Harbortouch (HT) is a point of sale (POS), a cloud-based system built to help businesses run more efficiently with fewer voids and challenges.
It is specific for restaurants, salons & spas, bars, retail stores, coffee shops, pizza parlors, among other businesses. The company provides a touch-screen POS with payment and transaction processing services. Harbortouch is one of the leading POS companies. It handles an excess of 150,000 merchant locations and processes over $13 billion annually. Harbortouch was founded in the USA by Shift4 Payments company in 1999 and first launched in 2008.
The company offers several services, including processing payments through credit cards, loyalty cards, gift cards, and debit cards. Other services provided by the company are cheque services, cash advances, and merchant services. With Harbortouch, the user does not incur any upfront costs when purchasing the POS. The system makes it easy and affordable to the customer making it more competitive with other POS companies. It offers the payment processing equipment free of charge, making it highly preferred to most customers.
Harbortouch Solutions
HT offers two Point of Sale platforms; the Echo and the Elite POS systems. Echo Point of Sale Software is designed for smaller organizations, while Elite is for medium and large-sized businesses.
Harbortouch Echo Point of Sale
The system works by combining a traditional method with a sleek modern tablet. The POS is customizable to suit specific business requirements. It is module-based, allowing the user to hide any functions they don’t wish to display. The POS utilizes a cash register interface, basic calculator, and the full POS system. Other services, such as search words, allows the user to find any documents using the keyword search tab quickly.
Some of the prominent features for Echo include remote access, customer management, inventory management, reporting, and analytics. Harbortouch Echo is best for small businesses based on its cost and features.
Harbortouch Elite POS system
The HT Elite combines both hardware and software to deliver a POS that has excellent functionality and exemplary performance that is not common with other systems. The software is efficient as it streamlines operations, has a high standard reporting system that increases operational efficiency and revenue. The hardware complements the software well due to its robust performance, which makes it fast, reliable, and flawless. The design of the device is durable and easy to use, making it long-lasting. If the POS breaks down, the company offers a free replacement due to its lifetime warranty.
Harbortouch Elite POS for Bars/Restaurants
This POS is specific for meeting the needs of a bar or restaurant needs. It has features that make running a busy restaurant easier and flawless.
Some of these features include menu set-up, table tracking, employee management, and flexible pricing for discounts and any special offers, online ordering, and inventory management.
Harbortouch Elite POS for Retail Outlets
Retail businesses can be challenging to manage due to the different commodities typically offered in a retail store.
Onyx for retail stores is a package that has essential features such as inventory tracking, vendor management, customer database, purchase orders, and support for rentals and consignments. With this package, a customer also gets remote POS management and reporting social media integration, and review management and monitoring of online reputation. Retailers are, therefore, able to keep track of customer feedback about their products and address any complaints from their customers.
Harbortouch Elite POS for Quick Service Restaurants
Quick service restaurants often offer delivery services in their typical day to day operations. The POS supports food deliveries with relevant features such as caller integration, dynamic customization, customer database, and overall delivery management, making it ideal for fast foods.
The POS has additional features such as driver management, which allows the operator to locate drivers, assign a delivery, and monitor the time taken to finish the delivery.
The POS also provided directions and mapping, which allows the driver to quickly locate the customer and arrange for multiple deliveries on the same route saving on time and fuel.
Harbortouch Elite POS for Salons & Spas
The salons and spa package are ideal for busy and up-coming salons that manage a substantial client base. The software provides a calendar for setting appointments, reminders, employee commission tracking, multi-station support, and walk-in management.
The hardware for this POS is for an integrated customer display, receipt printer, cash drawer, barcode reader, and the keyboard.
Harbortouch Pricing
When it comes to the pricing of HT POS, most customers are impressed with the ‘almost no-pay’ policy of the system.
There are no required upfront payments for one to use the system. The processing terminals and other hardware equipment are free. The hardware also comes with a lifetime equipment warranty and 24/7 support line for any additional help.
Pricing is different for the two main features. The Echo POS system charges a monthly fee of $29, while the Elite POS system charges a base price of $49 per month.
The company offers a three-year contract for all its customers.
Harbortouch Hardware
The hardware for the two central POS systems that HT provides is as follows:
Echo-system POS
- Integrated customer display
- A 3-inch- touch screen display system
- A hinged stand for flexible adjustments
- Flash storage
- All- Aluminum construction
Elite system POS
- All-in-one Aluminum body
- Substantial room to support extensive inventories
- Fast-speed processor
- A 15-inch touch screen display
Installation
A team of experts from the company handles the POS system installation. It ensures professional installation, comprehensive training, and 24/7 in-house customer support.
