Reduced IT costs, Improved staff experience and greater overall efficiency of our business practices.

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.

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.

My existing business had an old time cash register when I purchased it. At the beginning 12+ years ago it worked ok for me. But over the years as prices rose. I had no way of knowing at a glance what I paid for an item and what I should be selling it for. I was losing money! I was familiar with another accounting system but it required extensive time at home each night entering hand written A/R bills and daily till totals into its system so I could bill customers. I had heard of Windward several years prior but just didn't think I could afford it. A new employee who had experience with other systems encouraged me to purchase. Implementation was so much work because I didn't have any inventory computerized. No lists and I jumped in in the middle of a month and a fiscal year. I was going to finance the purchase over 2 years but decided to put it on my line of credit. I paid it and my new equipment off in 6 months! I have now used the software for 7 years and am very happy with it. It has saved me about $2000.00/year in accountant fees. Love the fact that all monthly Provincial and Federal sales tax reports are easily paid. It has an employee section with payroll etc. So easy to upload inventory that is new from an excel spreadsheet.

Inventory from multiple suppliers with barcodes have to be entered in as coming from one main supplier with all other suppliers entered in as alternates. The barcode can't have any supplier attached to it or my computer makes a loud beep. I purchase by item # not by barcodes. I wish the system would let you enter item #'s from each supplier with the corresponding barcode even if it is also the same barcode for another supplier. I am not always aware that the product coming from one supplier is already in my system under a different supplier.

Our overall experience was extremely poor and detrimental to our business. All our staff were frustrated ( I nearly lost staff), some customers were frustrated, we invested so much money, and have in turn lost so much money. Oh and did I mention the time invested. All that time I spent, all a waste, the time my staff spent which I paid for, such a waste. So much stress that my whole team went through only to end up worse off. Before we went live, in my gut I had doubts due to my experience with Windward staff in the lead up transition period. But unfortunately I have faith in people, and faith that people tell the truth, and they assured me that the Windward System 5 was an investment in my business- to have confidence, to go live and realise the benefit. Oh so wrong. The system just plain and simple had so many glitches and caused more harm than good to my business. Once live, it just got worse and worse. In hindsight, I should have listened to my gut in implementation, written the money invested off as a bad business decision and aborted. By pushing on, I cost my business so much more, and then blindly I stayed for the full 60 days as required by the refund clause, further harming my business, only to be told they were not giving me a refund anyway. Also if you are in a different timezone, that is another thing to be wary of. When I signed up they promised local support as they had two people in Australia. But these staff left and no one replaced them.

We are a retail shop with a mechanic workshop out the back. The special order process was a positive, but unfortunately when you think of all the difficulties, costs and time loss from the rest of the system I can't go so far as to say it is a pro. The idea of the detailed security and reports options is good, but due to extensive glitches never realized any benefits. Unfortunately the reports and exports were missing data, which meant reconciliation was problematic, and the security just caused glitches and locked my staff out of the system. Due to this, the amount of bookwork to fix the mess is just huge, this system is continuing to cost me in staff costs and time even though I have left Windward. Ultimately this POS system was one of the worst business decisions I have ever made and I do not recommend it all.

The implementation is long and tedious. We worked hard with 'technicians' to ensure quality data was loaded. We had 5 different implementation technicians as 2 left the company, one they allocated to us didn't suit the timezone, one provided intermittent help, & one was finally helpful. Windward waived some licencing fees to compensate for lack of support as we were paying for a licence we could not use. Windward then deleted all my data and we had to start again. The daily technical staff in are in a Philippines call centre, they failed to fix most issues. Due system glitches we had no choice but to leave despite due to it harming our business. A huge amount of funds and time invested. Windaward refused to provide refund despite us doing the mandatory 60 days. Glitches include BUT WERE NOT LIMITED TO: mixing up data across customer records showing machines that belonged to other customers on accounts (nothing to with our data); showing bills and outstanding amounts for other customers on accounts; continuously locking our staff out; full system outage; slowing down sales; daily sales reports inaccurate; export reports missing data. Windaward technicians use a licence you have paid for to investigate their system's issues further undermining your business as you've less workstations. We wired the internet throughout our shop as they suggested, this resolved no issues. We found usability to be poor, search functionality poor, & it would take us many steps to do basic things.

