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  • #31
    Can you run a tab?

    Originally posted by WitsEnd View Post
    We've been open now for 4 days (fridays) with the square register app on the ipad and it's been working great.
    We have a cash drawer, reciept printer and a holder from tinkering monkey and couldn't be happier. We've even started using the order ticket system throug square to keep the orders straight. It prints a number for people and an order ticket to fill by.

    Easy to set up, easy to tweak, simple fee structure.
    I print a report right from the ipad to the reciept printer at the end of each night that has totoals for cash, credit, and an item-by item breakdown.

    We can sell gift certs (but not track them) and have a discount option for punch cards.

    We're down to cash only if wifi goes down, but that's ok with me.
    So with a "ticket" on square can you keep a tab open after swiping a card?
    ________________

    Bill Hamilton
    The Brewer/Co-Owner
    Blue Lab Brewing Co.
    Lexington VA

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    • #32
      Originally posted by blueskybrwr View Post
      So with a "ticket" on square can you keep a tab open after swiping a card?
      No tabs, but that works find for our taproom. We push growlers over pints and tasters. We're in an industrial building. While we have a finished off space that functions as the taproom, the main focus is to sell growlers.

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      • #33
        Has anyone had experience with Breadcrumb? It seems like the reviews have been stellar and when working out the actual costs, would be less expensive than even Salesvu.

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        • #34
          Pos systems

          we just had a demo of Touch Bistro today at the brewery we are starting. I was very impressed. Great functionality and pretty customizable. Allows you to divi up tabs and and add people to tabs no sweat. We can even pull up product pictures with info for customers, say to show someone what glass wear a certain beer comes in. Allows you to print tickets behind the bar so someone can be pouring beers while servers are taking orders and running beers out. Also runs off of a router just for the iPad's so if your internet goes out you can still function. We have a demo with Breadcrum tomorrow. I would say that Touch Bistro set the bar pretty high for the first one we actually demoed.
          www.cognitionbrewingcompany.com

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          • #35
            Any Updates or new thoughts

            Just looking to see if anyone had a POS update recently. I have also been looking into a reasonable POS system. I'm currently business planing and researching for a taproom / bottle shop with limited food. I'm more concerned with the ability to have a tab started and getting the monies into the bank account, keeping track of inventory, and merchandise sales.

            From my research, I have seen several complaints on Squares "holding" of funds and no tabs option. Revel has been suggested too but too many poor reviews for my taste (http://www.merchantmaverick.com/revi...view/#comments).

            Any update on the Bistro POS or any others? I am trying to stick to the business model of spending little, and getting what is needed (not all the bells and whistles eg. posting to Facebook etc.) but not sure if this is a place you can "skimp"?

            Cheers!
            J. Batte

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            • #36
              Pos

              I own a brewpub with a Dinerware POS system. I bought it before all of the online versions became available, and I do not know anything about them. Dinerware is a good system. You buy hardware, software and deal with any credit card processor(therefore you can negotiate rates)- Mercury is default processor because of gift cards. There are no monthly fees for software, and it has run flawlessly. for seven years. Costs $5-15,000 depending on number of terminals.

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              • #37
                Originally posted by kevin varner View Post
                I own a brewpub with a Dinerware POS system. I bought it before all of the online versions became available, and I do not know anything about them. Dinerware is a good system. You buy hardware, software and deal with any credit card processor(therefore you can negotiate rates)- Mercury is default processor because of gift cards. There are no monthly fees for software, and it has run flawlessly. for seven years. Costs $5-15,000 depending on number of terminals.
                How much did the initial set-up put you back? It looks good but they don't list a price. When I googled it, it came up with 2k-3k.
                Thanks!

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                • #38
                  a little more info on square

                  We use the Square register software for our growler, bottle and merch sales. We don't sell by the glass and have no need of tabs.

                  For us the downside to Square rests in the fact that they don't process debit cards which are a large portion of our sales (in Canada). We have to use a traditional card processor with a separate card terminal. We still use the Square register to ring up the sale and then have to close the sale using the "other" payment option. This leaves all card sales (Visa, Mastercard, debit) lumped into one pool with cash in another. At the end of the day we can tally the payment stubs from the terminal to track type of cards used.

                  For a while, we were having a problem with Square if the iPad went to sleep before the sale was closed. When the iPad was turned back on, the sale had disappeared. At the end of the day, we would have a credit card slip for a sale amount but no corresponding record in the Square transaction log, leaving us to try and recreate the sale based on inventory (obviously a problem). This seems to have cleared up though and may have been corrected in either an app update or an OS update. Bottom line is always close out the sale at the time.

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                  • #39
                    Update after two years of Square

                    I have an update after two years of using Square.

                    It's great. That about sums it up.

                    Yeah, I'm sure I spend more on credit card fees. They take a flat 2.75% on all credit card transactions. We haven't encountered a form of plastic they don't take. I've had people hit me up with how "much money they can save me" in my credit card processing fees, but I'm so sold on the POS that square offers, that it's a moot point.

                    I did a bit of research on the holding of funds, and it seems to have been related to "card absent" purchases (ie. over the phone). This is naturally suspicious, so Square historically was withholding funds if a significant amount of purchases were made without a card swipe.

                    The POS is easy to use, easy to set up, and easy to maintain. They've also added an online marketplace which saves me about $25/mo that I was paying GoDaddy. The store isn't great, but I don't do a ton of sales online, so as long as I have the option, that's all that I care about.
                    They've recently added the ability to start tabs. We haven't used it much, but it's there. We price all of our beers the same, just serve in different glasses, so we sell PINT tokens that people can use in place of a tab. Works great, and our regulars are used to that.

