Cashless catering systems

[Frut02]

Currently using Cunnighams, with impact and (biostore)

 

Anybody else have a cashless catering systems they can reccommend, we are looking at changing the system

 

Thanks

 

Nick

[twin--turbo]

We have cashless.

 

Rob

[TomCollins]

Well if you're around London, BETT will be a good place to look, saw around 3-4 providers last year however do not have their details. If you're not around you can look at the exhibitors list on their website.

[fiza]

Currently using Cunnighams, with impact and (biostore)

 

Anybody else have a cashless catering systems they can reccommend, we are looking at changing the system

 

Thanks

 

Nick

 

Any reason you want to change? We have just started using Cunninghams so this concerns me a little!!! We had problems in Sept with getting through on the helpline but it seems to have settled down now.

[FN-GM]

Any reason you want to change? We have just started using Cunninghams so this concerns me a little!!! We had problems in Sept with getting through on the helpline but it seems to have settled down now.

 

We are another one who use them and dont like them. We are soon looking at dumping them.

[Frut02]

We found that the support has not been so great the last 18 months. We need to update our tills and as thats a cost we are just looking at other systems to see what else is out there.

[FN-GM]

We found that the support has not been so great the last 18 months. We need to update our tills and as thats a cost we are just looking at other systems to see what else is out there.

 

I tend to find many of the support people dont seem to know much about computers

[howartp]

I tend to find many of the support people dont seem to know much about computers

Hehe, sounds about right. And the average 28 hour call-back for support isn't great.

 

And their backend is strange - I mean when you have account balances and product prices of £3.999999998 or £9.000000001 you got to wonder which Currency they're using... I've never seen GBP having more than two decimal places.

 

Yes, we're also looking at replacing Cunninghams.

 

I was very interested in Nationwide's solution (Nationwide Retail Systems Ltd | One Stop cashless catering, hospitality and retail solutions.) when I visited it at BETT last year, and I've heard good things from those who do use it. Unfortunately I wasn't authorised to look into it when I was there last year, whereas this year I've got permission to look at options.

 

Peter

 

(Edit: Far too many sentences beginning with 'And...' in that reply!)

[FN-GM]

Used Nationwide at my last school, it was the first school in the country to go biometic cashless. It generally works better but it hard work when you want to install the apps. Manually copying files etc. I dont think it will work with BioStore either.

[TomCollins]

 

I was very interested in Nationwide's solution (Nationwide Retail Systems Ltd | One Stop cashless catering, hospitality and retail solutions.) when I visited it at BETT last year, and I've heard good things from those who do use it. Unfortunately I wasn't authorised to look into it when I was there last year, whereas this year I've got permission to look at options.

 

Peter

 

(Edit: Far too many sentences beginning with 'And...' in that reply!)

 

 

I think I visited them too, if I remember correctly, they provide all of their own equipment, meaning if any of it stops working you go direct instead of going to the manufacturer. The link I found was http://trust-e.co.uk/ which is the system Nationwide use.

[NikChillin]

Whoever you go with, make sure you get all the extra annual costings, adding new year groups, support etc. The price can mount up!

[jcollings]

We used to use Vericool and I wouldn't touch them with a barge pole! We have just implmented NRS Trust-e and so far it's been fine except for some issues with wireless tills. The support from NRS though has been great and they are really owning the problem rather than passing the buck to the wireless company.

[Edu-IT]

Seems like there's no 'perfect' system out there!

[Achandler]

We are meant to be going live with Nationwide over the next few months, so i'll try to remember to keep people informed on how well it goes.

[Steve21]

We are meant to be going live with Nationwide over the next few months, so i'll try to remember to keep people informed on how well it goes.

 

Nationwide Retail Systems? Good luck!

 

Currently with NRS and tempted to move away, had major issues trying to get any problem that's more than a simple 1 tick box fixed. Been 2-3 weeks at a time without our catering system, as they have no idea what's wrong, and it's being looked at. (Back to pen/paper during this time...)

 

Even something simple like the tick box to remove PinCode from users, won't work on any accounts we're given and allowed access to, and only on their engineer account which we can't use, and need to use a direct SQL patch on the server everytime a pincode etc needs removing.