One of the most recent benefits is the available training in many different areas of the Windward software program. This is an incredible asset to streamlining and improving day to day business practices for us. When we find out things the program can do for us that for years has just been sitting there not being used, we're like a kid in a candy shop....Excited...Wow!!

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!!

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.

the main function of our business, our retail set up revolves around the software making it easy to operate day to week, to month to yearly. it has been absolutely essential. recording & keeping track of everything form our substantial amount of inventory, along with accounting, reports, staff, ect. our main source of operations for sure. :)

that is is absolutely fluent in keeping all of our information organized & keeps me able to do my job as a 1 woman Owner/Operator. without this softwear we would not have been able to stay open for the past 11 years without the ease of Windward System 5, for my retail business.

for us a small retail shop, the maintenance & updating costs are quite high & out of our price range on a year to year basis.

more up to date information and tracking of items with serial numbers, it was easy to set in place policies and see where we lacked and brought in a lot of controls in the company

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

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

We can now track customer purchases more easily. Inventory control is faster and easier than before.

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.

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.

An All in One Sales, Customer tracking, Promo & follow up, Bookkeeping & Accounting Software With Great Support.

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.

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

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

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

It saves me time. We used to run and inventory program, a bookkeeping program and an ecommerce program. It combined these 3 programs into one.

That it is easy to train our employees on. Great help videos! I really like their integrated ecommerce. It is nice to update one price in our system and to have that price automatically updated on our website.

Not so great for my outside sales staff. We run their WEAR program for our outside staff. It tends to have errors as it is similar to running just a backup version. I also wish that their ecommerce did not run in HTML only

We have solved issues with double ordering Special Orders, have streamlined Purchase Orders, Receiving, Price Changes, Showroom tag printing. I am able to compile reports simply, where it use to take days. Taking inventory is so much faster using data collectors and being able to import the files.

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.

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.

We have been using System 5 since 2003. The system has scaled to our operation as we grow. The accounting side is robust and handles all our AP- AR- and General Ledger needs. Purchasing is fully automated. Billing customers can be fully modified with "Types" and "subTypes" to keep the status of orders updated and classified. Our inventory and product locations have been controlled and managed with the Advanced Inventory Control. The system is constantly being improved with fixes and new features multiple times per month. The database is rock solid. After 14 years, we never have had data corruption requiring the loading of a backup. All our employees depend on the info from system 5 to make decisions and give customers information. The ability to customize and provide information to users is endless and grows each year. We have used the barcode function and have 40,000 SKUs barcoded and labeled. We have even barcoded our rental equipment. We rely on this system for everything and for 14 years it has been bulletproof. Because we sell, service and rent serialized equipment, the "UNIT" way of handling things is great. Provides cost, service and income information.

We could not run our business without the information and order that the system provides! 1. Ease of use- Everything is in one program 2. Total integration- We don't need to transfer data to another program like QuickBooks 3. Strong Accounting, Control, and reports- Ability to customize GL and P&L format and multiple years. 4. Hundreds of pre-built Reports- We rarely do custom 5. Ability to create custom reports 6. Barcoding and Barcode printing- Couldn't live without it 7. Integrated Credit card Processing-Vantiv- Saves errors and time 8. Moves easily from desktop to desktop - configures easily when replacing stations 9. Weekly online training to learn features. 10 Responsive support staff who find the answers to any questions. 11. Ability to attach pictures and documents. 12. Unit history on serialized items. 13. Automated output of data, pictures pricing and descriptions to our Website

Probably not really a con But there are so many features available, it take some time to learn and put them into daily practice. The rest are just enhancements we'd like to see !! First, We would like to see the RMA system simplified. Second, we would like to see the E-commerce platform developed more. We are using it now for our website, but we would like to see more features and search options. Third, we would like to see the Timecard function developed and enhanced. Fourth, we would like to see the offering of more credit card processing options. Fifth, we would like the ability to attach PDF's to items, instead of JPG. But all in all, the system works really well!