The company offers additional remote training that can be accessed online. The customer care team can provide help at any time by directly logging into a client’s system to identify and address any issues.
Harbortouch Payment processing Terminals
There are four main payment terminals provided by HT. The terminals are usually free of charge as users only pay the processing fees. The terminals are as follows:
HarborPay
HarborPay is a mobile payment application that has a free audio jerk-printer and a Bluetooth receipt printer. The App works well with conventional devices such as Android, Windows, Apple, and Blackberry.
It is a secure mode of payment that enables businesses to quickly get access to credit/debit cards through their smartphones.
Harbortouch S90 Wireless terminal
The S90 is ideal for restaurants that do customer deliveries. It accepts payments offline and has a large memory capacity and a high-quality Lithium-ion rechargeable battery.
It has a well built-in processor that ensures fast and reliable payments. It works using an ARM11 processor that supports 3DES encryption technology.
EMV & NFC Compatible Terminal
The EMV terminal uses the near field (NFC) technology, allowing customers to make payments easily through their phones. The EMV component is more secure because of its powerful processors that enable the use of EMV-enabled processors.
Casio-Electric Cash Register
The Casio register accepts major credit cards, including Mastercard and Visa. It allows the user to track both taxable and non-taxable sales easily.
The interface is simple, customizable, and user-friendly making it easy to use and understand. The Casio register is PSI-complaint and has a robust and durable cash drawer that ensures security. It also comes with a printer that allows the user to print receipts or any needed print-outs.
SkyTab tableside Payment Device
The SkyTab is a modern device that is Wi-Fi and 4G enabled. It accepts EMV, NFC, and swiped-cards mode of payments. The device has additional features that allow business owners to collect feedback from customers.
Customers can rate their restaurant experience, and notifications for negative feedback is provided to the business so that follow-up is possible.
The device has an in-built printer that sends receipts on email or prints them as per requirements.
Harbortouch Features
Inventory Management
Harbortouch is a perfect solution for managing inventories and vendors. The POS makes it easy for business owners to manage and track inventory lists to avoid stock-outs.
The feature keeps an updated list of the inventory, therefore, making it easy for monitoring. The feature also allows for an automatic purchase order when stocks reach a pre-defined threshold.
Employee Management
Every organization comprises employees who run the day to day operations of the establishment. Harbortouch makes it easy to manage the employees’ shifts, track hours, evaluate the performance, calculate overtime, and manage/edit timesheets. It ensures fairness and highlights any challenges that need attention.
Customer Loyalty Programs
Any business needs to recognize and reward their loyal customers. The initiative ensures they keep coming back.
The loyalty program is essential as it allows businesses to reward their regulars with incentives, discounts, and special promotions.
Tableside ordering
The POS empowers staff to receive and send orders directly to the kitchen without necessarily leaving the guest table.
The feature makes ordering accurate and efficient, which in turn brings customer satisfaction and zero-time wastage amongst staff.
Dynamic Pricing
The introduction of seasonal specials such as happy hour and BOGOF can be hard to manage in cases where the system is not compliant.
Harbortouch, however, makes it easy by providing the change -of- pricing feature, which makes pricing flexible and relevant to the season.
Menu Customization
Menu customization is done in real-time to ensure a good flow of information from the kitchen to the guests. Menu items are modified using an intuitive user interface. It becomes less hectic to change menus using the HT POS.
Table Tracking
During the peak hours, restaurants can be full of customers, and managing tables for space can be hectic.
The POS, however, simplifies table management by giving a breakdown of tables available, the number of guests per meal, and empty table spaces that are ready for occupancy. Overall, this makes it easy for customers to find seats in a more organized manner.
Payment Processing
The POS uses a wide range of payment methods, therefore, giving customers an option to choose their preferred mode of payment. The plans range from swiping credit/debit cards, Apple pay, Samsung pay, NFC payments, and gift cards.
Report and Analytics
Harbortouch POS has a feature that provides detailed and analytical reports of a business. The reports enable the business owners to make smart and fact-based decisions critical to the growth of the market. The data reports are extensive, giving multiple analyses.
The Sales report, for example, helps in tracking revenues; labor reports provide a functional analysis of the labor costs, while inventory reports enable the managers to understand their inventory needs and identify the best-selling items.