 

Steve

Edited January 16, 2013 by Steve21

[Achandler]

Fill me full of confidence why don't you. I haven't actually had any input in which system we are going to use, just been tasked with getting it working.

[Steve21]

Fill me full of confidence why don't you. I haven't actually had any input in which system we are going to use, just been tasked with getting it working.

 

Sorry, Just updated above post to explain a bit.

 

Guess it's like everything, some people get on fine with them, some don't.

 

Steve

[nadeem]

We've been using Nationwide for 3 years now - not had the problems described in other post. My only thing I would like is for it to integrate into our AD

[Sylv3r]

We use CRB (northern version of Cunninghams). Had a few issues with slow support over the last 6 months but the product itself is OK - it's the nature of the hardware that effectively lets the system down. We are for ever having to restart the revalv machines etc before we manage to get them to work and accept peoples biometric details.

[john]

I was very interested in Nationwide's solution (Nationwide Retail Systems Ltd | One Stop cashless catering, hospitality and retail solutions.) when I visited it at BETT last year, and I've heard good things from those who do use it. Unfortunately I wasn't authorised to look into it when I was there last year, whereas this year I've got permission to look at options.

 

Peter

 

(Edit: Far too many sentences beginning with 'And...' in that reply!)

 

Happy Nationwide customer here, we have had it in since June last year and bar initial teething issues with new systems, procedures and ways of working (we went to it from cash tills) we have been fine. Support has usually been very prompt, had the odd delay but they have been apologetic and then knowledgeable so I don't see that as a major issue as any firm has good and bad days its how they handle it once they are supporting your issue.

 

Only on-going niggle is related to our youngest years having very small fingers but Nationwide have been helpful and things have improved for them but a good number are still on pins because of this as we just struggle to get them to press on hard enough to get a read of the finger, I am hopeful that it will improve as they get older as it is very much a small finger issue despite using thumbs.

 

We have it integrated with our Eclipse Library system and that works fine although as a small school its quicker for the librarian to just type the students name in to circulate and issue the book than finger on the reader, it would become more useful if we had self-issue which we don't have.

 

More than happy for you to pop and visit us to have a look at it in action if you wanted @howartp or catch up at BETT.

[Steven_Cleaver]

Nationwide here as well to be honest been pretty good odd teething problem at the start but no more than any new system, I always find if you can build up a good repour with any company provider when they first set up and you know who to contact and they get to know who you are and who they are dealing with has a reasonable amount of understanding it usually works fine like with everything I try and work out who it is best to contact to get things done and keep this information.

 

I used Cunnighams before and to be honest these were fine also although this about three years ago.

 

I think the reporting side in Nationwide is better Revals seem a little stabler than Cunninghams, probably now it is bedded in slightly less issues than I had with Cunninghams overall.

 

I think the Cunnigham Fingerprint readers were slightly better.

 

One tip if you do change to Nationwide you can take a copy of the Impact folder and have a copy of your past data which was handy for a couple of months as I had our Finance officer trying to tidy up her Finance side of things for a month or two after we changed over.

[eddyc]

We use a Gladstone system here which we have linked with WisePay, been very impressed.

Other than a few teething issues (mostly caused by students not bringing their cards on launch day) the system just works.

Gladstone Education > Home

 

Ed

[rad]

NRS here with parent pay. Happy customer after 2 years and 3months use. Only one issue that caused down time but was solved quickly.

[Webgeek]

We have had a Nationwide system at our school for nearly 3 years. A few niggles at first but other then that it just works. We also have it linked to our Heritage Library system and use Nationwide's attendance system for staff too.

 

We implemented Parent Pay in September 12 and had quite a few niggles with it. I would recommend doing this at the start of your implementation.

 

Ant

[NikChillin]

We use a Gladstone system here which we have linked with WisePay, been very impressed.

Other than a few teething issues (mostly caused by students not bringing their cards on launch day) the system just works.

Gladstone Education > Home

 

Ed

We had Gladstone but as we have a ASP/ SQL admin system it didn't work as we had planned. Don't think any cashless system would really anyway. They mostly are built around Sims etc. The support is important though. We have now gone to Cunninghams.