my sales person has been very helpful. Even though I really complained to him when I had to upgrade the pervasive side of Windward. It was not that much, but as a business owner, I felt like everyone has there handed out to collect money. This is not Windwards fault, I had not upgraded pervasive in awhile and really did not know I had to. When my business burned in May of 2016 I had the backups but the three backups where all in the building. I dug through the debris and found the server and windward did not ask for any money to help me get the information back uploaded. I did not have a support package at that time and they could have asked me to upgrade the software and pay for a support package. Windward did not ask me for any money at all. Their technical department spent about 3 hours with my computer guy getting the information linked back up because some of the files where lost. I got locked out of the system and windward again helped me get back in. Thanks again Windward. Mike Kernea owner of Skyline Power Equipment

What I mean by the switches. This program allows you to set up the program the way you want it. It does have a default setting, but I have found that each company is different and require certain information. When sitting up the program go somewhere quiet with no distractions. Also if the program does what you want it to you do not have to upgrade.

If you don't upgrade then it is very hard for the company or technical support to help because they are running on another version.

Windwards Systems INC gave a great sales pitch and were recommended by our Marketing Partner Spectra. Unfortunately, I should have researched their reviews better prior to spending a lot of money and 4 months of frustration with the implementation of the new system. I had really hoped we could integrate our Lights America system with Windward Systems as promised. However, the issue was reported at the beginning of February to their IT Support. After 2 months of not being resolved, us unable to go further in the implementation and being told only one (1) support person could resolve this issue in their company! Not to mention that one (1) IT support person worked night shift and would call us at 9:00 pm Eastern Time for us to login the system so he could troubleshoot! Are working hours are 8:00 am to 4:30 pm. That was just one issue. The other issue was moving our information from our old software to the new software. We were requested to provide them with spreadsheets of the information to upload. We paid our current IT Support to pull all the spreadsheet and I sent them to Windward only to be told the setting up of the spreadsheets from our old system to Windward was "a lot of work" My question to them was "a lot of work for you?" or "a lot of work for me?" The answer was for me to send the the spreadsheets after setting them up and work 40 + hours attending to my business. I feel that for the amount Windward was costing, their IT Support should have taken the "work" on them

It seemed easy to use. Seemed easy to set up. Seemed to do everything I would need to run POS, Inventory, Payables and Accounting.

Lack of IT Support. Please read my experience.

I installed System 5 for my "brick and mortar" business in 2003. This is one of the best investments I have made for my business. I have thousands of parts & customers, and hundreds of suppliers. Most of my inventory is tracked by serial number. "Windward" is pretty quick in spite of my huge database, and the interface makes it very easy to look up info (such as customer past purchase history, showroom display serial numbers, etc). I've had great phone support when updating to newer releases, migrating the application from old servers to newer servers. Their support team has patiently even helped me through accounting questions. Once, my whole system was completely dead because my tech support guy did something on the server, and WW resolved it right away. For me, a key capability is being able to import and export information easily into and out of Excel, so that I can maintain pricing for so many parts from many suppliers. I also use Excel for sales analysis and budget reports (outside of WW), so we can "slice and dice" the data (13 years worth) to analyze leading indicators of sales trends, for example. Since work orders can be populated from an external data file, I've created an external visual interface to create the work order line items for our more complex customer configurations, and have them load automatically into a work order. After 13 years, I have a laundry list of things I would like to see added or changed in the system. However, reliability and dependability are my top priorities and on that front, WW has been excellent. Windward returns calls, answers questions, owns up if the issue is on their end, finds acceptable temporary workarounds, and makes me feel that my business success is important to them. They do NOT create barriers to communication, throw up brick walls ("that's just the way it is"), or tell me I'm running my business the wrong way ("most of our customers don't change their prices just because their costs change") - which I have actually experienced with other software vendors. During implementation, I designed my categories to support the ways I wanted to be able to analyze the data in both WW and in Excel. If you don't have any software background, I would strongly recommend working with a reseller/design consultant for the initial layout and installation (which I think would be true for any accounting system), because that will set you up for success going forward.