                    The CONS:
                    All reporting for categories and items are done in real-time. If you change a category or item name, it will not update back information for reporting purposes. Not a big deal, but I've had a few times that it would have been convenient to have previous data re-categorized.
                    Will not accept multiple forms of payment on one transaction. This makes redeeming dollar amount gift cards a major PITA. We usually end up giving cash back, or just noting the cash overage/shortage on a daily summary sheet so we know the till wasn't off for the night.

                    We charge even amounts for everything (square can back-calculate taxes), to promote cash sales. Square doesn't charge for cash transactions, so that's a bonus. I spoke with a local restaurant and their POS company charged a percentage of ALL sales, which I thought was a bit overbearing.

                    I love that I can check in on my phone or computer how the taproom is doing at any time in real-time.

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                    • #40
                      Great update!

                      Originally posted by WitsEnd View Post
                      I have an update after two years of using Square.

                      It's great. That about sums it up.

                      Yeah, I'm sure I spend more on credit card fees. They take a flat 2.75% on all credit card transactions. We haven't encountered a form of plastic they don't take. I've had people hit me up with how "much money they can save me" in my credit card processing fees, but I'm so sold on the POS that square offers, that it's a moot point.

                      I did a bit of research on the holding of funds, and it seems to have been related to "card absent" purchases (ie. over the phone). This is naturally suspicious, so Square historically was withholding funds if a significant amount of purchases were made without a card swipe.

                      The POS is easy to use, easy to set up, and easy to maintain. They've also added an online marketplace which saves me about $25/mo that I was paying GoDaddy. The store isn't great, but I don't do a ton of sales online, so as long as I have the option, that's all that I care about.
                      They've recently added the ability to start tabs. We haven't used it much, but it's there. We price all of our beers the same, just serve in different glasses, so we sell PINT tokens that people can use in place of a tab. Works great, and our regulars are used to that.

                      The CONS:
                      All reporting for categories and items are done in real-time. If you change a category or item name, it will not update back information for reporting purposes. Not a big deal, but I've had a few times that it would have been convenient to have previous data re-categorized.
                      Will not accept multiple forms of payment on one transaction. This makes redeeming dollar amount gift cards a major PITA. We usually end up giving cash back, or just noting the cash overage/shortage on a daily summary sheet so we know the till wasn't off for the night.

                      We charge even amounts for everything (square can back-calculate taxes), to promote cash sales. Square doesn't charge for cash transactions, so that's a bonus. I spoke with a local restaurant and their POS company charged a percentage of ALL sales, which I thought was a bit overbearing.

                      I love that I can check in on my phone or computer how the taproom is doing at any time in real-time.
                      Great update! Thank you so much for sharing and taking the time to put out that info. Might just belly up to Square!

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                      • #41
                        Square and Quickbooks - major issues

                        We opened our tap room in Dec 2014 and have been using Square for about 2 months now. Love it. Easy to use. Problem is we discovered that the Square-Quickbooks sync app does not work for any transaction if you have even 1 split check in the past 15 days (which is very common in our tap room). Additionally, it only brings in the gross sales into QB. You (or your bookkeeper) then have to manually subtract out things like tips and tax for every day you were open and do what bookkeeper call "journal entries" in QB. It does not import things like merch sales vs beer sales. Again, manual entry only. So if you are really interested in tracking your cost of goods sold (and if you own the place, you should be), Square is not the right tool. Square's online analytics and ease of use are awesome but unfortunately, we're now hunting for a different iPad-based POS system that provides completely synchronization with QB. And we've got 2 months of data that's going to take at least a full day of work to reconcile.

                        Anyone out there have an iPad-based POS system they like for their tap room that actually syncs up all transactions with Quickbooks? I'd love to hear about it.
                        Last edited by thedrake; 02-03-2015, 03:48 PM. Reason: clarification
                        Kevin Drake
                        Alibi Ale Works
                        North Lake Tahoe

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                        • #42
                          We don't use the QB module and just manually enter data by the week.

                          Then again, we are only open Thurs-Sat, 2-9pm. We do no table service, and only just started keeping tabs.

                          I could see if you're doing table service and have a bit more to manage than what we have (a simple retail counter), then it would be better to go with something with a bit more in-depth functionality.

                          We are probably getting near the point where a more integrated POS system would be beneficial.

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                          • #43
                            Square

                            We've been using Square for 2.5 years now and we were keeping tabs open on post-it notes - what a pain. Contacted Square about 3 weeks ago to see if open tabs were coming soon. They signed us up for their beta program and gave us a link to the Square beta app which has tabs (tickets). Works very well although it's lacking some advanced features like combining and splitting tabs.

                            Paul
                            Iron Goat Brewing

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                            • #44
                              Thread, ressurect thyself!

                              It seemed more logical to add to an existing thread than start a new one...

                              I'm curious if anyone has experience using Shopify for their POS and online commerce solution... I like the ability to track merch. sales via both methods in real-time, especially since we'll likely be performing fulfillment in-house for the time being. I also like the idea of integrating it with QuickBooks Pro.

                              Anyone? Anyone? Thanks in advance for your thoughts...
                              Kevin Shertz
                              Chester River Brewing Company
                              Chestertown, MD

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                              • #45
                                I too would like to resurrect this thread instead of starting a new one. I am a partner in a small 3BBl nano brewery with taproom, for the first year or so we will only do pint, flights, growler fills, crowlers, and merchandise sales. Looking for a simple yet efficient POS system for the brewery. With obvious room to grow as we start to establish ourselves. Thanks in advance.

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