Over four years ago we said that the major concern with cloud technology was the inability for the merchant to control who could access their data, and therefore who they could work with. In the old days a merchant’s data resided onsite, and the merchant could grant access to anyone they wanted. With cloud POS, the merchant needs the POS company’s permission to data grant access.
Well, what if the POS provider doesn’t want a third party to access that merchant’s data to provide a solution? It could be because the POS company has a competitive solution that they want the merchant to use, that they don’t like the third party, or because it’s sunny outside.
The reasoning is irrelevant, but the outcome is the same every time: the merchant can’t get what they want.
The only way around this would be if the merchant were to replace their POS, a rather painful experience, and it’s really hard for a merchant to know upfront precisely which POS is a bad actor before jumping into that bed.
Well, we try our damnedest to call out the bad actors and we have a new crown today.
While the legacy POS companies (and mostly just NCR at this point) made third party integrations really expensive and cumbersome for everyone involved, Heartland Restaurant has swept in to take first place on that podium of idiocracy.
We’ve heard whisperings from third parties that Toast ceased their integrations program, blocking out new third parties, but we haven’t yet confirmed it.
What we do have is first hand, direct evidence that Heartland Restaurant POS is actively blocking third party integrations.
Just the sheer stupidity of this is amazing, frankly. First, that nobody would find out, and second, that it could somehow be construed as a good thing?
Like seriously, who the hell makes hiring decisions over there?
We understand that Global Payments arguably prioritizes it’s time adding bogus fees to statements, and if you’re not smart enough to generate fake fees you’re relegated to demonstrating your incompetence with accounting bungles at Heartland (this is still ongoing, by the way), but c’mon, surely someone can see more than a few feet in front of themselves.
You couldn’t even pay a consultant to tell you how not to ruin your business?
Here’s what any reasonable person would tell you.
When merchants don’t get what they want they go to their dealer (which as currently run is Heartland’s failing distribution model).
When the dealer finds out that this is just one more headache on top of many others, they look at different POS products to carry.
Competitors that have open APIs, invest in R&D, and do things on behalf of the customer win over dealers.
Dealers leave Heartland.
Heartland sales slip.
Layering on moronic decision after moronic decision spins that flywheel faster.
If you’re a POS reseller reading this you can bet your ass that this won’t be the last time Heartland behaves this way. You need to pick up another POS system pronto. You really want to push a system that’s going to make your life and reputation this much worse?
If you’re out of ideas, plenty of dealers that focus on SMB table service restaurants are flocking to POS systems like Linga, SpotOn, and Tabit.
If you’re a merchant you’re likely not reading any of this anyhow, but we feel sorry for you. Merchants who chose other POS systems are going to pass you up dramatically over the next half decade as POS becomes commoditized and third party integrations drive the future of your business.
Using HRPOS? You most probably just increased your odds of failure.
A little bit of research would go a long way, and since this stuff is so esoteric we’re doing what we can to make it public information. Hopefully that helps someone.
You obviously talked to the wrong person as we have active integrations coming on a weekly basis. I’m all for being informative but if that’s what this article is supposed to be, informative, you are dead wrong. Let’s start from the top, the title of the article, “Heartland Blocking POS Integrations”.
There is a process put in place for any company that wants to be part of Heartland’s integration partners on every one of Heartand’s POS systems. Once those 2 parties have laid down the details behind the scenes agreements can be made and testing can begin between the 2. The main objective to this is to make sure everything is working properly and both parties can make adjustments between dev teams to work out the bugs. It’s not an issue of blocking 3rd party integrations it more relates to not of allowing or denying, but when does that integration happen, and this all starts with the “process”.
The second piece to this, if you do you DD, is Open API. Look at the major breaches and hacks recently due to Open API access amongst Major fortune 500 companies. Why would Heartland not want any fail safes put in place? I can tell anyone first hand as a dealer for Heartland that this article is entirely untrue. We have many many integrations and many many more are being added weekly.
I enjoy most of the articles as being “informative” here on this site but I cannot sit here and read things that just simply aren’t true. As far as the comment on Dealers leaving, it’s their choice if they want to do that, but a lot more will be staying and being added. As far as the systems you mentioned us leaving to, LOL. I’ll leave it at that. #WhoDat!
Just so you know, I’m not interested in any off the record talk about this. I just wanted to let everyone reading this that this article is not factual by any means.
You need to move up a few rungs on the political ladder to understand what’s really happening. This might be your view from where you sit, but you’re only seeing what gets sent your way.
From where I sit (within the real world of restaurant ownership) Heartland Restaurant is the real deal. I have spent the last 2 years researching many pos providers and personally don’t see anyone that is a world beater in this space. Heartland Restaurant may have a few issues(i am not aware of) but, their ability to work with third-party integrations and restaurant IT depts is at the top of the pile, perhaps the very top. Go HR!
I had the fortunate experience of earning a client for this very reason. The client was mortified to learn that the POS they purchased through a 3rd party partner of Heartland, would not allow them to maintain or control their very own client base and it would limit them to exclusivity with Heartland. I was brought in by the IT person who explained what had happened. Thankfully we introduced them to a different POS and we are working together both in store and now online.
So who did you introduce them to? Let’s be transparent here
At Townies Pizzeria in Fernandina Beach I can give you first hand information on everything you are talking about in this post.
After 8 years of devotion to Aloha and promises of tech integration we finally agreed to migration to Aloha Essentials which was promised to allow for third party integration with a delivery platform I am developing, https://www.deliverylink.co
NCR gave me a devoted Wed meeting with their “API” team and after 10 months they pulled the plug on me because I temporarily moved to Heartland due to Essentials massive tech failures to satisfy a single operation pizzeria. Ridiculous right?
So NCR basically threw me out of the ship without a life preserver and sailed off.
Meanwhile, Heartland came to bat for me. Did a great job of migrating from Aloha Essentials to a true cloud based product which interfaces nicely with my deliveryLINK platform including my companion app DeliveryLINK.
Failure is not an option for me and I am true customer of both and can testify to you that Heartland is a true solution provider.
Additionally, Toast is “Toast”. Of course they can solve the Middle East issues and any other issue you may have in your restaurant. Oh, did I say they don’t have an open API and sent me an email to that effect. (“ONBOARDING ON HOLD”)
====BEGIN of partial EMAIL=====
Great meeting you yesterday in person, I can see your vision and love the idea of Delivery Link. I will do whatever I can to help. I did connect with someone from our partner’s integration team and received the following response.
“We are accepting applications still, but onboarding is on hold for the near future. I can’t give a firm date when they’ll be contacted as we are still ironing out the process and it will take some time. Here is the application if they would like to apply:”
https://pos.toasttab.com/partners/integration-partner-application
======END OF partial email=======
Appears to be alot of hatred in this post. Not sure where that is coming from? Do we have a reason to be this assertive and demonstrative? I mean did HR like destroy somebody’s business. Because if you’re really looking for the. evil empire I can show you how NCR just dragged my restaurant though the dirt for 12 months. where I spent about $20k pursuing a third party integration just to be thrown under the bus. I mean this is a real story with real money being spent on a real integration project with a real pos provider and a real restaurant. So let’s all be real on this forum and talk about real names and real people. My name is Matt Klabacka(real person) and i own Townies Pizzeria(real restaurant) on Amelia Island FL (real island). Let’s quit talking anonymously with stories and talk reality. Give me some names and let people come out of the closet and speak like real people in a real convesation. REALLY!
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