talech POS Review

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Pros

• Updating constantly
• Great inventory features
• Advanced purchase order options
• Online ordering

Cons

• Reporting weak compared to competitors
• Less than stellar offline functionality

Overview

For a long time now, talech has quietly been one of the most complete and functional POS systems on the market. Established in 2012, talech has the robust feature set and simple layout to put it on par, if not a step above, many of its competitors. Couple that with an affordable starter plan, and talech should be on the shortlist of most small to mid-sized restaurants or retail store owners. When the biggest complaint you can make about a product is the gratuitous lowercase “t” in its name, you know you’re working with a good system.

While talech is a strong option for both retail and food-service businesses, you get a ton of bang for your buck in the restaurant industry. The company has the register functionality and table mapping features that are at least on par with most of its major competitors and generally for a cheaper price. A lot of software companies brag about how often they update, fix bugs, and release new features, but talech lives up to that claim, employing a large team of developers that are constantly tinkering.

Built with advanced inventory features, in-house marketing capabilities, and the ability to integrate with virtually any payment processor, talech takes your standard POS to the next level. There are very few red flags here that would cause you to automatically cross talech of your list. talech’s reporting, while improved, still lags somewhat and its offline functionality leaves something to be desired. That said, this software is still on par with its top-ranking competitors, establishing talech as a formidable contender in the POS market.

Don’t have time to read an entire review? Take a look at our top-rated Point of Sale solutions for a few quick recommendations. Every option we present here offers excellent customer support, detailed user interfaces, and easy-to-use software, all for a reasonable price.

Our Top Picks for Point of Sale Software: 

Pricing

talech has some pretty competitive pricing, especially considering the level of functionality that comes with the software. You can schedule a 30-minute demo before choosing between pricing plans.

Starter: $29.99/month

Best suited for cafes and basic retail establishments, this plan includes:

• One device
• Five employees
• 100 products
• Products with variations and modifiers
• Inventory tracking
• Employee permissions
• Basic order management
• Full and partial refunds
• Cash drawer management
• Track customer history
• Basic reporting

Standard: $62/month 

The Standard plan is best suited for quick-service restaurants and mid-sized retailers, and it comes with everything the Starter plan includes, plus:

• Unlimited devices, products, and employees
• Bundles
• Sell items by weight
• Barcode label printing
• Clock-in and timesheets
• Kitchen printing
• Automatic discounts
• Exchanges
• Store credit
• House accounts
• Insights

Each additional device is $35/month.

Premium: $89/month

Premium is best suited for full-service restaurants and multi-store retailers. It includes everything in the Standard plan, along with:

• Inventory alerts
• Purchase orders
• Inventory log
• Stocktake
• Table management
• Pay by position
• Split and merge orders
• Coursing
• Automatic gratuity
• BOGO discounts

Each additional device is $44/month.

If you’re just wanting to give talech a try, or if your business will only be operating for a short time, talech also offers month-to-month pricing, which is slightly more expensive but you won’t be locked into a contract. talech also offers specialized pricing for franchise-level businesses under the heading ‘Enterprise.’ For a custom price quote, you must call or email talech directly. 

You can also add on talech’s online ordering integration for an additional $49/month.

Cloud-Based Or Locally-Installed

talech is entirely cloud-based, which means none of your data is housed locally on your devices but rather stored on external servers. These servers communicate with your device via the cloud and require an internet connection to do so. Its offline mode is also a bit behind the times, which means, unfortunately,  that in the event of an outage, you’ll only be able to accept cash transactions. You also won’t be able to access most of your back office. Of course, you can set up backup options in case this happens by purchasing a specialized router or iPads with data plans.

Specific Size Of Business

talech is completely scalable. The pricing and functionality of both plans make it accessible to small single-location businesses, but it is also designed to suit businesses with over 25,000 SKUs and upwards of 25 locations. talech currently serves merchants who are bringing in anywhere from $200,000 to $10 million a year.

Specific Type Of Business

The plan in which you decide to invest is largely going to be determined by the type of business you have. The Standard version of the software is best for cafes, quick service restaurants, food trucks, clothing and bookstores, and thrift and gift shops. The Premium version is best for full-service restaurants and bars and more complex retail businesses. But talech can handle pretty much any size business, just make sure the plan you choose has all of the features you need.

Ease Of Use

Staying true to the DIY model of the 21st Century, this POS is designed to be easy to set up and use. To me, talech’s look is similar to Square’s — which is to say, very sleek and user-friendly with an intuitive layout and large buttons. You can easily upload pictures of items to help your employees and the look of the front end is very pleasing and easy to navigate. Honestly, your average merchant should be able to get essential functions up and running with little or no help from the how-to articles or technical support. You can watch support videos to get an idea of how the different parts of the system operate, but the trend is that the basic functions (register layout, hotkey and product creation, employee and customer profile creation, etc.) are pretty easily configured, while advanced functions may require more assistance. This is to be expected when you’re creating product bundles, generating and tracking email campaigns, and customizing automatic discounts, but all that considered, it’s still pretty easy to use.

