Harbortouch Salon & Spa Software

None! Higher rates on holding my money....What could benefit you from that?

Cons

Too hard to find items, can't just type in what you need, sent back system and they said I didn't send it back and are charging me for it, what a scam! Technical support is never available and when they are, talk way over the average persons head, rates were lowered and they didn't pass it on to their customers, always down, which they can charge you a higher rate if you have to manually enter the card number. I have reported them to better business bureau. They hung up on me today. So juvenile. DON'T USE THIS SYSTEM. YOU WILL BE SORRY....

NONE!

Pros

NONE! There is nothing about this system that is acceptable. They update in the middle of the day!, system always crashes, very poor customer service,

Cons

We have had the Harbortouch POS system for over two (2) years. We regrettably signed a three (3) year contract. Since day 1, we have had nothing but trouble. The system can go off line numerous times, or freeze up, throughout the day, generally when customers are waiting. This is extremely bothersome when you are trying to charge a credit card. Added to this, is that this company has one to the poorest customer service I've had the displeasure of dealing with. Today, our system went down three times during sales, with the last time the POS froze up. One was with a credit card purchase, thankfully the customer was very understanding and used cash instead. Once again we had to call customer service (which is poor) and once again we were put on hold for over 35 minutes. At first, the customer service rep said to just turn off the system, and turn back on -- rebooting ---- informed him that has already been done, then he put us on hold again. He returned to tell us that 'yes' there is 'something' wrong with their system, they are working on it, and it should be around an hour or so. When asked about credit card sales, his response was that we could always call the credit card company! Unacceptable when you are running a restaurant and the customers are waiting to pay. Customer Services' attitude appears to be that 'we have you under contract... hahaha. I know another merchant who also has Harbortouch, and has the same problems and complaints. This is a "POS - POS"

Pros

Not a thing. The software is complete crap and continues to break down a couple times per week. It doesn't even have the basic functionality needed to run a restaurant. In theory its simple to use. But with the number of times it breaks down per week, and the limited functionality, you always need a manager around to come up with workarounds when the software doesn't work or doesn't do what you need it to do.

Cons

Let me start by explaining what initially attracted me to Harbortouch: 1) Low upfront costs, 2) Salesperson told me to expect my effective rate to be about 1.8%, 3) Equipment would be under full replacement warranty for three years, 4) Customer service would be on call 24/7, 5) Salesperson told me that they would be the first company to issue an EMV solution for restaurants, and 6) they told me that they had a reservation system built in to the system.

My experience:

1) The low up-front costs turned out to be "not true". There were a lot of set-up fees, printer fees, etc that they never explained up front.
2) Four months in to operating my business, my effective rate is closer to 2.55% (not the 1.8% the Sales Rep quoted).
3) I've had two hard equipment breakdowns in the first four months. Yes, they did replace the equipment but transit and set-up time accounts to over a week. So that's two week's worth of down equipment so I've lost internal capacity and added wait times to my customers.
4) Yes, customer service is on-call 24/7. BUT, hold times to talk to someone often are over 30 minutes. I typically need their help a couple times a week because the software is complete crap as well. Then another 20-30 minutes or so to resolve the software problems. So I lose about 2 hours of my life per week dealing with crappy software and their Customer Service.
5) The EMV system is no longer even on the horizon.
6) The reservation system is unusable.

Cons

There wasn't enough space on the tabs yet plenty on the screen . You could only see three of your orders at one time and it wasn't easy to make separate checks

Point of sale operation and tracking.

Pros

Overall works okay and handles medium to high volume usage. Once employees are trained they're typically good to go. Allows us to have as many users as we need. Customer support is rather helpful within the rather restricted scope of what the software can accomplish.

Cons

Most things about it. Software assumes that employees don't make mistakes and always follow company policy. More often than not when we try to accomplish something with it we have to find a way to trick it into accomplishing something similar to what we want.

For instance, company policy is that every entree must have a beverage. After calling support the only way to do this is to setup beverages as a forced choice on every item on the menu however that then means that those beverages are counted as food revenue at the end of the day.

System is obtuse about how to setup items. Items cannot be deleted so when there's a misunderstanding and there's 3 different entries for the same item on the menu, or we decide to change the layout of the dining room we cannot delete excess items or tables leading to clutter in the interface.

I THOUGHT I WAS GETTING A GOOD DEAL BUT I WAS VERY WRONG. DONT TRUST THE SALES GUYS THEY DONT KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT THE SYSTEM. THEY ARE JUST VERY GOOD AT SELLING!

Pros

That my staff knows how to use it.
NOTHING ELSE IS GOOD ABOUT THIS SYSTEM.

Cons

High cc processing fees
ALWAYS BREAKS DOWN!
Online accessing for reporting is practically nonfunctioning (takes like 30 min to pull any report) super slow, for that, I rather just go to the store and print it from there.
Hassle to get any equipment replaced that breaks.
Too many other to mention

They promised to match the 1.69% I pay with Payanywhere but after all their fees their actual rate is over 8%!! That is crazy, they lie and charge fees for everything they can make up and charge way more than their contract says that they will. They will tell you that somewhere in their contract it says that they can raise their prices anytime. DO NOT believe them when they say they will match a competitors price. All lies.
We are compiling a list of complaints against Harbortouch to get them to fix or take legal action. If you have had problems, please contact me at thegardenspot@att.net

Pros

Soon the nightmare will be over.

