We specialize in inventory control, point of sale, invoicing and accounting systems for the retail and customer services industry. Using a series of soft switches, Windward's System Five enterprise resource planning software adapts to the way you do business. Unlike many of our competitors, we don’t believe that a company should have to change its existing business practices to suit a software package. Many of our clients tell you Windward System Five is the most flexible and user-friendly business management system on the market today.

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There are many benefits to using business management software, including:

  • Increased efficiency: Windward's business management software can help you manage your shop more efficiently, allowing you to track inventory, sales, and customer data.
  • Improved customer service: Windward System Five software can help you track customer data and preferences, allowing you to provide a better customer experience.
  • Improved profitability: Windward Software can help you track sales and inventory data, allowing you to make more informed business decisions that improve profitability.

Tracking customer data can help you understand what products and services your customers want and need. This information can help you improve your products and services, and even create new products and services. Gleaning insights from customer data can also help you improve the customer experience. By understanding what your customers like and don’t like, you can provide better service. This can help keep your customers happy and increase customer loyalty.

Your customer data can also help you increase sales and profit, which makes owners happy! 😀

Your store may carry 1,000's of items. In order to keep track of all of this merchandise, it's crucial to have an inventory control system in place. This system can help you keep track of what you have in stock and how much of each item you have. It can also help you plan for future inventory needs.

 Inventory control is also essential for tracking your inventory costs, and with Windward's integrated accounting, you'll always know where you stand.

Windward System Five enterprise resource planning software will track all of the general ledger transactions from invoicing, accounts payable and journal entries, and allow you to print all of your financial reports, including a balance sheet and profit and loss statement.

In fact, the system comes with a ledger report writer so you can build your own ledger reports in addition to all of the reports included with the system.

Detailed journals are kept for every ledger number, so you can easily track all transactions that affect a given account number, including date, invoice or bill number, customer or supplier, description and the debit or credit amount. This information is available for many years, until you purge the system.

Absolutely. Windward’s enterprise resource planning software is designed with full barcode support. When you scan an item with the barcode scanner, it immediately adds it to a new line on the invoice and assumes a quantity of one. The cursor is left on the quantity field so you can quickly and easily change the quantity if, for example, the customer purchased five of the same thing. Of course, there’s nothing stopping you from scanning in the same item five times. How you do it is up to you.

In essence, a barcode is simply a part number. When you scan an item, the enterprise resource planning software system looks it up in the database to get the description and current price. In most cases, the retail price is not stored on the barcode itself, but there are exceptions for some industries. Because the price is stored in the computer, you must ensure that it is kept up to date to match the sticker prices displayed on the shelves.

Any scanner that supports preamble characters, and uses a keyboard wedge, will work with Windward System Five. The scanners come in different shapes and sizes, from handhelds, small balls (called orbits), or flatbed scanners like you see at the grocery store. Windward supports all of these.

If some of your items don’t have barcodes, Windward System Five enterprise resource planning software can print labels using a barcode label printer during the adding of stock procedure. 

Barcodes can also be used with battery-operated hand-held data collection devices so that you can count the inventory in the store or warehouse and then update the computer with the actual quantities found in stock.

Supported Peripheral Devices

Depending on which country you’re in, there are different credit card processing options available to you. Please email or phone us to find out more information:

1 (800) 663-5750

sales@windwardsoftware.com

Payment Processors

Yes, Windward System Five enterprise resource planning software will open your cash drawer. When an invoice is completed and is being printed, Windward System Five can send the codes to open the cash drawer. In most cases, the cash drawer will be hooked up to your receipt printer, but there are other methods of connecting the cash drawers to the computer.

Receipt printer method: The printer is connected to the computer using the normal printer cables. The cash drawer is connected with a piece of wire to the receipt printer. When a special code is sent to the printer, an electrical pulse is sent to the cash drawer to open it. It's important to buy a printer and cash drawer that are compatible with each other.

Parallel port method: The cash drawer is connected to the computer using a parallel cable, and the receipt printer is connected to the back of the cash drawer with another parallel cable. The cash drawer needs it's own power supply and it then monitors the codes being sent from the computer to the printer. If it recognizes the opening codes, it opens the drawer. The printers are very versatile, but more expensive.

Printer card method: A special card is placed inside the computer and the cash drawer is connected to this card with a small cable. This card can be programmed to "look at" any of the standard printer ports, and if it sees the opening codes, it sends an electrical pulse to the cash drawer to open it.

Some cash drawers require a complex set of codes to be sent, and these can be entered in the configuration and setup module. However, most cash drawers just use character 7, or the bell character, to open the drawer.

Supported Peripheral Devices

Windward System Five is a fully integrated enterprise resource planning software system that includes a full general ledger, journal entries and reports. When you post an invoice at point of sale, the transactions are transferred automatically to the general ledger without the need to run any end-of-day batch processes. 

The bookkeeper will have full and secure control over the ledger, based on the password security setup. And mistakes are incredibly easy to correct with Windward System Five.

Transactions are posted in real-time, or immediately, with Windward System Five enterprise resource planning software. When you've entered a sale, the inventory is immediately reduced from stock, the customer balance is increased and the taxes due are updated in the general ledger. If you notice a mistake that needs to be corrected, the changes you make are immediately updated.

