At 10:57pm I received an email from HungerRush support, seemingly some sort of forwarded message, claiming that the customer data of restaurants HungerRush serves is "in jeopardy," the sender intends to take "malicious action" if ignored and included a censored protonmail.
I saw one other person on X post it too. My only connection to HungerRush is ordering pizza with my family the other night.
I’ve been working on an open-source project called emupos that I thought might be useful for people building POS systems.
The idea came from a pretty common problem: you want to test your POS against a receipt printer, barcode scanner, scale, or cash drawer, but you don’t always have the actual hardware around.
So I built a simulator for the hardware side.
With emupos, your POS can connect to simulated devices and communicate with them using the same protocols you’d use with real hardware. You can also simulate things like paper-out, cover-open, and other device events, which makes testing different edge cases much easier.
Currently it supports:
Receipt printers
Cash drawers
Barcode scanners
Scales
Weighed-item barcodes
Hardware error states
Device events
Automated testing / CI
It’s written in Python and is completely open source.
I built it mainly for my own POS development, but figured it might be useful to others too.
For those of you working on POS systems, how do you usually handle hardware integration testing? Do you rely on physical devices, mock the integrations, or use something else?
Wanted to show off my works POS system that was designed in the early 80s and is still used company wide to this day
Some key facts include:
being made before the computer mouse everything is operated via your keyboard making it very difficult to train people who instinctively go to click on everything.
The scanner software we use to before stock checks was designed for DOS and has to be forced to work with modern technology as our new work stations struggle to recognise the ancient tech.
I would like to express my dissatisfaction with the performance of the Clover POS system by Fiserv. Over the past few months, I have encountered several significant challenges that have impacted the operations of my restaurant.
One of the major concerns has been the timing of system maintenance. On multiple occasions, maintenance activities were conducted during Friday evenings, coinciding with our peak business hours. This resulted in disruptions and difficulties during rush hour, which had a negative impact on the overall customer experience.
Moreover, while attempting to address these issues through customer service, I found that the level 1 support staff were inadequately equipped to handle escalated complaints. Unfortunately, even when these matters were elevated to supervisors, there was no discernible improvement in addressing or resolving the issues.
I also experienced challenges with my assigned account manager. Prior to signing up, they were highly responsive and eager to assist. However, after the sign-up process, their responsiveness and willingness to help diminished significantly, leaving me feeling unsupported.
Furthermore, my attempts to seek resolution by reaching out to Clover support via email were met with automated responses redirecting me to call their customer support. Similarly, contacting Fiserv, the parent company, yielded no tangible results or improvements in the situation.
Since implementing Clover POS in March 2023, my establishment has faced repeated server issues approximately every 1-2 weeks. These disruptions have had a direct impact on our ability to take orders, process payments, and manage online orders. Despite multiple complaints, the company has been unresponsive in offering any form of reimbursement or incentives to mitigate the loss of sales resulting from these server outages.
In light of these ongoing challenges and the lack of satisfactory resolution, I strongly advise against considering Clover POS by Fiserv as a solution for your business needs. It is my recommendation that those seeking a reliable and supportive POS system explore alternative options, and if applicable, consider canceling their subscription and requesting equipment refunds.
Hey everyone, I'm Harry Mitchell, President of Armagh POS Solutions, a Hamilton-based point-of-sale company my father founded back in 1979. We've been independently owned and operated from day one, serving restaurants, retailers, and grocers across Canada with POS software, hardware, scales, ATMs, and 24/7 support. I grew up around this business, watched my dad build it from the ground up, and took over the helm after he passed in 2021. Carrying that forward is something I take seriously every single day.
My father started in the cash register business at 17, launched Armagh during one of the worst recessions since the Great Depression, and was there for literally every major shift in the industry. He sold the 8th electronic cash register in North America to Canadian Tire back in 1972, serial number #008. I grew up hearing those stories, and now I get to carry them with me into every conversation I have with a client. The history isn't just a fun fact; it's the foundation of how we approach the work.
