Canteen POS suppliers

[deKay]

I'd like to hear from anyone who has a GOOD canteen system which can integrate with ParentPay and SIMS, that uses (or can use) fingerprint scanners. Looking to possibly buy one reval unit, 4 tills, and whatever hardware and software to make them work.

 

Any horror stories and companies to avoid?

 

Thanks!

[twin--turbo]

I would avoid biometrics.

 

when looking at tills make sure the brand is well recognised like Poslinge Odysse which are found all over the place. Then if you change software vendor they should still be able to use the till.

 

TT

[Edu-IT]

Solution wise, I can recommend Nationwide Retail Systems. Not the cheapest but does what it's supposed to do and has been reliable thus far. Happy to answer any specific questions about the system.

 

I think their tills are re-badged, but, not sure!

[Sylv3r]

CRB Cunnignhams for us. Links with SIMS and the kit has been rock solid for us. It uses Biometrics with the IDStore software. Theres various other boltons which they demoed at BETT for password resets, lockers, pre-order kiosks which were also quite impressive.

[rad]

Another vote for Nationwide Retail Systems, we use PP and SIMs, with Bio readers.

We now have the latest HD scanners (grey ones) as apposed to the previous blue ones. The system works, we have had it since November 2010 and have had one issue in that time which was easily resolved. If you contact local schools to see what they have and go and view the live system. If you were closer you'd be welcome to come and view our setup.

 

PM me if needed.

[Garacesh]

Heh.. Hehehe.. Ehehehehe.. Hhhehehe.. POS. Sometimes very apt.

(What, I mean point of sale! Hush now!)

 

But we're also in the market for possibly bringing our POS in-house. So I'm gonna lurk in here. kthnxbai.

@twin--turbo, why would you avoid biometrics? We use fingerprint scanners and IIRC we only have 2 kids that have refused, so they get magswipe cards.

[IrritableTech]

We've been happy with Live Register. Not a big name, but the software does everything we needed it too and they were a fair bit cheaper than the other mentioned here.

 

We've five tills, two revals (although now we probably only need one), it links to sims and most parental payment systems (we use tucasi) and three of our vending machines also use the biometrics as well.

[nikaso]

I would avoid Cunninghams, the tills themselves aren't too bad but the support is shocking.

[Garacesh]

I would avoid Cunninghams, the tills themselves aren't too bad but the support is shocking.

 

*murmurs something that sounds suspiciously like "Yup."*

 

The tills ain't so great either. They haven't upgraded our tills past XP. Not exactly keen on having XP machines on our network, even if it is XP embedded.

[Arthur]

CRB Cunninghams for us. Links with SIMS and the kit has been rock solid for us.

Same here, except lately the rock solid part hasn't been true.

 

Our tills are getting quite laggy (probably due to the eight year old Atom N270 CPUs in them). Whenever we contact support, Cunninghams are always quick to blame our network or the VM the tills send the data to rather than their netbook-era hardware.

 

The tills ain't so great either. They haven't upgraded our tills past XP.

We must be incredibly lucky. Our tills have (32-bit) Windows 7 on them.

Edited February 3, 2016 by Arthur

[nikaso]

My most recent 'run-in' with Cunninghams involved a failing back office kitchen PC. It was a Dell with a failing HDD and was old as the hills as well so I wanted to swap it out for a new unit. Cunningham support firstly didn't return my call for three days and when I finally got to speak to them it went like this:

 

Me: So if you could just either talk me through the software install or remote in and do it that would be great.

Them: Well it would require chargeable engineer time because it isn't a PC supplied by us

Me: How much would that be?

Them: £500

Me: Is that the day rate?

Them: Yes

Me: It'll only take 30 mins surely? Is it a remote task or does it require an engineer onsite?

Them: It'll be a remote job but we charge for the full day

Me: (under my breath) Ok, how much are the desktops you supply?

