Heartland Retail

Overall: We found Springboard Retail after searching for a program that can manage many elements of a wholesale business all in one program. We started using it Summer of 2014. We are now able to manage our inventory that is in our office and out with sales reps and on consignment. Although there is no "consignment" part to the program, there's a workaround within the system that is fine. Since everything is in the cloud, we have access to this information anywhere and anytime, even on a mobile phone with the app. It is especially helpful at tradeshows. The reporting functions are amazing and show us very valuable information about sales and products and locations of products that we never had before. Each inventory item allows you to add images and customize as you need. You can duplicate items easily and set up frequently ordered items as needed. It does take some practice to learn everything, especially since we use the program from a wholesale view but once you figure everything out, it is very quick to use and invaluable to our company now. The support service always gets back to us right away if we have a question or problem (which isn't very often). My only issue is with our Quickbooks integration. The integration pushes invoices or credits over to Quickbooks from Springboard as journal entries but then you have to re-enter the invoice/credit specifics into Quickbooks in order to actually have the info/details in Quickbooks. Then we run a Quickbooks report to make sure we haven't missed any invoices. It is a bit time consuming and there is room for error if you forget to enter in an invoice or mistype something. Springboard has said they are working on a better way to handle this but we haven't received any details yet. This one issue is small compared to the positives of the software. I would highly recommend it to any business that needs to manage inventory in one or many locations and is looking for a great reporting system.

Pros: Manage inventory, run reports, invoice and credits, manage consignments -- everything is all in one program. It's mobile and in the cloud so we have access anywhere and anytime. Support always responds in a timely manner.

Cons: Quickbooks integration not the best, but works with a little effort.

Recommendations to other buyers: Works for wholesale companies, as well.

Pros: We moved over from RICS because it was an older slower moving system. Springboard's reporting function is dynamic - it works as fast as my brain works. In the past, I would run a report on performance and invariably another question would come up while I was reviewing that report - In RICS I would have to go back and rerun another report (5 mins) - with Springboard I can slice the data any way I want in a matter of seconds. I also have been consistently impressed by the support team - any time I have a question, the team is available to answer my questions - and always with a friendly and helpful attitude. ALWAYS. I know their names, they know who I am, it just feels really comforting to know I have a support team who seems to care about my business as much as I do. If they don't have the answer I am looking for, they are always quick to provide a suggestion for a workaround AND add my need to a list of projects they have going forward. I have seen almost every single one of my suggestions turn into a feature on Springboard. I also really like that I can open up another register (Station) as my business dictates - I am not locked into paying for features that I only use seasonally.

Cons: There are not many bad things I can say about Springboard. Every complaint I have has been addressed - occasionally I will request a feature or a metric (Inventory Turn!) that is not available now - and for the most part I have seen them implemented. There are several features concerning Open to Buy that I would like to see going forward. Also, Springboard only integrates with one Credit Card Processor, and although they were able to give me a very low rate, it's not great to be locked into one option. Also there have been a few outages in service (very few but still a scary situation)

Recommendations to other buyers: I would highly suggest sticking with a cloud based system - make sure you are not paying for things you don't need (with Springboard you are not) and also make sure the metrics are going to match your industry (they are pretty generic, but Springboard is really helpful for clothing/shoes) One of the things that frustrated me about the old company I was using - and was eventually the straw that made me leave was customer service. I felt my concerns were not being addressed and it upset me to think that no one cared that I was having issues with the performance of the software my business really depended on. Take some time talking to the team behind the software - before I signed on I had lots of conversations with the springboard team who talked with me for a VERY long time addressing all my concerns - it was so nice to see that the energy and dedication Springboard put into SALES was almost exceeded by their customer service team.