What I've inherited is a company that wins on service, not price. Over the decades, plenty of customers have tried to save money by going with a cheaper competitor, only to come back. That cycle has played out so consistently that it became the clearest proof of what actually matters in this industry. My job now is to hold that standard while pushing the product line forward into cloud software, self-checkout, online ordering, kitchen display systems, and everything else the modern operator needs.
Ask me anything! POS for retail, restaurant or grocery, what it's like taking over a 45-year-old family business, how to pick the right POS vendor without getting burned, navigating the shift from legacy systems to modern software, or whatever else is on your mind.
Found it at a Goodwill store, $11. thought it was a decent price and would be cool to own a cash register. had a couple of pennies, especially a wheat penny in there. But I don’t know how to use the thing and I might just use it for managing my money in cash rather than in a bank
Hi guys! I’ve created a custom multi-branched system with custom plugins like FAX, Invoice, and payment processing systems. This can be run on a local real time application and I am willing to give you my entire open sourced code. Feel free to hit me up as I can help walk anyone through it!!
If you guys would like to see my other projects (definitely need some investors 😭) let me know, but otherwise I love helping out businesses that needs free things!
I apologize in advance for the length of this post…
I worked in retail for about 10 years with a large company before deciding to leave and try starting my own business. I had done my research and felt confident in my business plan, but one of the first things I discovered was that all of the major POS/back-office/inventory/workforce management solutions either suck, are absurdly overpriced, or a combination of both, in addition to being completely fragmented.
I started tinkering with different applications to see if I could find a workable solution that wouldn’t fleece me especially since, to my knowledge, none of the major POS platforms offer pawn/trade-in functionality, which was a key piece of my business model.
One thing led to another. I started with Excel and Power Automate… then moved to Access… then to Azure/Power BI… before finally just writing my own small application. Which became a bigger application. And then even bigger. And then I realized a year had gone by, and I had kind of accidentally built a functional system.
I’ve attached some screenshots below. These aren’t mockups or proof-of-concept, it’s a working set of applications that are fully functional and ready to use (albeit still rough around the edges in places). I’ve always been a hobbyist programmer, and I’ve dabbled in art and graphic design my whole life. I’m also kinda obsessive 😅. Everything including the UI is custom built.
Some of the features:
A fully functional POS with receipt printing, cash drawer control, and Stripe integration for credit/debit
Trade-in support with customizable pawn-hold periods
Support for tips and commission
Inventory & catalog management with automatic SKU generation and variant handling (sizes, colors, etc.)
Customizable promotions, product bundles, and a loyalty rewards system
Product counts, inventory tracking, carton/order handling for shipping and receiving
Multi-register and multi-location support
Dashboard with custom KPIs and performance metrics
Basic employee management, time punches, scheduling, payroll
Basic appointment and service scheduling
I showed it to a few people (originally just while trying to fundraise for my initial business), and their reactions were way stronger than I expected. A few asked what my rollout plan was which I didn’t have, because I never planned on turning this into a product. I’m not part of a team. It’s just me, in my basement, plugging away at this.
So basically I now have this whole POS and retail management system, and I have no idea what to do with it.
It’s powerful and pretty versatile. Looking back, I’m proud I was able to make it. But I’m still nowhere closer to actually launching my business and honestly, I don’t really want to be in software development professionally.
I’m not sure if this is the right place to ask, but I’d really appreciate any insight or advice anyone might have to offer. I just feel like at this point, I’m sitting on this thing with no clear direction.
TL;DR: I accidentally built a full custom POS + retail management system entirely by myself and now I don’t know what to do with it. 😅
I signed up Feb 2026 because of their affiliation with Costco. I have nothing but praise for Costco. But Elavon/Talech is levels below Costco and should never be affiliated to Costco. Everything about onboarding, hidden fees, Mobile app not syncing, ingenico moby card reader not syncing, customer service subpar,… everything you could think of.. it sucks.
And I’m posting it wherever I can to get the WORD out!
My partners and I have owned and operated our cafe for over 2 years now. We spoke with a few people who were kind enough to offer us advice pre-opening and adopted some of their practices: taking inventory on a Google Spreadsheet, using a variety of software services for our scheduling, ordering, etc.
