Likelihood to Recommend Maitre'D is great in a shop where multiple terminals are needed. Servers and Bartenders can use any terminal they are near (there are some exceptions, but that is up to the location to make terminals tied to people or not). On the other hand, a small single terminal shop would be a good fit for Maitre'D, there are much less expensive options for the smaller need.
Read full review Square POS is by far the easiest POS software to use at events and train additional team members on - even with temporary or first-time employees. It's easy to see how each event is doing in live time. It gives the event manager a real-time view of revenue earned. Its really easy to create/manage/delete users to keep the platform secure.
Read full review Pros Maitre'd allows us to use their Broadcaster module to push product and pricing updates to all five of our regions, simplifying product rollout and updates. The program is versatile and allows for integration with loyalty and online ordering systems, however that does require some advanced technical knowledge to properly execute. The program is easy to learn from a cashier and management standpoint, new hires can get up to speed quickly which helps minimize required training time and ultimately labor hours. Read full review Mobile transactions (not like from a phone, but in terms of the ability to physically relocate rapidly). Simple setup. Generally uncomplicated pricing. Widespread customer familiarity: because it's so regularly in use in our industry (musicians/entertainment professionals), people know and trust it in a way that you might not with a different provider. Read full review Cons Maitre'D could make better use of pick lists, especially when it comes to the delivery and take-out orders. The interface is out-dated and feels awkward and needlessly cumbersome. When a problem (bug) is discovered, I would like to see better and more rapid response from the company. Major improvements are slow to happen. I am on the same major version as I started with 7 years ago and I believe there are customers still using the prior version. This seems like too long for a company to allow old versions to live and must force them to support too many different variations. This situation has to detract from the company to develop new and better capabilities. Access to raw data is not possible, custom reports are not available. I consider this a major drawback. Entering a lot of new items, or changing a lot of item information is painful. Changes are made item by item, no bulk edits. For example, let's say I want to increase the price of beer by $1 and I have 50 types of beers, I will need to modify 50 individual items, that is easily more than an hour's work. Read full review Too much going on for simple users. There are so many different apps and pages now that I get lost almost every time I log onto Square The high percentage of fees taken from sales The difficulty in changing default settings The layout of the “website” you can create is truly a nightmare Read full review Likelihood to Renew I don't really foresee anything being able to dislodge Square from our organization—we're not evangelists or anything like that—it's just the best solution we've found for our use case. Being able to quickly handle transactions from customers and then track all of those sales for analysis/bookkeeping later on.
Read full review Usability Once set up, Square POS is very easy to use. I feel it is a little too easy. Many other solutions have some layer of complexity to them but Square POS is pretty straightforward and this makes it the ideal POS solution in my opinion. If a solution can remove the barriers to use and allow end users to get on with their tasks without being slowed down, then it is a winner. This is what we were able to achieve with Square POS.
Read full review Support Rating An admission - I have NEVER had to use Square POS support. The system is seamless, it just works! I have never had any queries about how the system worked as everything is so clearly laid out. I have never had any problems with payments. If their support systems are anywhere near as good as their software, I think we'll be in good hands.
Read full review Alternatives Considered We have been on various versions of Maitre'd for about ten years now and came from conventional cash registers. Maitre'd obviously added tremendous value in that situation. As far as looking to the future goes, we have compared Maitre'd to various competitors and found our biggest knock on it is they haven't moved to a cloud model yet.
Read full review We only used Square POS while we were getting set up with
Authorize.Net . It isn't as flashy or recognized by the general public, but in our industry, that isn't a priority. We do very large transactions so the higher rates and fees from Square add up insanely quickly making the lower rates and fees from
Authorize.Net the nail in Square's coffin for us.
Read full review Return on Investment My shop needs a POS to operate efficiently. We are too large to go manual, there would be way too many mistakes. Maitre'D is a good choice for our need. The Berg liquor pouring control system has a native interface into Maitre'D and our return on investment was 4 or 5 months. Read full review The opportunity cost of waiting for payments and manually bringing them to a bank means that we don't have to visit our bank branch. That alone saves us several hours each month. We can use ordinary computers and mobile devices with Square instead of paying for expensive software or terminals. Our clients appreciate not having to process payments to us, and anything that helps our clients and makes them happy carries more import than I can explain in this space. Read full review ScreenShots