For 23 years, Custom Business Solutions (CBS) has been one of POSitouch’s most successful dealers. Headquartered in Orange County, California, CBS has represented POSitouch with some of the restaurant industry’s largest household names.
While POSitouch has been widely adopted by the industry, some restaurants, and even CBS, looked to the future, where connectivity and speed is increasingly more important. CBS began exploring options for a system that would deliver in those key areas.
“In order to grow, and more importantly to satisfy our customers, we needed to look ahead for a solution,” tells Jeremy Julian, COO of CBS.
Finding no acceptable cloud solutions for chain restaurant clients, CBS undertook the development of NorthStar Order Entry, their cloud POS product. Over five years CBS carefully built Order Entry, closely examining the robust feature set that made POSitouch successful while simultaneously keeping an eye on cloud and learning from the early failures experienced in the industry.
“We’ve seen a number of cloud systems fail to deliver the promise of cloud,” explains Jeremy. “The number one issue has been internet connectivity and the need to operate the business if the Internet goes down. A smaller business might be okay with that compromise but that would never fly in a larger one.”
Like the small number of cloud POS companies that understand the business, CBS built a local server in their systems that can run without Internet for up to 30 days. “When Internet connectivity is reestablished all the data goes to cloud. But if it can’t connect, the business can still operate,” Jeremy notes.
All the management tools and business functions can be done from Order Entry’s cloud. Offline payments are completed assuming the payment processor offers the service, though EMV is not possible in offline mode.
To give customers the best options, CBS remains agnostic when it comes to processors, something that sets the company apart in this layered industry.
“We currently integrate to Heartland, First Data, TSYS and Vantiv, with a World Pay integration under way,” added Jeremy.
Unlike other POS providers that never bothered to certify EMV, Order Entry will require EMV and end-to-end encryption. To remain out of PCI scope, no personally identifiable information is stored from the payment transaction.
To move their product, CBS believes in a hearty dealer channel. “As a dealer ourselves, we understand the value of the channel for both developer and customer,” says Jeremy.
“CBS’ dealer program will be similar to the dealer programs created by NCR Aloha and Micros, where we’re actively searching for the best of the best. Because our product will not play well in the long tail of the market where lightweight cloud solutions might, we are after dealers who know what they’re doing,” he explains.
CBS maintains a no-toll position on third party integrations. According to Jeremy, “We don’t believe we’re in business to make money on walled gardens. We know this was a popular position with many of the legacy POS companies but that’s not our stance.” Any third parties that want to integrate can freely access CBS’ developer page. If the third party meets that standard then they get full development support from our engineering team.”
Like the very small number of POS companies we nod our cap to, CBS seems like it will stand among the titans. We have a hunch CBS’ Order Entry POS will be a legitimate contender in bridging the old world with the new.
If you’re interested in learning more about becoming a reseller, contact Jeremy Julian at Jeremy [dot] Julian [at] cbsnorthstar.com
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