set up and maintenance, support and time becomes irrelevant when growth exceeds expectations!

Pros: 10 yrs. ago, we started our retail business and we wanted to work with likeminded people, who understood our business. 10 yrs. and 45 team members later we are not that small, but our PBSA system has been able to keep up with our demands and more importantly be easy for our team to use. We also established our Online component about 5 years ago and the implementation was very efficient and once again very user friendly.

Cons: We have never had any reason to complain or be disappointed with our decision to go with PBSA.
In fact, we recommend them to other people in our industry when we are asked what we use to support our business.

Overall: Thanks to Darren and the team for making the system user friendly.
We can train new team members very quickly.
I would highly recommend this business for their product and their integrity.
Thanks for the 10 years and looking forward to the next 10.

Pros: Exportable reports are good and modern looking interface, desirable functionality and looks really good on first look.

Cons: This is dated software. Built in house they claimed they'd be able to code solutions to any 'unlikely' problems we had, the reality is that core functionality feels unfinished.
DOES NOT INTEGRATE WITH XERO. It will send journal reports, but will not allow you to use the efficient functionally of Xero for reconciliations, so it completely dumbs down the use of XERO.
Support is expensive and terrible. There really only appears to be one guy who truly understand the software. Support is super expensive and when they can't provide answers to four of five issues it's an expensive waste of time. Months in and core functionality has not been resolved. Support turnaround is excruciatingly slow and no concern for the commercial consequences of their shortcomings. Many of the key functionality we have issues with we are being told that it is a bug at there end, but it's still costing us countless hours hundreds of dollars to tell them about it!
Very little in the way of written instructions. Sections where you should just be able to read and apply require going to paid support for ineffective explanations.

Overall: This feels like being stuck in a bad marriage. Took months longer to set up and the sunk cost of effort exceeds the monetary cost, which was not insubstantial. I need to now stick with this for a year perhaps as try to replace now will probably break the poor team member who worked the roll out.