Firefly pos

Does anyone on here use Firefly pos? What do you think about it?

We are giving it serious consideration as well and are interested in the responses. Especially those that have an online ordering site with it.

Yes we use Phoenix… Its a good system… It has all the bells and whistles. You can pretty much do anything with it… Its been running stable for almost a year now, with no problems. Its really awesome being able to pop up internet explorer on any pc connected to the internet and being able to load your full POS system into the browser. There is no special “remote access” software required. (like right now, I’m connected to my POS viewing reports in one window and surfing pmq in another… while sitting at home).

We are currently working with a online ordering company, having them interface with Phoenix… So I can’t really say too much for the online ordering yet… It should be running soon.

How is the refresh speed since it is browser based? Are you using a VPN into your server? Is the speed different when you are on the internet versus in the store? I am just a bit concerned about it being responsive when you use it in the store.

Overall though, I was impressed with both the company and the product.

We have been using FireFly for over two years and have never had any down time. Very stable platform. easy to use and modify. We have encountered a few little quirks over the last two years (mostly from my messing with the system), but the support is excellent, with quick response (Even though the quirks were my fault, they quicky got things straighten out and never complained). We have been a beta test site for them and several of the software suggestions that we submitted have been implemented into the software. As a company, they are very open minded about making their product the best of the best and make every effort to make sure it works for your operation and that you are satisfied. PM me if you need any futher info…

Do they have gift card capabilities?

It refreshes fast in store. However, it does not render as quickly as a standard desktop application.

No VPN… The server is in your store (a linux box running apache web server). Your POS terminals in the store, serve the POS program over your network through the apache web server. So your POS terminals, basiclly do nothing except maybe drive a printer and serve the web pages from the web server.

Remotely, it just depends on your connection and the connection at the shop… I’v had it go really fast at times but really slow at times also… But that is just depending upon your network traffic at the two locations and your connection speed. My only gripe with connecting remotely is… It will only run properly in Internet Explorer 6, at the moment… So if your at a PC running IE 7, then you’ll have problems doing some things remotely… I run vista on my home pc and IE 7, so I’v got virtual PC loaded with a copy of windows XP and IE 6… If I need to do any menu changes, I’ll usually have to load my virtual copy of xp with IE 6 to make changes… This also makes you run IE 6 on all your workstations at the shop, so your not necessarily up to date on all the security patches from microsoft.

I believe they are working on an update … but I’m not for sure… (anyone from firefly, feel free to chime in)…

And they do support gift cards but only “credit card processor” based gift cards. They have to be swiped and processed through your CC company… Maybe I’m explaining this wrong… but it will not keep track of the balance of a gift card locally, so you can add and subtract from it…

We’ve been using Firefly for just over a year now. Its a very stable platform and their service is excellent and responsive. There are some quirky things that happen now and then but nothing major that stops your operations. i.e. sometimes credit card slips print out attached to the receipts and some times the printer separates them. sometimes when we take orders at the counter the system bi-passes asking for a name.

It is not as customizable as other systems when setting up the front of the house for ordering. There are basically two button sizes to choose from and a set number of buttons allowed per page with specific placement. I suppose some may look at this as a plus as it may prevent a user from making the navigation too difficult but I like things a little more flexible.

The remote feature is awesome and one of the bigger selling points for me. If you did have a station go down you could just set your laptop down on the counter and start taking orders from there (just a little bit slower). Orders will still print out as normal.

I haven’t used their text messaging feature yet but it sounds awesome.

When you go to the back of the house you are first presented with a manager splash screen of daily operational data. If your laptop has IE 7 this does not display but the information is still available via a report. This is the only issue I’ve had with IE 7. Everything stills works fine – just no splash screen.

What I always tell people is that most of the major systems will have everything you need – some just go about it in different ways or there is a work-around. The most important thing is stability and customer service/tech support. It doesn’t matter what the potential is of any system if the reliability of the company and system is not there. Through my years in the restaurant business I’ve worked with different POS systems and the BIGGEST issue has always been customer service/tech support. I like the people at Firefly and they are responsive.

I’m very good with computers and its in my personality to always want to have the best. Because of this I will probably look at other systems again to see if I am missing out on something when I do my next store. My suggestion would be to ask to use the systems yourself when doing demos. Make a list of things you want to be able to do and then do them yourself during the demo. Just because one system may appear to have more bells and whistle does not make it right for you.

I’ m not able to edit my menu with IE 7… Works fine in 6.

Great information guys.

The other two we are considering are Speedline and Revention.

Main problems I have with Revention are that they are locked into their own online ordering system (which is a pretty great deal actually but we have our own developer on our team) and I am turned off by some of their negative advertising (such as profiling Speedline customers that switched to them).

Speedline is also good but I am really attracted to the Firefly web-based application and open database. Still got some more pondering to do but am focused on financing right now.

Strange, as I can with no issues.

Speedline and Revention were also the other two systems I was considering.

It’s been a while now, but I believe I didn’t go with Speedline because of Firefly’s remote access, text messaging & the rep I had at Firefly. The rep I had at Speedline just did not excite me either.

I was very close to going with Revention and would most likely look at them again. It seemed to have “everything” I wanted, and I didn’t mind Jeff’s aggressive attitude, but the fact that he has rubbed a lot of people the wrong way made me nervous.

From your post it seems we have come to a lot of the same conclusions.

Speaking of Reventions aggressive marketing… I’m surprised we haven’t had 10 new random users, replying to this thread about how great Revention is… LOL. Come on where you guys at… I know its going to happen …

Speaking of Reventions aggressive marketing… I’m surprised we haven’t had 10 new random users, replying to this thread about how great Revention is… LOL. Come on where you guys at… I know its going to happen …

I assume they must be overwhelmed with business because the price they quoted me sure made me feel they didn’t want any business from me. Nearly 50% more than any other POS company quoted me. Maybe they’re too busy to send the random spamers…sorry I mean users to plug their system.

The quote I got was comparable to Speedline. What companies did you look at?

Actually Speedline was the closest to them at 23K, while the rest of my quotes ranged from 18-22K and included Diamondtouch, Prism, InTouch POS, Selbysoft and PDQ. My Revention quote was 29K, not even close to any of the others.

Interesting as Revention would have been my cheapest bid. However, at the time it was my understanding they were making a lot of concessions to get market penetration.

:shock: