Campus Store POS System

Sherry Yates

We are looking for a point of sale system for our student store.  We sale spirit items, apparel and snacks on a student charge account.  Is anyone using a system that they like for sales, inventory and billing?  Does anyone have a system that integrates with Blackbaud?

Your input is greatly appreciated!


Sherry Yates

Asst. Controller

St. Mark's School of Texas

Brian Gray

We started using Odin's POS in January.  We are still using EE-7/FE-7 on our local server until June, when we will complete our migration to SIS/LMS/NXT.  


Our bookstore staff is happy with it.  The implementation went well, and I have been impressed with their tech support. They are quick to answer questions and fix problems.

• We are operating  with student charge accounts now.  The bookstore balance is transferred to Student Billing each month. (For now, the integration is via CSV. That will change when we complete the migration.)
• The software can also take cash, credit card and Google Pay/Apple Pay via Square on an iPad POS station. 
• The Windows-based POS station can take credit cards (using a processor other than Square). 
• Odin also offers a prepaid debit option. We are considering that for next year (which would get us out of the student charge account business).
• Parents this year can see on a website what their children purchase within about 15 minutes of the purchase. If we switch to prepaid, the student and parent can use an app to manage the account.

odin-inc.com

Josceline Reardon

@Brian Gray

Are you using Odin's installed on premise/server system or their newer cloud version?

Also, is the system easy enough for your Store Manager to maintain or do you feel your IT Dept. is heavily involved in set up, daily operations, etc…

Thank in advance for your input.

Brian Gray

@Josceline Reardon - We are using the on-premises version. The cloud version was not quite ready when we started using the service. It runs on a dedicated virtual server instance. Odin has remote log-in abilities to that server to do maintenance and updates.

After the initial set-up of hardware and software (which involved IT a good bit), we are now mostly hands-off. The bookstore keeps it running, and they contact Odin for help when they need it. The only thing that I do is add student photos to the server each fall.

Since I posted my original response, Student Billing has gone away. We are now using FACTS for student billing. Our Odin software generates a couple of CSV files each month that are imported into FACTS. The bookstore and Business Office people handle it - IT is not involved at all.