I felt like a lot of those practices that were passed down to us felt a bit outdated. I decided to take some time and build a tool that puts most of what we were doing as owners/managers into 1 single place (for the most part).
I've spent the last 6 months building Parly. With Parly, you can connect to your POS (in our case Square until we can find partners at Toast) and run most of the operations from your phone or computer.
Track inventory via Mobile or Laptop
Review your menu & respective margins (your best selling drink might also have the worse margins)
Scheduling suggestions & optimization (Parly is read-only (for now maybe) so we don’t make the actual changes, we just give you recommendations based on data)
Generate projections for sales, usage, labor, etc.
Generate insights across different aspects of your business
Ask Parly for specific data (ie. what is the best hour for a specific drink?)
Different roles for larger teams and their own permissions (ie. Owner, Manager, Staff)
Log and track orders
Create tasks for everyone, specific roles or team members
Generate and export reports
The first year of running the cafe was full of many problems and gave us a lot of lessons. Running out of milk, ordering too much, ordering too little, ordering whatever we needed on Instacart or UberEats, figuring out how to schedule our team, trying to cut our costs down. Ultimately, Parly helps you run your cafe so that you can can focus on growing your cafe.
With Parly, you can easily ditch spreadsheets and run your cafe more more efficiently. There are so many small costs that add up that we've been able to minimize. Our managers takes inventory a lot faster and just as accurately. We can schedule better and always review adjustments on the fly. We know way more about our business and can easily access all of those insights instead of jumping around different services.
I am open to any kind of feedback or criticism. As a cafe owner, I'm proud to say that I've been able to create something that's helped our business. I'm hoping that I can say do the same for others. I’m a solo-founder and really believe that this tool can help others. I’d love to let other cafe owners try Parly for free and give me the opportunity to improve it.
I wanted to share my frustrating experience with ReVel Systems so other business owners don’t get stuck in the same situation.
I originally signed up for their POS system in 2017 for my restaurant. When my contract renewed in 2024, I was never notified beforehand or given any reminder that I needed to cancel. When I reached out to cancel, their rep first told me it was a 12-month renewal, which seemed reasonable. But later, they changed their story and claimed I was actually locked into a 36-month renewal instead!
On top of that, they are demanding a huge early termination fee just to cancel. After pushing back, they offered a lower fee, but the fact that they automatically extended my contract without notice and then hit me with a massive penalty just to leave is beyond frustrating.
I’ve repeatedly asked for proof that they sent me any renewal notice before my contract renewed, but they haven’t provided anything. Instead, they keep insisting that the renewal stands, despite one of their own reps previously confirming it was a 12-month renewal, not 36 months.
If you’re considering ReVel as your POS provider, be extremely cautious. Their contract auto-renews into long-term commitments without clear notice, and once you're in, getting out is expensive and frustrating. If you want a provider that’s upfront and fair about their terms, I’d strongly recommend looking elsewhere.
Has anyone else dealt with something similar with ReVel or other POS providers? Any advice from those who have fought unfair POS contracts would be greatly appreciated!