Them: £500 plus £500 for the software installation

Me:..........forget it. **click**

 

 

Bunch of rip-off merchants.

[Boredguy]

I would avoid Cunninghams, the tills themselves aren't too bad but the support is shocking.

 

We had a bit of an ongoing issue with Support over integrating with Schoolcomms, but after 3 days of effort they got it all working. Two of the onsite engineers we had introduced other issues into our install, but remote support sorted them quickly enough. So far I wouldn't rate the support as Shocking but variable depending on the complexity of the problem.

[deKay]

Thanks everyone. I'll look into Nationwide, already have a quote from Cunninghams. We'll stick with biometrics as it's what we currently use, without major issue.

[twin--turbo]

We've been happy with Live Register. Not a big name, but the software does everything we needed it too and they were a fair bit cheaper than the other mentioned here.

 

We've five tills, two revals (although now we probably only need one), it links to sims and most parental payment systems (we use tucasi) and three of our vending machines also use the biometrics as well.

 

 

I have the remains of 2 live register door access scanners in my garage somewhere. Is Mike Hitchin (My Kitchen) still involved / Cyclone?

 

Standing in the rain twisting my thumb back and forth is the reason i avoid biometrics .

 

 

For our newbuilds we had Easytrace. With myfair cards that were ID, printing, doors, library, catering..

[IrritableTech]

I have the remains of 2 live register door access scanners in my garage somewhere. Is Mike Hitchin (My Kitchen) still involved / Cyclone?

 

Standing in the rain twisting my thumb back and forth is the reason i avoid biometrics .

 

 

For our newbuilds we had Easytrace. With myfair cards that were ID, printing, doors, library, catering..

 

 

Not a name I recognize, but I only deal with support these days (although not very often).

 

We've found the finger scanners to be pretty reliable. If there were long pauses between customers (serving hundreds in literally twenty minutes here) I'm sure I'd know about it. Now you mention it however we did have one issue where the canteen manager thought it would be nice to serve food outside on a hot sunny day - the daylight did cause finger reading issues, but our quick thinking low tech solution was to cover it with a serviette and place the thumb underneath!

[limawhiskey]

I'd echo other people's experience of Cunninghams.

 

When the system works it's decent; it reduces the stigma of free school meals, is more convenient for the parents that want to pay online, gives parents who want it an idea of children's meal choices and has driven up spending in the school canteen.

 

However, to me Cunninghams feels as though it's a bit of a bodged solution; too many interacting bits of software that don't really error check or seem very robust. Their call centre guys sound like the most beleaguered support team I deal with - their building must be a ground floor block otherwise Foxconn would have some competition for stats.

 

The engineers I've met from the company are nice enough and they get the job done. However the area rep and the management seem surprised that the standard of support is an issue and the company ethos seems to be along the lines of "never acknowledge there's a problem and if there is, blame the other guy".

 

 

 

In terms of suppliers, my best tip would be to look out for a system that seamlessly allows the till operators to start selecting items for payment before and/or during the biometric scanning, for speed. With Cunninghams the canteen staff have to wait for the fingerprint to be processed before they begin, so queue speed hasn't really improved over cash.

 

Other things to bear in mind:

Make sure there's someone in the school who registers new enrollments - you may need a small team with a schedule for the initial registration so plan for that. Make sure parents know how biometrics works (you're not taking copies of their children's fingerprints!) and how to register for online payments. Get your opt in forms returned as early as possible and make the biometric forms and registration part of the new starter procedure.

 

Figure out if you want to steer parents to use biometrics by deciding how you'll deal with those who don't opt in and if you want to steer towards online payment by the number of revals you have. It's not really cashless if the kids are carrying £20 into school every couple of weeks, and if there's always a queue for the reval at break the children will encourage parents to use the online payments. If you want to drive true cashless, consider saving money by not getting any revals at all - finance or the canteen admin can always make the occasional manual adjustment if necessary.

