Q: What is your favorite PayGo feature and why?

A: The feature that really sold us on PayGo is the OpenSorta functionality -- being able not only to construct our own FileMaker solutions but to integrate them seamlessly with PayGo's data and interface has proved extremely valuable.

For example, we've created an alternate interface to the repair tracking module that gives us a quick overview of a repair order's status and lets us quickly email the information to the service technician (very handy for booking house calls). We've also linked a Time Cards solution into the main menu screen (and integrated it with PayGo's employee database), a custom price check window, as well as incorporating a link to our web-based project management system.

As a small business, we can't afford to pay for a 100% custom solution to accomplish all the tasks we face in our workday. OpenSorta gives us the opportunity to build upon PayGo's solid point-of-sale foundation, and tweak it to fit our workflow.

Q: How does PayGo make your life easier?

A: We were struggling with a PC-only point-of-sale program that befuddled us with an inconsistent user interface and buggy behavior from almost day one. As our business grew we realized we couldn't rely on this crash-prone POS and maintain our sanity.

We had three major requirements in a new point-of-sale program.

1. Ease of use -- so many of the functions of our prior system went untouched because they were so confusing to access.
   
2. Stability -- nothing is worse than a system crash in the middle of a rush of customers.
   
3. Cross-platform capability -- Directly related to (1) and (2), we wanted to move to a Macintosh based environment for reliability, security and user-friendliness, but we weren't ready to dump all of our hardware investments from our previous system.

PayGo has exceeded our expectations in all of these requirements. PayGo's simple interface has been nearly hassle-free, requiring less time training employees on how to use the system, and better access to all the details of our store. Since we've switched to PayGo on a Mac OS X server, our network has had 100% uptime--even in our mixed environment--which has saved us time, money and headaches, with fewer lost sales and happier customers. For all of PayGo's great features, our life has been made easiest by having a point-of-sale system that just works.