Hey Meg.  I'm not sure if Square or Shopkeep have many, or any, bike indsutry-specific features, such as allowing access to suppliers' or manufacturers' databases of bike component prices, item numbers, etc.  If that's a consideration, and if you'll also want to use the POS to create work orders for repairs or bike builds, then thee options that I've used are Ascend, Lightspeed, and Profit Premiere.  The first two are the slickest, and Profit Premiere is the least expensive.  At NBW, we use Profit Premiere and find it does what we need it to.


---
Steve Maluk
He/Him/His
Executive Director
Neighborhood Bike Works
215-386-0316 x118





On Tue, Jan 30, 2018 at 10:49 PM, Phil Graff <pmgraff@gmail.com> wrote:
The Bike Project of Urbana-Champaign (Illinois) has been using Square for over five years now. We like it for the following reasons:
  • No monthly fees
  • Transaction fees are 2.75% per swipe -- no 20 or 30 cent charge, which is nice because sometimes people just buy a tube, so a $4 tube costs us 11 cents in Square fees
  • Can record cash transactions as well (no 2.75% taken). This centralizes our record-keeping.
  • Cloud-driven, so good at both of our locations (we have two shops, one community and one University). Also good for mobile setups, if you have one. We've also done an art show where we accepted payments through an iPhone at the gallery.
We are using iPads in secure enclosures with receipt printers wired to a cash drawer. It was an investment in hardware, but worth it as it has saved us so much time vs filling out paper pads, in addition to saving time for accounting and providing us with numbers to use for business reporting. Users seem to like it, and if they've shopped elsewhere with Square it will remember their email. Maybe 1 out of 5 people max want a paper receipt; most are satisfied with an email or no receipt, so it keeps paper costs down and reduces waste.

There are probably some other great solutions out there, but in 2012 this was best in class for our needs. The only feature I really want would be to have an API where it can tie into other apps or allow for embedding on a web page (especially for donations). We do accept donations through the Square Online Store, but it's a clunky solution at best -- at least how we have it set up.

Cheers,
Phil
Volunteer, The Bike Project of Urbana-Champaign


On Tue, Jan 30, 2018 at 9:07 PM, Jimmy Hallyburton <jimmy@boisebicycleproject.org> wrote:
The  Boise Bicycle Project has been using Shopkeep for awhile now and we dig it. It’s meant to run off an IPad, which makes it handy for events and more mobile stuff. Also has an employee timekeeping feature that we use. 

I do think we’re using it to it’s full potential but it has some tracking features that we use for a lot of our programs. Let me know if you have specific questions I can help with. 

On Tue, Jan 30, 2018 at 12:45 PM David Oliver <nowhere3@gmail.com> wrote:
It depends a lot on what you want out of a POS. Are things like inventory management important? Do you want to run reports from within the program? Do you need it to do accounting/timesheets/staff pay? Do you need it to take credit/debit payments for you or are you going to get your own machine? Do you want a piece of software that will also track repairs?

Lightspeed or Ascend are generally the two top things (More than just POS) that for profit bike shops use. Square is pretty common as a basic POS/credit card processor at bike co-ops from what I've seen. There's also Clover which seems close to Square but I haven't touched that before. Quickbooks is great for accounting/running reports but is horrible as a POS.

On Tue, Jan 30, 2018 at 4:56 PM, Phoenix Bikes <phoenixbikes@gmail.com> wrote:
Hi everyone,

I don't think this has been asked about for a while so here goes:

Phoenix Bikes is moving to a new space and would like to use this opportunity to switch out point-of-sale (POS) systems. Any recommendations? 

Thanks in advance,

Meg

Meg Rapelye, MSW
Executive Director, Phoenix Bikes
4200 S. Four Mile Run Drive
Arlington, VA 22206
Bike Shop: 703-575-7762


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--
Ride On!

Jimmy Hallyburton
Founder / Executive Director
Boise Bicycle Project
(208)-429-6520
1027 Lusk St Boise, ID 83706



Explore some of the BBP Journey in my TEDx Talk on Moving at the Speed of Discovery!

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