Aralco

"We have used Aralco since 2005 in our stores in Canada/USA"

Comments: Ease of Use: It was very easy to train our POS staff on the system. The reports are very flexible and user-definable, so we hardly need support or programming to get what we need. The inventory is always accurate, and all functions are very reliable. Functionality: Aralco meets all our needs. We have a Canadian and a US division. Aralco manages both for us. Aralco also helped us with integrating to another system we have in our US division. Product Quality: The product has been very dependable. You need to get the right server and hardware so the software can perform as it was designed. Customer Support: Aralco offers customer service after business hours. This is very important for us as a retailer. They have friendly and experienced staff who always respond quickly to any issues we report. Likes Best: We are delighted with Aralco. Their support and training has been exceptional. They are prompt and professional, and we love the fact that they can log onto our systems to fix problems when necessary. Training staff on the new system was virtually pain-free. Aralco offers video training, which we found very helpful. We asked our staff to watch the videos and organized one on-site staff training day. After that, we were off to the races. Sure, there are the odd questions, but I can usually answer them myself. The reporting capabilities, hands down, are the best feature of Aralco in my mind. They have lots of standard reports, but it's the ability to create custom reports quickly and easily that really impresses me. Likes Least: Aralco is not the cheapest product out there, but we realized after bad experiences with our previous systems that you need to spend the money to receive good and continuous service after-hours and on weekends. Recommendations: When we were searching for retail software, we asked around from our colleagues in the retail sector and came to the conclusion that the most important things to look for in a vendor are the length of service in their industry, reliability of their product, speed and effectiveness of their support response, commitment to their customers, and their desire to continuously develop their product to adjust to frequent changes in the retail business.

"Wonderful Business Application with Incredible Support"

Comments: CF Interiors brought me into the company during a transition period to help implement and develop Aralco to work with their systems. Their previous system lacked the report capabilities and flexibilities needed for CF Interiors to continue growing. Since I started working and learning about Aralco I have found the system incredibly flexible. The way a custom furniture company runs is very complex since we offer our customers so many options our SKUs would reach 13,000,000 and we have been quite demanding with Aralco on specific options we require. Where they have not had options or work-arounds they have always been so gracious in providing us with alternative options. Their customer support is the best I’ve seen in business software. Always friendly and fast to respond, especially in the odd times we have made errors that caused store panic. I would recommend Aralco to any growing business that requires options. It’s seriously flexible and their company will work with you without breaking your budgets.

Pros: Customer support is the best I’ve seen in business software. Always friendly and fast to respond, especially in the odd times we have made errors that caused store panic. It’s seriously flexible and their company will work with you without breaking your bu

Cons: Some of the layouts for invoicing and purchase orders need more work. It would be nice to have the option to purchase ordering in their Back Office for individual PCs though they have mentioned this may be in the works.

"usability"

Comments: useful

Pros: easy to use, user friendly, cover all business process, give all records and reports of inventory of organizatin

Cons: complex business logic; standard reports must be listed front instead of designing in tool. Autocomplete feature is not availble

"Furniture Retailer"

Comments: We have used Aralco since 1999 so we have had many years of great experience with this company and their staff. The lookup options are very easy to follow. The options are the same, whether we look up inventory, customers, suppliers etc. The same goes for reporting. We are very happy with this product because it meets all of our needs. The best thing is that we can instantly help our customers on the status of their orders, their delivery dates, and the outstanding balance on their orders. Customer support is perfect 99% of the time. Sometimes we have issues, where things may not be done in the timeframe that we prefer, but it always gets done. The product meets all our requirements to keep track of inventory, sales, and reporting on a day-to-day basis. Real-time inventory is priceless for all of our stores and helps our sales staff makes sales and give definite delivery dates to our customers. There are many reports that keep us on top of daily sales, sales staff commissions, and open orders that make customer service easy. The system is very user-friendly; therefore, it is easy for our sales staff to follow and help customers. We use all the features that are available, so there is nothing that I dislike about the product. This is a great software for the furniture industry. Since we have a large amount of inventory, it's a great software to keep track.

"I have used Aralco Inventory Management and POS systems since 1993. (Retail Management Consultant)"

Comments: I have used Aralco Inventory Management and POS systems since 1993. (Retail Management Consultant) Ease-of-use: The Point of Sale is easy to follow for a novice or an experienced retail person. It can handle split currency, and opening and closing is very straightforward. The Back Office is straightforward. Reports are easy to produce, giving you lots of variations to specially customize them to meet your needs. Functionality: It gives me all the reports I need to do analysis on the retail business. Customer Support: There is usually someone there right away to help. And if the initial person can't answer your question, they will ask for help from a more senior person. Likes Best: The POS is very easy to learn, especially for first time users. I like the fact that it is a Canadian company based in BC. I also like that you can get through to a real person on the help line quite quickly. Also, most of the Aralco staff have been there for quite a few years so they are very familiar with all aspects of the software and can help very quickly. Recommendations: I have been using Aralco retail software since 1993 and have recommended it to many others. I have seen many retail software companies come and go, and Aralco is still here for the long term. The software is user-friendly and reasonably priced. It has all the features needed to run a single store or a multi-store chain. I am excited about their new e-commerce integration with the Back Office software. I plan to implement this in 2014.