Windward System Five Reviews

Pros

I give this review after having tried many different software packages over the last 15 years. Some costing x10 the price of Windard, some costing x10 less.

What I'm left with over these years is perspective, and that perspective was hard earned.

You will not find a more complete point of sale, inventory control, accounting, crm, etc. for this price range.

With the ability to fine tune it to your exact business needs, it's easiest to configure, maintain and operate...especially compared to the "enterprise" software world where your eyes will water from pricing.

Its got lightning fastest Point of sale with the absolute best part find search tool I can recall using. The special order management is the best complete solution from any I've tried.

If your serious about your Business, you should consider Windard. I honestly think that in the long run it has improved our business, staff and bottom dollar.

Cons

There is no such thing as perfect software.

With that being said, there are issues...but then it's technology. You have to considering that it is a highly customizable product that able to serve an amazing range of business types with thousands of options.

What Windward has that sets it apart is a fantastic support team with Canadian staff and an out-of-country team that is admittingly fantastic...probably the best off-shore support that I have ever experienced in IT. Tech support is typically same day, commonly instant or within a few hours of placing a call. If you have an urgent problem, they will find someone for you RIGHT NOW.

If you have problems using Windward software...you will most probably have problems using another piece of software. The key with any software, especially if you are new to it, is to have patience and use every opportunity to learn.

Pros

Over the years there have been many areas of the program that we never took advantage of. One of the greatest things is with all the recent available training on and off line it has allowed us to find these nuggets that have helped us tremendously to make processes within our business so much easier. This had to be one of the best implementations that Windward has made, keep the training coming!!

Cons

The one thing we dislike about the program are updates. We get very nervous! A few years ago we did an update and it totally messed up the whole program. We had to work offline (paper work) for more than 3 weeks, which was a nightmare after the fact. Though Windward programmers worked for over 6 months to find a fix, they never ever did. So here 5 or 6 years later our Point of Sales Transaction Report figures are still unusable. We recently updated Pervasive and were told it should really speed up the program. Unfortunately it didn't, actually saw absolutely no difference even though it had been several years since we'd done an update, so are looking at other areas now.

Pros

Immediate processing of credit card transactions. The fact that System 5 is in the cloud is one of the primary reasons we purchased the product.

Cons

Not enough explanation of defaults in System 5 caused redundancy in our chart of accounts. The monthly reconciliation requires that several routines be performed before you can have a reliable balance report of income/expense reports. Modifiers were disappointing as we learned that they must be setup on an item-by-item basis, rather than a category or brand basis. Custom reporting is extremely lacking and doesn't allow for us to produce the reports we need.

Pros

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

Cons

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

Pros

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.

Cons

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.

Pros

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

Cons

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

Pros

The built in reports allowed for easily customizing reports. With their "lookup words" it was easy to tag, customers, products and vendors to particular categories for additional reporting

Cons

The online capability. There was no good capability for online. Sales would take a long time to integrate back into the software and there was no direct connection between Windward S5 to the online platform such as WooCommerce. Which meant an additional cost for another API connection.
Windward API was very limited to what info could be pushed and pulled from the website.

Alternatives Considered

EBMS

Reasons for Choosing Windward System Five

We outgrew the software

Pros

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.

Cons

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.

Pros

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.

Cons

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

Pros

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

Cons

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

Pros

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.

Cons

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. A report that can show me all items sold per book month with the following parameters.
sales clerk name, Invoice #, Date of sale, Customer name, Qty, Item #, Price ea., & Price total.
A report that will pull ALL items. (stock, Non-stock).
Currently i have to use 2 different reports, export to excel, and then combine them to create the report i need to send to suppliers for their sales incentives (spiffs). Granted this is alot better than the old computer system, but still takes longer than it should.

side note: i have seen and experienced so far that if someone requests an addition, that the programs will do ONLY what was asked for. Example: you were asked to increase item #'s and part #'s to 50 characters. That was done, but they didnt change non-stock special orders where you have to manually type in the characters. When i caught this problem and brought it up to tech and the programers, the response was " they didnt ask for that to be done" and "it is what it is". Same with items i listed. can data load, but not put on reports.