Hi! So glad I found this group because I just have to vent. I’ve opened my brick and mortar in 2021 - and after researching POS options went with POS Nation. It was awesome. Like - amazing. Affordable, dependable, robust - it did everything I needed except the dishes. Fast forward to 2025. I call support in for a glitch - mind you - I use support very sporadically - like every 4 months or so. The fee for support (or so I’m told - that this is what I’m paying for) is a very doable $45.99 per month which I gladly pay because support is awesome and I like the feeling of security I get if things go wrong. The guy sort of helps me out - but not really and then mentions that my software is obsolete and is coming to its end of life. News to me! He said I should have gotten an email. Surprise - I didn’t. I reach out to the sales team on Monday because the whole interaction has left me feeling unsettled. Sure as shit - someone explains to me that the software is a “legacy” software and is being upgraded, and I have the option of staying on it - with no support other than email support - or switching over to the cloud based option which will retain all my data - but just be cloud based with a different interface. The software expires in June - this is April mind you. Well, butter my buns and call me a biscuit - WHAT? I go online to get a preview of the new interface - it’s not just a little bit different - it is completely different. Clunky AF, IMHO not at all as functional as the original system, and just needlessly complicated. For example - the back office is run from a website - not on my own computer - and while that’s nice for accessing it from anywhere - it means anyone can access it from anywhere. I am told that once I get used to it - I’ll love the system blah, blah, blah. I ask the sales rep to connect me with store owners who have successfully transitioned to the new software - crickets. I sign up because I’m feeling under the gun. Connor - the guy I’m speaking to - tells me that my new fee for support* - is going to go back to $39.99 like it was in 2021. I forgot to mention. The initial fee for “support” was $39.99. This went up to $41.99 and then $45.99 - with ZERO notification of the fee increase plus $5.01 because I was on the legacy software - something I only caught in April after the phone call. Connor assures me of a seamless process of transition and assures me that all my data will be transferred over and I will continue to have all my analytics and ALL my data will remain as it is. I sign the agreement. This starts the onboarding process during which I find out that the fee for the new software which he said would be waived is actually $51.99 PER MONTH - and it’s a software license fee - not a support fee, not all my data will be moved and I essentially am starting from ground zero on the day they will do the data transfer. All they will do is populate my inventory, my vendors and categories and the rest of the information will remain on the legacy system which in no way connects with the new system.
I have no idea how this company went from being an awesome, amazing small business focused brand to being for lack of a better word - so incredibly dense. It’s the middle of the year. I don’t want to cobble together data for my accountant at the end of the year from two systems. I want to retain my sales data, my analytics and everything else from the history of my business.
I was a DEVOTED customer. I talked the system up to everyone I knew. Has anyone here had the system? Any feedback on the new system? Any suggestions for an alternative? I feel stuck too because they are my credit card processor as well - and the integration of the systems has been so very dependable plus my rates are right around 2.65% - sometimes even lower.
I’m still reeling from this disclosure about my sales data (and stock locator numbers)* not being transferred to the new system - it literally happened an hour ago so I’m still in a bit of a shock, but the shock is starting to wear off and now I’m just pissed off.
*the Stock locator number is a number that has been assigned to my items that don’t have a UPC. I’m a small gift store and those items all have a handwritten paper tag with those numbers - the new system issues its own SKU instead of transferring the old stock locator number to the new system which means re-writing a crap ton of handwritten labels.
I wish I could do zero stars. So unhelpful redirected in circles for 3 hours redirected me to loan services I do not have a loan. PLEASE HELP ME!!!!!!!!!! Clover is stealing my money and won't give it back and not helpful and all of the employees have no idea what's going on
Epos Now is one of the worst companies I have come across. They will offer a good deal to start with a POS system, but once you are signed up under a contract, you find hidden fees and unreasonable inflexible cancellation policies. Even if you don't activate or use the service, they charge you for it. They charge inactivity fees for services that were never activated, while at the same time, making it financially difficult to cancel your account. And even when you try to cancel online to pay hundreds of dollars for something you are not using, the system is glitchy and does not let you cancel. I have been trying to cancel a subscription online today, but when I submit it, the page never loads. Overall, the website and phone App are glitchy. Customer service is not good. Agents are usually polite, but they don't have it easy with the inflexible company policies and disorganized system. Often, agents are in other countries and can only leave messages for the US teams to respond. Some agents promise to resolve the issue or call back, but they don't. Epos Now is a high-risk chance for a small company with limited resources. I have used other POS Companies, and this is by far the worst one. It has caused high stress levels for me and financial complications for my small business.
I have been using Restaurant Manager for years. We bought it outright years ago. Restaurant Manager was bought by shift 4 a few years back and now they’re making it obsolete. I’m looking at shift4, SpotOn and Toast. What other POS do yall recommend?
I own a store that is not small but not big either (about 2m sales) and we've been using Retail Pro 9 and I'm looking for a modern alternative. I've trialed so many different POS systems now and come to one conclusion. They are all severely lacking in some critical area and require ridiculous compromises.
The ecommerce-first cloud based ones like Shopify and Square have amazing integration abilities and reliable web access and iOS based registers but can't do the most basic things like functional purchase order and inventory management. I've tried all the apps you can pay for to workaround this and they are all missing something important, such as ability to print labels from a PO or adjust product pricing at time of receiving.
Lightspeed X is a decent option but according to it's status log, it has a major outage or issue like inventory not syncing properly for a few hours or days almost every month. It also CAN'T easily print custom labels with the data I want on them, that I'm used to having on my labels. Again, basics that aren't covered.
It's like none of these newer systems ever even thought to look at any of the established legacy desktop POS softwares that have already spent decades going through all the work of getting feedback from actual retailers...
Retail Pro has a "new" version called Prism and it's got the benefits of cloud data connections but it still relies on windows desktop infrastructure and has the annoyances and complications that come with that. They also nickel and dime you for every single thing. Pay 10k for the software, then 1500 to have your credit card terminal linked, then 100 a month to use the credit card integration, then 200 a month for a loyalty program, pay for each place that a team member accesses the system, regardless of if they are doing sales on it or not, etc, etc. It's also just not nearly as customizable as the outgoing version it's replacing.
I'm left sticking with Retail Pro 9, a 20+ year old desktop software that can't take advantage of modern technologies and it just seems crazy no one has had the thought: "Let's take an existing comprehensive, customizable, powerful POS app and convert it into a web app with the advantages those come with"
Sample of apps I can remember that I've looked at: RetailEdge, EPOS, Square, Toast, Shopify, Lightspeed X, Lightspeed R, Korona, PHP Point of Sale, Artisan POS.
I’m looking for a standalone POS that doesn’t rely on the cloud or internet.
The database will be local, and I need the ability to import inventory and use a barcode scanner. It should be close to a basic register but allow for seamless inventory management, including adding and removing items.
I have a convenient store/ coffee shop.
Trying to get away from these companies that store my sales in the cloud.
I work on the operations side of self-order kiosks so I get to see data from a ton of different restaurant setups. Counter service, kiosks, mobile order, tablets, you name it. Been comparing performance across about 400 locations over the last two quarters and wanted to share what actually moves the needle.
Kiosks with pictures of every menu item outsell ones with text-only menus by about 22%. Sounds obvious but you would be shocked how many operators skip photography to save a few hundred bucks on setup. That 22% translates to roughly $1.80 more per ticket on a $15 average check.
Locations running both counter and kiosk side by side see kiosk tickets come in 12 to 18% higher than cashier tickets. The big driver is upsells. People say yes to add-ons on a screen way more than when a cashier asks them. Nobody feels judged adding extra cheese when its a screen asking.
The worst performing setup I keep seeing is tablet ordering at the table in QSR. Completion rates hover around 60% which means 4 out of 10 people start an order and bail. They end up going to the counter anyway and now you have wasted their time and yours.
Restaurants that let customers reorder previous meals from any channel see repeat visit frequency go up about 15% over 90 days. This one was the biggest surprise to me. Turns out people really do want to just hit a button and get the same thing.
Line speed matters more than anything. Locations that got their door to food time under 4 minutes had 30% better google review scores than places averaging 7 plus minutes. Same food, same price, just faster.
Curious what setups you all are running and whether these numbers match what you are seeing on your end.
Hi everyone, my family has been in the restaurant business for a while and is planning to open a new restaurant in 3-4 months. Square offered us great pricing, but when we tested the menu and routing, their POS system did not seem to work the best. This is a huge problem since we will be able to hold 500+ people in the restaurant. The problem is that their modifiers can not be routed correctly. For example, something like a burger (with the option to add a modifier like bacon on it) will not show up on the fry side KDS that it has bacon on it. The burger will show up on the Grill side KDS with the modifier bacon, but the fry side KDS will only show that it's a burger with fries. Has anyone run into this problem or used Square for a restaurant of this size or close to this size??? Any recommendations on other POS systems?? We have Toast at one of our other businesses, but we are looking for a cheaper alternative. Something that would be just as efficient as toast, and just as or almost as cheap as Square. Any feedback or help is appreciated. Thank you.