 

Ensure you have considered communication - make sure it's clear who is dealing with the company, who's responsible for the different aspects of the system and for raising support requests from the start. Is it network support, the finance team or the canteen staff?

 

Can you tell I've had some interesting challenges with our system?! If I think of any other tips I'll add them.

Edited February 3, 2016 by limawhiskey

[Linfit]

I'd echo other people's experience of Cunninghams.

 

However, to me Cunninghams feels as though it's a bit of a bodged solution; too many interacting bits of software that don't really error check or seem very robust. Their call centre guys sound like the most beleaguered support team I deal with - their building must be a ground floor block otherwise Foxconn would have some competition for stats.

.

 

Would agree with this absolutely. When it works, its OK, but its totally string and sealing wax, and when it doesn't work, their engineers basically prod and poke at it until "Hey, look, it started working again !"

[Homer]

I would give Biostore Fastrak a look, we have it in our school and while we're not huge yet I rarely get any issues from the cafe regarding tills.

 

The ID Manager side of it is brilliant, and the admin console is great too. It actually looks like software designed from 2010 onwards instead of a bunch of cobbled together Windows 9x/XP applications that don't work together!

 

Strongly recommend it: https://www.fastrak.co.uk/

[Rob_D]

Were moving from cunninghams to a full Biostore system (they already handle the biometric database for the cunninghams, papercut and library systems).

We've had mostly positive experiences with fingerprint scanners, we've use Zirksoftware digital persona readers in the canteen and they need cleaning periodically but otherwise work fine.

[deKay]

 

In terms of suppliers, my best tip would be to look out for a system that seamlessly allows the till operators to start selecting items for payment before and/or during the biometric scanning, for speed. With Cunninghams the canteen staff have to wait for the fingerprint to be processed before they begin, so queue speed hasn't really improved over cash.

 

 

Not something I'd even thought about but definitely important to us! Thanks!

 

 

Other things to bear in mind:

Make sure there's someone in the school who registers new enrollments - you may need a small team with a schedule for the initial registration so plan for that. Make sure parents know how biometrics works (you're not taking copies of their children's fingerprints!) and how to register for online payments. Get your opt in forms returned as early as possible and make the biometric forms and registration part of the new starter procedure.

 

Figure out if you want to steer parents to use biometrics by deciding how you'll deal with those who don't opt in and if you want to steer towards online payment by the number of revals you have. It's not really cashless if the kids are carrying £20 into school every couple of weeks, and if there's always a queue for the reval at break the children will encourage parents to use the online payments. If you want to drive true cashless, consider saving money by not getting any revals at all - finance or the canteen admin can always make the occasional manual adjustment if necessary.

 

These are already covered - our current system is biometric so students and parents are already on board, and we're doing everything to encourage payments online with ParentPay anyway. We literally just want drop-in replacement equipment.

[limawhiskey]

Not something I'd even thought about but definitely important to us! Thanks!

No worries

 

These are already covered - our current system is biometric so students and parents are already on board, and we're doing everything to encourage payments online with ParentPay anyway. We literally just want drop-in replacement equipment.

Ah OK, sorry, I didn't notice that. Hopefully useful advice for anyone browsing.

[deKay]

In the interests of balance, does anyone have any negative experiences with Nationwide?

[Love_Sausage]

A year ago, I'd have recommended CRB/Cunninghams, but since the merger the support calls have been a pain in the backside - what used to be available as support is now full of chargeable extras. The system works, but is getting clunky and they plague you with emails trying to sell their IDstore and other products.

[dapaulio]

My main site I support use vericool that became nationwide for the past 5/6 years. We had a number of problems in the early years but in the last couple years has become a stable system and support is always good. Hardware is quite expensive though. Epos @ £1500 each and reval @ £2000 each.

 

I was supporting another school that had cunninghams and the one occasion I have needed support it was shocking.

[deKay]

Sorry, they use Vericool, or they use Nationwide?