Mr. Jordan Nelson from Merchantmaverick reviewed top 10 retail POS software – GOFRUGAL’s Cloud solution TruePOS, He say TruePOS is a web-based point of sale system that allows you to access and manage your business from a range of platforms, including personal computers, touch-screen kiosks, tablets, and mobile devices. The software was developed by a company called GOFRUGAL Technologies, located in Chennai, India. From small shops to enterprise-level businesses with multiple locations, TruePOS can be adapted to a variety of structures and sizes across different industries. TruePOS works even when the network connection is down, which is an important service for a web-based POS system to offer.
TruePOS is just one GOFRUGAL’s many software services; the company offers a range of management software geared towards retail, retail distribution, and downstream supply chain management. The software can be customized for small businesses or large chains and is available on-premise, on-demand, and via mobile devices according to business needs. In 2009, GOFRUGAL was recognized as the winner of the Best Retailer Supplier category at the Franchise India Awards. Go Frugal also received a 2008 Excellence in Innovation and Technology award from Franchise India.
Right now TruePOS’s client base is primarily in India, but this may change as GOFRUGAL continues to market to an international base. The English version of the TruePOS website presents a product that is competitive with many US-based software services. It is easily one of the most complex POS systems I’ve reviewed at Merchant Maverick. In fact, although TruePOS is a point of sale software, there is more emphasis on the business management tools than the POS itself. This is especially true because there are no direct credit card processing options integrated into the software—you’ll have to go through a third party merchant account to accept credit cards (although TruePOS can record the credit card transaction).
Read on for full coverage of TruePOS features.
Pricing:
First of all, TruePOS offers a 14-day free trial that doesn’t require a credit card to get started. I would recommend taking advantage of the free trial to get a feel for what the software can do.
If you do end up interested in the program and are ready to invest, the software will cost you $30 a month per register. This includes GOFRUGAL’s 24/7 email and phone support (though that support may be shoddy at best—see “Customer Service and Technical Service†for more information). You are allowed an unlimited number of transactions and the software—though cloud-based—will continue to function even while offline.
Web-Based or Locally-Installed:
TruePOS is entirely web-based. All of your shop data is stored on cloud servers and remotely synced to any device that has a web-enabled browser.
Specific Industry:
TruePOS is designed for retail, but there is some flexibility in the types of business structures it can adapt to. As far as retail goes, TruePOS is great for fashion, apparel, jewelry, shoes, electronics, sports, antiques, gift shops, and kiosks. It could also work for a supermarket or grocery store.
Interestingly, TruePOS is also marketed for businesses in the publishing and distribution industry, which is something I haven’t encountered in a POS before.
Specific Size of Business:
Both small, single-location businesses and enterprise level chains can tailor the TruePOS software to their business structures. I would feel a little hesitant recommending POS software that doesn’t even have built-in credit card processing to a large business with multiple locations. That being said, TruePOS does have some features specifically designed for businesses that require advanced inventory and customer management functions.
Ease of Use:
The company is based in India, something that became immediately apparent to me because the English—though understandable—was not translated quite right. Also, some of the industry terminology is slightly different than the wording used in the United States (i.e. “landing cost,†“MSR reader,†etc.) which made navigation a little frustrating, but not impossible.
Despite the language barrier, I found it easy to get started with the demo. TruePOS guides you through the initial setup with a built-in setup wizard. The number of currencies and languages that TruePOS supports impressed me. It was also easy to organize multiple tax brackets.
However, the actual interface wasn’t so easy to navigate and lacks the modern ascetic of most up-and-coming POS systems. I got stuck during the “Add a new item†process. Some of the information fields were unfamiliar, and I couldn’t intuitively figure out how to add a product to a master category, and the interface wouldn’t allow me to add a new product until every single field was completed. After creating the new item, I tried to ring it up in a sale, but found I couldn’t call the item up until I had logged out and back into the system (that’s the only way to guarantee changes take place). Even then, I realized that the product could not be added to a sale without entering a stock quantity in inventory (a completely separate process from the initial item entry). I made the changes, logged in and out, and was finally able to ring up a sale, but was left incredibly frustrated with the process.
There are also a lot of short-keys that have different functions such as New, Save, View, Print, Clear, Close. In order to tender a sale, you have to press “Save†and enter in the payment information, and I have to say this confuses me. Intuitively, I would think that saving a transaction would be a way of storing it in the system to be completed later, but this is not the case. This confusion extends to other areas of the interface as well. I found myself repeatedly asking, “What does this do?â€
Overall, it’s obvious that TruePOS has a lot of advanced management features, but they aren’t nearly as intuitively presented as other POS software I’ve reviewed. Any merchant that uses TruePOS will need to be prepared for a much more substantial learning curve than the average cloud-based POS.
