uniCenta POS - anyone using it?

[ShamusVW]

I'm opening a retail store and I have been looking at the above POS software. It is open source.
Is anyone using this software, and would recommend it?
My real concern is whether it will work processing card payments.

The only other option I've considered is Ikhokha POS. They charge 2.75% per transaction + R2.50
So if I sell something for R100, I am paying them 5.25% of the transaction. If there is a 20% GP, then I am paying a quarter of my profit to them. If I do R1m per month profit, that means I'm paying them R250k...? Please someone correct me if I'm misunderstanding how it works.

Also, if uniCenta does all I want it to, do I still pay card payment transaction fees, and if yes, then to who?

 

[Rickster]

I'm opening a retail store and I have been looking at the above POS software. It is open source.
Is anyone using this software, and would recommend it?
My real concern is whether it will work processing card payments.

The only other option I've considered is Ikhokha POS. They charge 2.75% per transaction + R2.50
So if I sell something for R100, I am paying them 5.25% of the transaction. If there is a 20% GP, then I am paying a quarter of my profit to them. If I do R1m per month profit, that means I'm paying them R250k...? Please someone correct me if I'm misunderstanding how it works.

Also, if uniCenta does all I want it to, do I still pay card payment transaction fees, and if yes, then to who?

I'm no maths expert but it think your calculations are way off.

Why add R value to % and then get a total in %?

Lets take your R100, they charge 2.75% + R2.50.

2.75%*100 = R2.75 + R2.50 = R5.25


You would be paying them R5.25 per R100 transaction.

R1,000,000 on a single transaction.

2.75%*1000000 = R27500 + R2.50 = R27502.50


But if you are making 1 Million R100 transactions the R2.50 is going to nail you, that would be R2,500,000 just from the R2.50.

Hell, I could be hella wrong too.

 

[ShamusVW]

I think my calculations went a bit funny, I don't think I did a good job explaining, sorry. I was mixing turnover and profit together.

So R100 transaction means they take R5.25 = 5.25% of the R100.
If I make enough R100 transactions to make R1m turnover (10 000 of them), of which 20% is profit, then they take 10000x100x5.25% = R52500. Of the R1m turnover, I am making 20% = R200k. So they are taking R52500 of my R200000, about a quarter of it.

If the transactions are smaller than R100 the situation gets worse.

It is more the concern of using uniCenta though that I am looking for input, whether it will work or not for me in SA.

 

[JustAsk]

I'm opening a retail store and I have been looking at the above POS software. It is open source.
Is anyone using this software, and would recommend it?
My real concern is whether it will work processing card payments.

The only other option I've considered is Ikhokha POS. They charge 2.75% per transaction + R2.50
So if I sell something for R100, I am paying them 5.25% of the transaction. If there is a 20% GP, then I am paying a quarter of my profit to them. If I do R1m per month profit, that means I'm paying them R250k...? Please someone correct me if I'm misunderstanding how it works.

Also, if uniCenta does all I want it to, do I still pay card payment transaction fees, and if yes, then to who?

Your calculations are wrong.

First, you not gonna pay 2.75% on every rand of that hypothetical 1million, it will close to 30-60% of it.
Secondly, the R2.50 is your daily settlement fee...no matter the amount. Not per transaction. So worst case scenario, your settlement cost can only be 27 days x R2.50...no sundays
So rough estimate is:
1million x 0.60 x 0.0275 + (27 x R2.50) = R16 567.50

The iKhoka POS software seems to be R660ex/pm. Did you see that?

Yes, you will still have to pay cc fees when using unicenta. To who? To the owner/seller of the cc machine.

My opinion is, all open source POS are crap. My recommendations:

• On Windows use Aronium, great POS software, and FREE
• On Linux use a PHP POS script. There's plenty on Codecanyon, as low as 19USD once off. These are browser based and can run online or on your local network. Most of them have online demos you can test.