Hardware & Operating System Requirements

talech operates on most iPad models: iPad 2 or newer plus iPad Pro and iPad mini models. As for your network requirements, you want to have a download speed greater than 3 Mbps and an upload speed of at least 1.5 Mbps.

To make peripheral shopping as simple as possible, talech sells most of its hardware options in bundles geared toward certain business types. For example, the Mobile & Outdoor Events bundle comes with a headphone jack magstripe swipe and a Bluetooth printer. Conversely, the Grocery/Yogurt Shop bundle comes with an iPad stand, chip reader, receipt printer, cash drawer, and weight scale. It’s pretty convenient, especially if you’re not overly tech-savvy and just want someone to take those types of decisions out of your hands.

talech also sells individual items directly through its website. Most notably, they sell and function on the Poynt terminal which, if you’re running a small cafe, for instance, might just be the only piece of hardware you need. They sell iPads directly, along with Ingenico and Miura M10 card readers, iPad stands, Epson and Star receipt printers, Epson and Star kitchen printers, and a variety of cash drawers, plus scales and scanners.

Though you don’t have to source your hardware directly from talech, you will need to make sure that whatever equipment you end up purchasing integrates with the software. You’ll want to take a look at talech’s hardware page to make sure you’re getting the correct model numbers.

Features

talech offers a robust list of features and, at its highest level, has virtually no gaps — especially when you consider its available add-ons and integrations. Here are a few areas where talech stands out:

• Register: Aside from basic functions, talech allows you to issue cash back on overpayments, split or make partial payments, capture customer signatures, and designate tips on your device. You can also create percentage and dollar-amount discounts and assign them as hotkeys for easy access. Additionally, you can customize automatic discounts, stack discounts, and offer loyalty-based discounts to customer groups.
• Table Mapping: You can set table and position settings to ease the ordering process, and it’s all customizable through a few clicks. This also simplifies ticket-splitting. Approve and track voids through the ordering process as well.

• Cash Management: You can open your cash drawer with a starting till count and track voids, payouts, cash drops, and pay-ins throughout the rest of the day. When you make a payout, you can designate whether it’s for tips, inventory, or some other expense with the option to add a note at the bottom. Of course, all actions are tracked by time and employee.

• Customer Management: It’s possible to import your customer list if you’re moving to talech from another system, though you’ll have to send your list to them, so they can import it on their end. With these records, you can monitor past orders, view customer metrics (days since the last visit, number of visits, total and average spent), and track store credit by customer. Even more impressive is the ability to generate email campaigns that can be sent to your entire database or specific customer groups. What’s more, the system tracks how many customers have taken advantage of the offers in your emails so you know how effective they are. Discounts and promos are also remarkably simple to set up. Create automatic times when Happy Hour prices can be applied. 
• Inventory Management: Inventory is certainly one of talech’s greatest strengths, with the ability to create multi-level variations, batch-edit products, set fixed or variable prices, and generate product barcodes on a PDF that can be printed from any device (meaning you don’t need to invest in an expensive barcode printer). You can also track product history and performance with the inventory log and configure applied, inclusive, and flat-rate taxes on a per-item or per-category basis. talech gives users the ability to create complex products, such as bundles. This makes it possible to group certain items and sell them as one unit while still tracking the raw materials that make up the set. talech recently added the ability to sync products, categories, and even discounts across multiple locations. 

• Purchase Orders: Not every system has the ability to generate purchase orders, let alone offer advanced features to make the process simple. After you’ve created your supplier list and designated which products are from which supplier, it’s easy to pull up a list of products from a particular vendor for a comprehensive list of what needs to be added to your PO. You can set a low count alert and even set up purchase orders to be auto-generated when stock quantities hit a certain level.
• Employee Management: Aside from the time clock, employee roles, and customizable access controls, you can track employee sales and actions and even transfer orders between employees for accurate sales data. talech recently added unique employee ID numbers so that you can track your employees’ actions and sales. Another great feature, just released, is the option to adapt manager swipe cards to your POS system. These cards will allow card holding managers alone the ability to void orders and complete other administrative actions.

• Online Ordering: talech just rolled out an exciting feature for restaurant owners — the ability to integrate an online ordering system. You can create your own branded website, integrate with your current payment processor to allow for online payments, manage your online orders in your current POS system to avoid confusion, keep your customers up to date on the status of their order by enabling email notifications to be sent out, and keep track of customers’ online ordering data (for reporting purposes). Also, if your business is getting particularly swamped during a big lunch or dinner rush, simply pause online ordering directly from your talech register. This feature costs an additional $49 per month.