Harbortouch Additional Accessories
To further customize customer’s business needs, HT offers several accessories, including barcode scanners, ATMs, PIN pads, digital scales, online reporting tools, and check guarantee services.
Benefits of using Harbortouch POS
- The company gives clients a free 30-day trial period to allow customers to familiarize themselves with the system.
- The system allows remote operations making it convenient to the users.
- The POS is highly customizable, making it specific to the individual business needs. It is customizable to three primary levels.
- Harbortouch provides a detailed database of customer information, including contacts, location address, and purchase history.
- The modules allow hiding some features to ensure only the ones used frequently are the ones accessible.
- Harbortouch offers its clients free payment processing terminals making it more competitive to other POS systems.
- Credit/Debit cards, loyalty cards, and gift cards are readily accepted and linked directly to the POS system.
Reviews
What did Harbortouch Users like about the POS?
Ease of use: Most HT users were happy with the interface, which is generally easy to use and understand. The POS is customizable, making it ideal for the different businesses that use it as they can customize it to their preference. Making changes or adjustments to the POS is relatively easy when using the company’s website.
Analytical reporting: The POS has a prominent data analysis feature that most customers like. Multiple reviewers were happy with the analytical reports in labor, inventory, and employee management. The reports came in handy in making critical business decisions and saved on time.
Multi-user support: The software allows multiple users, which means that more than one user can access it at a time.
Affordability: Merchants using HT reviewed that the POS is quite affordable to both the small and large establishments. The software does not have any upfront costs during purchase, and monthly rates are quite low.
Types of POS: Harbortouch offers two main types of POS, Echo, and Elite. Customers were happy with the two options as they can choose based on the size of the business. Small businesses have an advantage as they can choose the cheaper Echo POS, which is equally good.
Hardware Equipment is Provided: Both Echo and Elite POS come with specific hardware equipment created to run the POS. It makes it easy for customers to use because once installed, then the system is ready to use. It also makes the installation convenient and cheap.
Fraud Prevention: The company offers different types of hardware. One of the equipment is entirely for fraud prevention. The machine allows business users to counter-check account balances and notifies users of any risky transactions. Customers found this feature to be beneficial.
Drawbacks of using Harbortouch
- The POS is sometimes interrupted with system updates during busy hours, therefore, interfering with workflow. During the updates, the system freezes and can cause some customers to walk out without making payments.
- The cancellation policy is not straightforward; the contract auto-renews without giving the customer a chance to decide on the renewal.
- The HT company advertises on its website that the software is ‘free’ to use while this is not the case. Customers complained about hidden fees and the 3-year contract once they sign up to using the software. Canceling the agreement comes with hefty fees that are unnecessary.
- Payments are released sluggishly to the businesses even after approvals. Most business operations are hence affected by cashflow challenges.
Comparing Harbortouch to other POS systems
Harbortouch vs. Toast
The cost of purchasing, installing, and operating HT is quite low. The monthly fee for the cheapest HT POS is $29, while Toast charges a minimum fee of $79 amidst other installation charges.
Harbortouch easily integrates with other third-party software such as FiveStars and ApplePayTM, while Toast does not easily integrate with other software. Customer support is available to HT’s users through various forms such as mail, live chat, phone while Toast only offers customer support through mail and telephone.
Harbortouch vs. Runit Realtime Cloud
Overall, customer satisfaction on HT was higher at 8.6 while Runit scored lower at 8.0. The cost of using Runit was also incredibly high as it stood at $258, while HT is on the lower side at $29 to $49.When it comes to compatibility, both software is compatible with several devices such as iPad.
Harbortouch vs. GoFrugal POS
GoFrugal gives its customers three quote-based plans with a starter plan of $375 and a professional plan of $1500. On the other hand, Harbortouch is relatively cheap, with a monthly cost of $29 and the highest cost of $49 for the Elite POS.
The list of features supported by HT is more comprehensive as compared to GoFrugal, which lacks some essential elements such as wireless.
Conclusion
Amidst a myriad of challenges, Harbortouch has attained tremendous success, especially with its payment processing solutions.
The two options of POS offered by Harbortouch also ensure that the POS caters both mid and large-sized firms. Echo and Elite POS have developed features that are specific to diverse industries such as the hospitality industry, Beauty, and Retail businesses. Despite high competition, the business-specific POS gives HT a more substantial client-base a different market. The low cost of using the software also makes Harbortouch more preferred to other already existing software.