Springboard Retail works for Wholesale Companies, too

We found Springboard Retail after searching for a program that can manage many elements of a wholesale business all in one program. We started using it Summer of 2014. We are now able to manage our inventory that is in our office and out with sales reps and on consignment. Although there is no "consignment" part to the program, there's a workaround within the system that is fine. Since everything is in the cloud, we have access to this information anywhere and anytime, even on a mobile phone with the app. It is especially helpful at tradeshows. The reporting functions are amazing and show us very valuable information about sales and products and locations of products that we never had before. Each inventory item allows you to add images and customize as you need. You can duplicate items easily and set up frequently ordered items as needed. It does take some practice to learn everything, especially since we use the program from a wholesale view but once you figure everything out, it is very quick to use and invaluable to our company now. The support service always gets back to us right away if we have a question or problem (which isn't very often). My only issue is with our Quickbooks integration. The integration pushes invoices or credits over to Quickbooks from Springboard as journal entries but then you have to re-enter the invoice/credit specifics into Quickbooks in order to actually have the info/details in Quickbooks. Then we run a Quickbooks report to make sure we haven't missed any invoices. It is a bit time consuming and there is room for error if you forget to enter in an invoice or mistype something. Springboard has said they are working on a better way to handle this but we haven't received any details yet. This one issue is small compared to the positives of the software. I would highly recommend it to any business that needs to manage inventory in one or many locations and is looking for a great reporting system.

Pros

Manage inventory, run reports, invoice and credits, manage consignments -- everything is all in one program. It's mobile and in the cloud so we have access anywhere and anytime. Support always responds in a timely manner.

Cons

Quickbooks integration not the best, but works with a little effort.

DLM Supply

I have been very pleasantly surprised about how well Springboard has worked out for our Men's Clothing boutique in Dallas. My colleague and I did some extensive research in POS systems. We both had a history of working with larger clothing retailers so we were accustomed to robust reporting, advanced order systems, and detailed item management. Springboard has been able to deliver on all fronts. I've also come to appreciate the support system that is built in. There is a message board available to submit requests/questions and the follow through has been pretty good. They have listened to some of our feature requests and I have noticed a couple of them were implemented on the following system update (which they also do frequently). We are currently working on getting our website up and running on Shopify, and the integration is working great in terms of syncing inventory.

Pros

Reporting, reporting, reporting. Reports are entirely customizable and there are several metrics to choose from. I feel like i have been able to replicate several of the reports that I had available to me at the large corporation that i worked at, and that has been very impressive. User friendly interface on the POS. Very easy to teach to new users. Detailed item management capability with unlimited customizable fields. Allows for even more robust reporting. Ipad app works well

Cons

There were a couple bugs early on when using certain browsers. We now use Google Chrome more often than not and it seems to be working fine. I wish the item management integrated more seemlessly to our Shopify site, but i think this is nitpicking a bit since most of the other POS systems don't even offer any integration. Definitely pricier than the competition, but you get bang for the buck. Web based interface is risky if you have network connectivity issues. We have been lucky thus far, but I could see this as being an issue for others. Wish there was an iPhone app, a little hard to view on the iPhone browser.

Over Promise & Under Deliver

On the recommendation of another store in the area that uses Springboard I decided to try them out. I was initially told I would be able to use all my same equipment that I used with a previous point of sale system, later that turned out to not be the case & at considerable cost. Importing the product seemed to be an extraordinary challenge for them as well, even though they said they switched customers from my previous point of sale to theirs, "all the time." All in all it took them over 7 days to import, and I'm still missing information or have information in the wrong places. Once we were ready to go with product in place, the new machinery they made me purchase stopped communicating with their Point of Sale & after several hours on the phone & several hundred dollars of walk out business they were able to fix most of it, only to have it happen several more times in the next 3 weeks. I'm still waiting on a call back from tech support so they can look at some issues that happened a week ago. All in all, this is extremely disappointing software. Had I to do it over again, I would certainly not have switched to Springboard.

Pros

It's easy for my seasonal employees to use, but not remarkably more or less than any other POS.

Cons

I was sold, "So much more than point of sale. Springboard Retail is a powerful, cloud POS software and retail management platform designed to help you sell more, smarter." So far it has entirely failed to live up to that billing. Rather cumbersome to put transactions on hold & recall, no time clock feature, a 4 to 5 step purchase order to purchase receipt function that is again, a bit cumbersome.

Incredible System

Pros

We moved over from RICS because it was an older slower moving system. Springboard's reporting function is dynamic - it works as fast as my brain works. In the past, I would run a report on performance and invariably another question would come up while I was reviewing that report - In RICS I would have to go back and rerun another report (5 mins) - with Springboard I can slice the data any way I want in a matter of seconds. I also have been consistently impressed by the support team - any time I have a question, the team is available to answer my questions - and always with a friendly and helpful attitude. ALWAYS. I know their names, they know who I am, it just feels really comforting to know I have a support team who seems to care about my business as much as I do. If they don't have the answer I am looking for, they are always quick to provide a suggestion for a workaround AND add my need to a list of projects they have going forward. I have seen almost every single one of my suggestions turn into a feature on Springboard. I also really like that I can open up another register (Station) as my business dictates - I am not locked into paying for features that I only use seasonally.

Cons

There are not many bad things I can say about Springboard. Every complaint I have has been addressed - occasionally I will request a feature or a metric (Inventory Turn!) that is not available now - and for the most part I have seen them implemented. There are several features concerning Open to Buy that I would like to see going forward. Also, Springboard only integrates with one Credit Card Processor, and although they were able to give me a very low rate, it's not great to be locked into one option. Also there have been a few outages in service (very few but still a scary situation)

Springboard Retail is modern POS software at it's very best.

Pros

The Springboard Retail team hails from a multi-store retail background so they know first-hand what POS software needs to do, how it should work and that it must to be simple and intuitive to use. That is exactly what they have created; no fluff, incredibly flexible and reliable software that is as close as one can get to a custom written solution, offered at a reasonable price. Unlike many other platforms that try to serve restaurants, grocery stores, and everything in between, Springboard simply focuses on doing one thing incredibly well - retail. The software provides quick access to key customer information that enables sales staff to offer exceptional and personalized customer service, and offers the most extensive reporting system I've seen in the various products I've used or researched.

Cons

I'm hard pressed to find fault with Springboard Retail as it quite capably addresses all of our retail apparel multi-store needs. That said, there are aspects that can and undoubtedly will be improved upon to make it applicable to a wider range of specialty businesses. For example, I don't think it specifically handles service/repair requests, but with a little creativity and assistance from their knowledgeable support team it likely can. Great software must walk a fine line between maintaining simplicity and offering a plethora of features which inevitably clutter screens and steepen the learning curve. Springboard is designed to be simple, and as long as they hold true to this commitment, they will undoubtedly become an industry leader. Thus far, this is one of those rare instances where I feel fortunate to be a somewhat early adopter.