Cons

Everything from start to finish. Nothing was true.
Fees are 600% higher than competitors.
Takes twice as long for the money to get to your account.
Made-up fees for everything. (read other reviews)
Cant ever talk to someone to help.

Advice to Others

Stay away!!

Our experience with Harbortouch has been horrible.They have charged us fees above what was agreed to, and charged bogus PCI fees, which no reputable bank charges.

To get refunds from them is like pulling teeth. Our merchant ID is 18515325. Example: Looking at the December 2016 statement, I had total transactions in the amount of $802.34. Of this amount, $595.54 were debit transactions.

Of the total of $802.34, I was charged 9% of my total. These alleged charges of "authorization" and "other" are included in the processing fees, not in addition to. Both their regional manager and their sales rep promised that any rates from other banks would be matched by Harbortouch.

Complete BS! Also, their CEO basically told me I was stuck in a contract and no refunds for overcharges would be made. By the way, this so called "free" POS system costs us highly, in addition to their outrageous fees.

Also, there contract protects them from filing suit in your local courts, and that you wave class action status.Would a reputable company need this?

Pros

Ease of use

Cons

The fees involved. Too expensive!

Not a day goes by that something doesn't go wrong with this system. The hardware has failed often. They replace it, but certainly a hassle. The functionality isn't there. They told me I could control it remotely via their website. False. They told me I'd save money on credit card processing. False. This has been nothing but trouble since day one. And here I am under contract

Pros

It's shiny

Cons

It's clear that no one who has worked in a restaurant was involved in developing this software. Compared to other systems I've used, very time-consuming.

Advice to Others

The remote access to the menu and reporting was a major selling point to me. It's a lie. What you can do online is very limited and when it does work it only does halfway.

The screens are hard to read. The program is not intuitive at all. There is no way to understand what to do without hands-on training, which we requested, but only after we told them we quitting their company. Their tech support told us that they could only help us after 5:00 p.m. "if the system was on fire". How's that for customer service! After 17 calls about various problems (I'm not kidding), we told them to take their system back and give us our money back. They immediately charged our account the remainder of the contract term -- $5000. We went to the Better Business Bureau three times, but Harbortouch still wouldn't even consider giving us some or all of our money back even though they failed to provide us any real servic. Beware -- when we told them about the promises made by the guy that sold us the system, they said they didn't have to uphold his promises because he was "just an independent salesman." Run!

Pros

Not a one.

Cons

Not intuitive. Very complex screens. No proper training provided without threatening them. Rotten customer service (see above).

Advice to Others

Don't even think about using this program. We've used ShopKeep, QuickBooks and LightSpeed and they're all better with better customer service and better software.

I cannot say enough good things about Harbortouch and the CEO Jared Isacmann and his team. I've used other POS systems and they just do not compare. Customer Services is available 24/7. The rates are competitive. What more do you want? They will help you work out any issues you might have. No, i'm not a relative of anyone in the company...just someone who's used Harbortouch. I batch out everynight w/o an issue. I always get paid and on time..so I'm just really confused.Did you even try to work out your differences with Harbortouch or did you just come on Yelp and bash them. Anyway, folks do your research of other products and companies. I can assure you Harbortouch offers one of the best deals out there! Give this company a try. The negative reviews are possibly from other competitors. If you are really feeling at your overwhelmed and lost reach out to Jared he will help you or link you with someone who will help you. Sue K Chicago, IL

processing fees are through the roof...tech support is helpful 1/5 times i call to address an issue. their website that houses all of their reports and back end stuff goes down on a regular basis. the machines themselves get extremely hot and overheat periodically.

i made a terrible choice selecting this pos for my restaurant...can't wait to get out of my contract and get a new system...seriously, do NOT buy this crap for your restaurant/bar!

My top complaints - cost for merchant services
- every time I call customer service I get different answers depending on who I get and often the issue is not solved
- the customer rewards system, based on points per dollar spent, is not manually adjustable. Customers receive points when paying with points, causing a loss in profit and this has yet to be corrected.

Our system has been in place for 24 months. It has gone down on a Friday night and left me hanging until 3am = loss of sales. The pre authorization process has left me holding over $1400 in uncollected credit card transactions = loss of profits. They fail to inform us of industry changes or HT changes that will affect us adversely. The original programing was HORRIBLE and I was required to learn how to fix it without ANY printed support materials. I took 3 months to reprogram BEFORE it could be put to use. = loss of time to focus on what I DO as an expert. The company has improved the product over the last 24 mo. but the improves are put in place with no education to the consumer. AND NO - there is NO integration to quickbooks..... I have been asking how to do this since we put it in place and no one knows the answers. I am smarter than I was day 1 - now I know what I need and am searching for a replacement system. (4 industry competitors bought the same software - we are all looking to replace. We are a bar grill setting.)