Aldelo POS is a restaurant POS for smaller entities, emphasizing simplicity, from the company of the same name in Pleasanton.
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PayPal Zettle
Score 7.6 out of 10
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PayPal Zettle (formerly PayPal Here) is a POS and payment processing system that includes either a mobile card reader or a chip reader (hardware), and is powered by the mobile PayPal Here app. Admins can add up to 1,000 users per account, and the app also includes invoicing, reporting, and inventory management features. The pricing structure for payment processing is: 2.7% per US card swipe. 3.5% + $0.15 to key in cards. 2.9% + $0.30 to invoice. 1% for cross-border transfers.
Aldelo POS is great for small to midsize single location restaurants. Unless you go with the cloud model you're limited to that. Aldelo is great for limited menus and places that do not track inventory in their POS. Once you go with a very large menu, be prepared to spend a lot of time getting it entered and working properly! Multiple stations are no problem and it runs well on older hardware too. Overall, a pretty solid system!
Despite the time that you have to wait to be able to receive the money for each transaction made through the PayPal Here POS system, I consider that it is a system that has a lot of potential and that, without a doubt, allows companies to obtain a lot of POS system cheaper, no need to pay for a bank POS system that is much more expensive and requires a more complex process to configure and register at the bank branch. I would definitely recommend PayPal Here for any small, medium or large company, it has excellent potential, the reading of the NFC chips is instantaneous and allows each credit or debit card to be recognized immediately and the transaction to be completed in a few seconds. It is a very advanced system, easy to use and very easy to configure, if you are looking for a system that is not so complicated to add a POS to your company, PayPal Here is the best option.
Reports: Live up to the minute data is something that any restaurant manager/owner wants. Aldelo does this well.
Backend store setup (for techs like me) is very easy once you know the system. Setting up the peripherals, station-specific settings and the like - all very easy and intuitive
Support: calling into support has always been a great experience, and perhaps the biggest sell point. I've even received help with expired support contracts. Their team is always at the ready to login or just offer the right advice driven solutions for the current support needs. Great job here!
Credit cards: we've all seen it with the EV revolution. Once that happened, using whatever merchant/payment processor went out the window. Aldelo - to my knowledge - only integrates directly with 4 processors. They need to add a lot more than that IMHO!
Menu setup/rollout: this can test even the most talented veterans. Depending on the menu and the modifiers - this can go easy or be an outright nightmare to setup. A more intuitive process is direly needed here.
Inventory: Well, none of my clients use it. Make it a value addon? Just get rid of it and leave to another solution? Inventory is a job I and of itself. Most restaurants I've dealt with are way too busy and shorthanded to do this properly anyway.
The fees are a little bit high, although all POS and payment systems do charge fees.
Sometimes signing in and getting things to connect through our web store can be a challenge. It is great once it is set up but downloading plug ins and setting up initially is a challenge.
We have in-store pick up items that customers pay for at pick up and shipped items which customers pay for through the PayPal Zettle portal at checkout. This was very confusing to set up. I wish there was an easier way to mark items as payment upfront and payment later.
The overall usability was good for our organization. We rarely experienced much downtime or errors when using PayPal Zettle for business transactions. Some of our IPhone users had login and security issues a few times. That was the exception to the rule and we have been able to operate consistently for the majority of the time.
Support hasn't been needed in the 2 years of using PayPal but I have received calls from the company in the past asking about my experience with the device that was sent to me and they were pretty helpful with advice. Support is all over the internet if needed but for emergencies, so it is best to contact them during business hours.
From the list above Aloha POS would be the closest to a restaurant POS, it's actually a very good one. As with any software, it does the same basic things, and in all likeliness, this has improved as a platform. It's been a while since I used it, so I don't want to provide out of date info. I listed Counterpoint because I currently manage a busy retail store that uses CP and they are opening a second location that will add bar and restaurant-style services to the CP system. That said, CP is retail first but looks like it will handle the restaurant/bar side of things nicely. Hard to recommend this solution for anyone other than high (HIGH!) end retailers as the upfront and overtime costs can be big. I wouldn't recommend for restaurants.
Square has good software and is relatively easy to use. The Square payment screen is more advanced than the basic model that PayPal uses. However, PayPal was a service that I already used-- and the company made it easy to integrate it into our business. Convenience and ease of use were key.
Never been a loss to invest in Aldelo. It pays for itself very fast (software licensing).
If you do the hardware right it can get expensive and take a little longer to see the ROI. All in one touchscreens are pricey, especially for the better brands. The peripherals are specific too: thermal printers, specialized impact printers for the kitchen, etc. They all add up quickly.
The ability to monitor sales and adjust menus accordingly has to be priceless to an owner.
One positive impact that PayPal here has had on our business is the ability to accept credit card payments which in itself increases our customer basis by 50%.
When PayPal fails, we have to pay higher fees to other processors, although I don't have an exact dollar impact.
When we struggle to take a payment using PayPal Here it makes our customers uneasy.