Hardware and Software Requirements:
TruePOS is web-based, which means it runs on any device with a browser, although the minimum resolution supported is 1024 x 768, which creates some limitations. The program runs on Windows, Mac, and Linux accessed through web browsers such as Firefox, Chrome, Safari, and Internet Explorer 10.
The software is compatible with a range of hardware, and the website states that you should be able to set up your hardware easily and independently. If you do need hardware installation assistance you can go with TruePOS’s “Solution Experts†team which offers remote setup and training at $60 for 4 hours.
Below is a listing of supported hardware peripherals. There are so many options available that the prices may widely vary according to brand.
- Barcode Scanner – Scan items right into your POS with all models from NEC, Posiflex, and Essae. You can also use TruePOS with some Argox, Metrologic, PSC, and Symbol models.
- Barcode Printer – TruePOS is compatible with all models from Avery Dennison, Citizen, Godex, NEC, Posiflex, Ring, TSC, and Zebra. You can also use some Argox, Toshiba, and TVS models.
- Printers – TruePOS has some advanced printing options such as sales invoices, delivery note, sales order, purchase order, goods receipt, credit/debit report, payment vouchers, and sales quotes. Compatible printer vendors include TVS, Wipro, Epson, and Cisitzen.
- Credit Card Readers – You can scan credit cards with all credit card readers from TVS Electronics and Posiflex.
- Weighing Scale – If you need to sell products by weight you can connect the TruePOS interface to any weighing scale from Essae, GB, or Mettler Toledo.
- Cash Drawer – Compatible cash drawers include any model from Essae or Posiflex.
Product Features:
TruePOS has quite a range of features—more than I can cover here. If you want to go over a complete breakdown of the basic features, you can check out this feature overview.
- TruePOS Insight Suite – The Insight Suite covers management of 8 different departments within the software. Each of these categories has multiple dropdown lists of additional features. The Insight suite is a powerful tool (if you have the patience to learn how to use it).
- There’s Sales, which covers quotes, orders, sales, and returns (all outgoing sales and purchases).
- Then you’ve got Purchase, which is essentially a collection of tools that helps you manage incoming products (vendor product orders, supplier invoices, receipt notes, purchase returns, etc.).
- The Stock category allows you to manage all of your stock, serial numbers, inventory counts, selling prices, and vendors.
- You can review your bills, pending payables, receipts, ledgers and registers in the Finance and Account category.
- Adjust interface-wide functions in the Masters and Settings area.
- Set advanced tax functions under the tax category. Import/export data sets from any part of the software (customer database, financial reports, etc.).
- Finally, review reports and analyses and manage your peripheral hardware in the Reports and Accessories section.
- International Compatibility – TruePOS can handle multiple currencies at a time without any error in the transaction records. You can view the transaction in the base currency or in foreign currencies. The only limitation here is that TruePOS doesn’t support currencies with 3 or more decimal places. TruePOS is available in English, Tamil, Kanada, Chinese and Hindi. It can also handle tax formats used across the globe, including VAT, Service, and GST & PST. Similarly, TruePOS can handle barcoding systems used in different parts of the world such as EAN Codes (Europe), UPC codes, IMEI, ISBN and more. All of these features make TruePOS an excellent option for international merchants.
- Advanced Features – One advanced feature I like is the Assembly Item option. Say you have a computer bundle with a printer, server, screen, and mouse pad. With the Assembly Item function, you can include all of these individual inventory items as one product. When you sell the bundle, the inventory deducts stock from each of the individual products. Another advanced feature I like is the Sales Bill Touch Screen. This is a version of the POS geared for mobile devices with touch screens, though it can be used on any device with a touch-responsive screen. This version of the POS is simpler than the regular, web based POS, which I actually prefer.
Positive Reviews and Testimonials:
As with the negative reviews, I didn’t come across any positive feedback from TruePOS clients. The TruePOS website does have some good testimonials and case studies that are worth checking out. Here’s what TruePOS has going for it.
- Competitive Pricing – Though not of supreme importance, price is an important factor to consider when selecting the ideal POS system for your business. For the depth of features offered by TruePOS, I am impressed by the price of the software. Though the learning curve may be steep and you will have to dedicate more hours to the training process than you would with more intuitive POS systems, the bang you get for your buck makes it worthwhile.
- Adaptable – TruePOS can be adapted to a small business or a large one with multiple locations and complex management needs. It’s hard to find truly scalable software.
- Advanced Features – Even though some of TruePOS’s advanced features require a little bit of study to figure out, once you have them in place you have a lot of really powerful features at your fingertips.
Final Verdict:
What do I think about TruePOS? Overall, I think it’s a decent product for the right business. In terms of the fee and licensing structure, TruePOS is just as feasible for small one-store shops as it is for larger multi-store enterprises. The advanced inventory and reporting features are also ideal for larger businesses. It’s also capable of adapting to multiple retail environments, which is another count in its favor.
Content Source Merchantmaverick