This system is chalk full of great concepts but it always falls short of our needs. The band-aids given for our issues are never a resolution, just a temporary fix and often more work. System Five does work, it crashes every few months but overall we can continue with business. We will continue with System Five.

There are many features that could be incredibly useful. The reports have vast options which we utilize often.

It seems every update an equal amount fixed gets broken. We always seem to be chasing down issues and fixing bugs. There is not one week we do not have issues in our system, user or system error. Every feature seems to tap out in functionality. They all have an amazing idea, but when we try to use them there is always a reason it does not work for our system or with our data.

Since we have moved onto Windward System Five the improvement to our business have been and still remain extraordinary. System Five has given me the ability to work in an environment with real time information. With complete integration my business can process sales, my office team can work on accounting and financial transactions, inventory can be taken, purchase orders can be processed and more, all while maintaining flawless real-time information so that I can make decisions for my business quickly. In addition, we are able to process sales faster with integrated credit card processing, give a more profession look to our business with custom made integrated gift cards, we can print clean shelf labels right from the inventory record giving a profession look and assuring accurate pricing, barcode inventory items that do not have them, add multiple barcodes to items and a whole lot more.Support for this product is nothing short of impeccable! Windward offers 24/7 technical support from friendly, well trained technicians that work endlessly to keep your company up and running smoothly. The overall performance of this product in astonishing. It truly has the ability to accommodate anything I want to do to operation my business more efficiently. System Five is a very user friendly product that is easy to learn and understand. The customer service and support are friendly, understanding, concerned about your business needs and willing to do whatever it takes to help you run your company and accommodate your business needs. Speaking from one entrepreneur to you others out there, this is a product made for us! It is a fast, efficient, well build program that gives us the ability to run our businesses the way we want, collect information quickly with its wide array of reporting options so we can make better decisions, and free up our valuable time so we can get out there and do what we do best ' run our businesses! For those out there who would give this product anything less than a perfect review, I would like to challenge your business and management skill as the software is not the problem. This product gets five stars from me on all fronts! It's truly the integrity of my business and I could not imaging running my company without Windward System Five. For those of you considering I say go for it, it's the best investment you can make.

Far cheaper than our old system. Also much better feature set.

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.

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.

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

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

All in one program for inventory to A/R and A/P etc.

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.

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.

Staff and customer service who don’t care once you have transferred your funds. Issues will be addressed in a timeframe that will not only frustrate but will cost your company from making money or being able to grow. This company has a terrible attitude and software package that has become so unstable windows 95 has become jealous.

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.

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.

spent alot of resources and time to get their web module to sell online and they discontinued it the next year just as inventory came online

Windward is just there for your monthly fees, not to support you

glitches in the system for inventory control, does not count correctly stock constantly out

It took a little time to learn the features but we have been very pleased with how this software works for us in our retail Hobby Shop. We have a huge inventory which is constantly changing - no problem for Windward. Windward handles our point of sale including receivables. Tracks our purchases and payables and allows us to create reports and bar codes and so much more. I can't imagine a type of business that could not function with this very extensive software at a reasonable price. Lots of good updates and fast help available when you need it.

Ability to design inventory reports that provide us detail on what has been sold in a date range and allows us to purchase wisely.

Only one thing I would like to see added: A report to show income and expense in a spreadsheet by month.

I really don't know what we like most about the software. We have had the system for almost 10 years and it has never worked well for us, even after investing tens of thousands of dollars...

Not user friendly. Expensive. Support doesn't know how to fix the problem most of the time. System not capable of performing functions that are necessary for our business. Confusing. Have spent hours and hours trying to get the system to work correctly without success. Hired someone to come help us learn the system better that cost us almost so much money and we weren't any further ahead than before they came.

Improved inventory management and tracking of customer service orders

We like the way we can track service and parts for our customers and how the point of sale system tracks our inventory

The payroll module isn't as easy to use as the point of sale module and fine tuning forms can be very confusing