Windward System Five will print a detailed audit report at the end of the day showing all new entries and corrections made. If a clerk voids or changes an invoice, you'll know about it.

If you make a mistake with Windward System Five enterprise resource planning software, you can easily edit the entry and correct the mistake. For example, if you remove an item from the invoice because the customer changed their mind, you can delete the line, and the inventory will be returned to stock.

If you have the security level, you can even correct an invoice after it has been printed and posted. For example, if a customer notices a mistake before leaving the store, you can recall the invoice, fix it and reprint it. Windward System Five enterprise resource planning software will print a detailed audit report at the end of the day showing all new entries and corrections made. If a clerk voids or changes an invoice, you'll know about it.

Windward’s enterprise resource planning software has a strong kit system, also known as assemblies or bill of materials. It can handle dynamic kits to remove all the raw materials as the kit is placed on the invoice, or static kits to remove the raw materials when the kits are manufactured and put in stock. There are also several options available on how to display the kit on the invoice and how to price the kit.

Examples:

  • Print the item number but not the items that make up the kit
  • Print the individual items in the kit, but not the kit number
  • Print the kit number on the invoice, and the items on the pick slip copy

With kit options, you can sell one item and have the system place many items onto the invoice for you. Windward System Five enterprise resource planning software will also support multiple choice dynamic exploding kits, which can be used when building or manufacturing goods to customer specifications, such as a computer system with customer-selected options.

You can quickly check a customer's history by viewing the customer record and bringing up a list of invoices on file. You can even view the details on each invoice.

If you’re in the middle of an invoice, you can call up the customer, view the history, and then return to the invoice where you left off. This is handy if a customer needs to purchase an accessory for an item previously purchased, such as an ink cartridge for a printer where you need to know what model they have.

Windward System Five will warn you that you are starting a new month, and all of the new sales will then be posted into that month right away. You can start the new month immediately, even if you haven’t reconciled your accounts and printed your statements.

Windward System Five enterprise resource planning software has a clear advantage over its competitors by being able to work in multiple months at the same time without having to shut down your business. This includes entries made at point of sale, as well as for accounts payable and journal entries.

When you’re finally ready to print your month-end reports, the system will accurately print the report, ignoring all new entries for the current month. This gives you an accurate report as to the condition of your business as of that date.

Windward System Five enterprise resource planning software will warn you that you’re starting a new year, but you can keep right on posting into the New Year even though you have not completed the year-end. Windward System Five has a distinct advantage over its competitors by being able to work in many months, or even years, at the same time without having to shut down your business. This includes entries made at point of sale, as well as for accounts payable and journal entries.

When you’re finally ready to print your year-end reports, the system will accurately print the report, ignoring all new entries for the subsequent months. This gives you an accurate report as to the condition of your business as of that date.

Yes. That should be a no-brainer, but many of our competitors don’t show the customer credits on the statements, causing a lot of grief and problems. For example, if a customer makes a purchase for $100 and returns an item for a credit of $20, the end-of-month statement should show a balance owing of the difference ($80). Many systems will send a statement asking the customer to pay the full $100.

Windward System Five statements are the easiest to read of any enterprise resource planning software system available. This is important because if a statement is easy to read, the customer will understand it and pay faster.

Accounts receivable is easily handled with Windward System Five enterprise resource planning software. At point of sale, the invoice can be paid by cash, Visa, Mastercard, Cheque, EFTPOS (Electronic Funds Transfer at Point Of Sale), or charged to the customer's account. You can then easily view a customer's outstanding balance at any time, or receive a customer's payment on their account. You can even quickly bring up a list of all the outstanding invoices and the amounts on each if a customer needs more details.

At the end of the month, the enterprise resource planning software system will print a clear, concise statement for the customer clearly showing the balance forward, payments received, invoices and new balance due. In addition, a list of all outstanding invoices will also be printed.

All standard reports such as aged balances, inventory purchased by a customer, customer reports, mailing lists, monthly statements, overdue balance interest calculations, special orders etc. are included. Lookup words can be attached to any customer or group of customers, making concise reports possible.

Yes Windward’s enterprise resource planning software is a fully integrated business management system, meaning you won’t have to work within another application.

Pricing on Windward System Five is based on a number of factors, including:

  • The number of concurrent users on the enterprise resource planning software
  • Whether you require special software features or extra modules for a specific industry
  • Which edition you choose: either the cost-effective SMB Edition or the fully-loaded Enterprise Edition
  • Whether you opt for a local software installation or our cloud-based SaaS option

Don't hesitate to call if you have any questions or would like specific pricing: +1 (800) 663-5750.

Windward System Five on Cloud Pricing

You can use a current Windows-based server as the network operating system for your network. Windward software solutions can operate in both peer-to-peer (not requiring a server) and client/server configurations.

Your server is the heart of the whole computer system, so it’s recommended that you use a quality server, instead of just a low-end workstation. This doesn’t mean you need to spend a lot of money, but if you buy a discount machine to use as a server, you’re more likely to run into problems.

For workstations, the faster they are, the better they’ll perform. At a minimum, they should run Windows 10 Pro or newer.

A full list of System Requirements can be found here.

Please refer to the Sales & Service Agreement for our refund policy.

If you have any further questions about Windward System Five, please call us toll-free: 1 (800) 663-5750.

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