Pros

Windward 5 does so much above and beyond the POS/accounting systems I have used in the past, and I know I haven’t made it through all it has to offer.

The integrated CRM is very useful for keeping track of appointments and follow ups. I’m able to see that staff has made these appointments and keep them accountable for follow ups.
There is so much that can be done to organize and track inventory. Set multiple selling prices, build kits out of existing parts. Add pictures for staff and customers to reference, and way more.
Booking orders use to take me days to put together. Now the system tells me what I need based on past years. Some orders now take me less then a hour.

Information and automation. Windward tracks so much for you and automates tasks. Saving you 100’s of hours and $1000’s of dollars a year. I am very happy I made this investment

Cons

It does take some time to set up, but you do get some great help. There is allot to learn. Be prepared to give this some attention, it will be worth it.

Pros

This software would be a good inventory or p.o.s system

Cons

it's definitely not designed for a rental or accounting system

Pros

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.

Cons

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 have been thought through more. No real science or maths behind ordering so you better know your high, lows, trends etc. Some aspects are good but fall short in some areas. They state they are PCI compliant but fall short on monthly account payments. There is a work around but wastes time. If you do job cards or outwork, this is a challenge and you have to invent your own internal systems. Not sure on stock value integrity? Stock take process could have some enhancements to make it quicker for the user.

Pros

The upfront interface is easy to follow.

Cons

Once we moved to the cloud the program became very unstable. Everyone is running a different version. It seems that you only get to upgrade to a new version if you complain about functionality not working. It is slower than a server version as you are logging onto their remote server. Running reports has become cumbersome as you have to run on their remote desktop and copy to your own. We have had issues with inventory which is a critical part of our business. It can take them up to 2 weeks to get critical fixes completed or for you do discuss with a developer because tech support can't help you.

Pros

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.

Cons

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

Pros

Order Management, POS, Inventory Tracking.

Cons

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.

Alternatives Considered

Fishbowl

Reasons for Choosing Windward System Five

Windward has superior order management.

Reasons for Switching to Windward System Five

Better developed product and support.

Pros

Many features - most of them even work.
Price is pretty good compared to most solutions.
It generally works and if you don't do any updates you get used to the bugs and how to work around them.

Cons

Bugs. Every update fixes some bugs and introduces some new ones. I don't bother with updates anymore, just too many headaches.
Slightly archaic - you can feel that it is not a fully modern product. Years (decades) of upgrades and patches have made it feel like no one person can manage the whole project anymore. Fixes in one area screws things up in another.
Service is spotty.
Pervasive SQL is utter garbage and you don't have a choice to run another SQL server. Pervasive is easily the worst part of this whole system.
We've added ecommerce to our business but haven't integrated System 5 - the cost is eye-watering. Maybe if the cost comes down at some point.

Pros

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

Cons

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

Pros

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.

Cons

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.

Pros

Finding new and interesting and better software after being driven to the brink of insanity from a under performing, under maintained and un stable product.

Cons

Updates, did I mention updates, they don’t work, they simply fail, it’s like gambling when you update, will the software work tomorrow.... probably not.

Pros

Many reports are available depending on what you want to keep track. It covers everything from your daily needs to monthly to yearly.

Cons

When updates are done some of the items we have used disappear or are not available with update. Have found some reports aren't accurate.

Pros

Our ability to drill into items where you should be able to. Having linked PO's direct in the inventory items is essential to tracking when an items was purchased and received. The full functioning GL of this software in nothing less than exceptional and really can give a business owner the feeling of control when operating their business

Cons

I think the most difficult thing with Windward is the learning curve. Reports are sometimes hard to understand at first until you understand them. the XML editor for invoice templates need work, this the most difficult part of the program to use if you are a novice or not tech savvy.

Pros

I like the reporting ability and the integration across all departments, jobs and overall robust accounting ability

Cons

STA and Spiff functions dont really work well