• Reports: Though not the most extensive reporting suite I’ve ever seen, talech offers a decent selection. Among other things, you can track all your top-performing products and employees, view the inventory log that breaks down your product information, and view customer data that displays when someone was last in your store, how often they visit, and how much they tend to spend.

• Loyalty: talech features an integrated loyalty program, allowing customers to enroll or redeem points directly at the register. Look customers up instantly via their phone number and you or the customer can track their points or earnings. You can also print custom gift cards and change loyalty rewards with the click of a button. With the same program, you can assign employees permissions and perform audits to prevent fraud.
• Kiosk Mode: talech has a strong kiosk mode, allowing customers to place their orders themselves to speed up the checkout process. There is also the option for a customer-facing display to help engage customers even more with your business.

Integrations & Add-Ons

At first glance, it might appear from talech’s partner page that they don’t integrate with many third-party business applications. This isn’t entirely accurate, though, since the company works with OneSaas, which acts as a go-between for talech and over thirty different programs. This list includes:

• QuickBooks Online
• Xero
• Shopify
• BigCommerce
• Magento
• OpenCart
• Volusion
• WooComerce
• Mailchimp

talech has also opened its API to certain developers. To ensure a quality integration and partnership, they’re not offering API access to just anyone, but if you’d like to build an integration, you are invited to contact talech about it.

Compatible Credit Card Processors

talech has partnered with several banks and payment processors to make it possible for you to choose virtually any merchant services provider you would like to work with. They specifically list Elavon and Global Payments as EMV-compliant processors that integrate well with the system, but the actual list is much longer. Check out our top-rated credit card processors if you’re looking to switch or need a new solution.

Customer Service & Technical Support

talech boasts some pretty impressive numbers when it comes to technical support. The company reports an average customer satisfaction rating of 85% or higher, with over 90% of calls answered within 30 seconds and over 75% of problems resolved with the first call. And all that 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

• Phone: Available 24/7 with practically no wait time.
• Email: Although this service is also available 24/7, you could be looking at a 12-24 hour response time. I sent an email around 6 PM and it was answered within two hours, but if you’ve got a more pressing issue, I would recommend calling.
• Knowledgebase: If you don’t feel like contacting support, you can always do some troubleshooting yourself with the searchable database of help articles. There are also some training videos covering basic functions.
• Live Chat: talech has a strong live chat function that promptly connects you with a human. This feature is available Mondays through Fridays 8 AM to 5 PM.

User Reviews

Negative Reviews & Complaints

While the internet is not overflowing with negative talech reviews, no product is perfect and there are still some areas where talech could use some development:

• Reporting: This area is not as robust as it could be, especially for larger and more complex businesses. You might even need a third-party reporting program to supplement the system, depending on your business needs.
• Limited Offline Functionality: This is to be expected of any cloud-based software, but many of the top-performing POS vendors have found ways to work around internet outages and keep their systems running almost seamlessly in the midst of them. talech isn’t quite at that level yet, and I’d like to see the company take the next step into cloud-based technology.
• Customer Service: Several customers have complained about long wait times or poor customer service experiences.  
• Glitches: A few customers complained about the system either lagging at various times or about functions that didn’t seem to operate as intuitively as they should.

Positive Reviews & Testimonials

Like I stated previously, there are not a ton of comments online about talech, but of the ones I found, many were positive:

• Ease Of Use: Lots of talech customers are impressed with how easy the system is to navigate and use.
• Customer Service: Of the comments referring to customer service, there were many more customers with positive reports.
• Pricing: For the number of features you have access to, talech’s subscription cost is difficult to match; many customers cite this as a major reason behind their decision to go with talech.  
• Customer Management: A common theme among talech users is how easy it is to track customers, keep tabs on their spending habits, and contacting them for marketing campaigns. 
• Integration Options: You aren’t locked into a contract with a “preferred” credit card processor with this software. Nor are you limited to one or two integrations with third-party accounting, ecommerce, or email marketing programs. Your options abound.
• Food Service & Retail: It’s difficult to offer an all-in-one POS that has the built-in functionality to suit both retail and foodservice establishments, but talech somehow manages to pull it off in a way that not even ShopKeep can compete with.

You can also find videos from talech users on the company’s testimonial page to get an idea of what people tend to like about it. You’ll hear a lot about its ease of use, accessibility, reporting, and general wealth of functionality and data.

Final Verdict

What isn’t to like about talech?  This system already offers an impressive array of features at an exceedingly affordable price, yet talech continues to take it to the next level. Bolstered by its integrated online ordering system for restaurant users, its Kitchen Display System, and stellar customer management, talech seems determined to keep striving for a greater level of functionality and usability. It also has a recognition of the few minor gaps in its systems and has expressed a commitment to addressing those gaps.

If you’re budget conscious, talech is worth a look. If it has all of the basic functions your business is going to need, I would think it would be difficult to turn down. And, with the option for a free demo, I recommend taking talech out for a spin.

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