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Frequently Asked Questions
Have a question about Acadia POS? We have answered commonly asked questions about various subjects below.
General
Acadia POS has been serving merchants since 2016.
Acadia POS develops solutions for retail, quick-service and full-service restaurants. On the retail side, we do everything from liquor stores, mini marts, country stores to specialty retail. We can accommodate restaurants and bars who previously had very traditional software (like Aloha and its many clones).
Acadia POS is also a great fit for restaurants that want to incorporate mobile devices and order/pay-at-the table. Our solution is also great for hybrid businesses, like wineries, that have a restaurant and a retail component and don’t want two separate systems.
For retailers and quick-service restaurants, each station has its own dedicated database and can operate independently indefinitely without the internet.
Credit card authorizations will always require the internet and accepting cards without internet can be a painful mistake. We don’t recommend holding the cards until the internet comes back. Many times when the internet comes back, the funds are no longer available or there’s something preventing the card from being charged.
As a solution, we provide failover routers to our customers who experience any form of connectivity failure. New customers get a year’s worth of failover data from T-Mobile included and after that year it’s only $20 per month for failover service. For full-service restaurants who prefer local synchronization, Acadia will provide a small local server device to handle station synchronization offline without cloud.
Freedom POS is ideal for merchants who don’t value all the benefits the cloud services have to offer. Freedom POS isn’t cloud, however, it does have many of the same features of our full cloud POS.
Freedom POS merchants tend to be ones who don’t want to manage inventory remotely, like the local aspect of a cash register but want all the things a cash register can’t do, or are just getting started and want to keep their costs low.
We are integrated with Xero and QuickBooks online. We support passing sales, COGS and asset information.
Fees
Your per-station cost monthly service includes unlimited access to all point of sale features, settings as well as support.
Monthly fees are determined based on business type, the number of stations, and to some degree the overall volume of your business. If you are utilizing a credit card processor that is not providing real value in exchange for processing fees it might be time to reevaluate that strategy. Acadia Partners can provide real value and lower monthly fees when you utilize their processing services.
No! There are no extra charges for features and Acadia consistently releases new features without increasing costs for our existing customers.
We do charge extra monthly fees for additional products such as our Acadia eCommerce Platform and Acadia Voice platforms.
Acadia POS and our partners have never raised monthly software fees on existing customers. Many of our customers in retail and restaurants understand inflation and how real it is. Many of our first customers transitioned to our platform because their previous platforms increased rates on them.
We reserve the right to increase pricing in cases of hyperinflation, but we are also very much aware of the negative consequences raising prices has. We will never increase prices without providing additional value.
No. Acadia POS is a month-to-month solution. This means that you can cancel at any time. There may be contracts associated with your merchant services provider but those terms & fees have nothing to do with your Acadia point-of-sale subscription.
Payment Processing
Acadia can support almost any processing platform, but the options that are available will depend on where you subscribed to your system. Many partners use the additional revenues they generate from credit card processing as a way to provide VIP support to their merchants. Third-party companies charge high markups on processing and they don’t provide any additional value. Smart merchants have figured out that they should be getting something in exchange for the fees that they pay. Negotiate directly with the party that’s providing you support.
It’s not impossible, but you should be aware of the bad incentivization that creates. The interests of the credit card processing company are not aligned with the software company or support organization. It means when it comes to reconciling, you may have a more complicated process and no one party takes full responsibility for the customer experience.
Merchants who have previously used “Agnostic systems,” tell us about what they call “the blame game”. Credit card processing companies blame issues on the software provider and the software provider is constantly blaming issues on the processor. No one truly owns the customer experience. These agnostic systems are always selling their customer data to processors which leads to the constant bombardment of sales calls.
Often times the customers end up paying a higher monthly fee for the privilege to bring their own processor. If you’re bringing your own processor it should be in your economic interest. With that said, you should understand that the provider might charge higher monthly fees or refuse non-sustainable arrangements. This is due to the fact that technical organizations provide real value and offer real services in exchange for the profits earned to process your payments.
We do not have the ability to reprogram the credit card processing equipment that’s been deployed.
While you are not required to, there are many benefits to working with a reseller. This includes market familiarity, experience as well as other value-added services such as wiring the building and setting up the network properly.
Yes, but we don’t have a local presence like many of our partners. Customers that work with us directly love the VIP service that they get, but the reality is that we can only take on so many direct customers. It’s not our core focus, but our direct customers play a crucial role in testing new bleeding-edge features. If you did not come to us through a partner, please inquire to see if we’re able to work with you.
Yes, Acadia POS supports EBT and all PIN-based transactions.
Yes, Acadia POS supports surcharging and cash discounting.
Hardware and Launch
Android, iOS, Windows, and Mac. We also offer Acadia for chrome which is our full-featured browser-based solution.
Yes, as long as it is compatible with our solutions. You can view & purchase hardware options via shop.acadiapos.com.
The moment you sign up with Acadia POS, you’ll get a welcome email and you’ll be able to start logging into your system right away. Many customers are do-it-yourselfers and many setups are very straightforward.
Setups that are complicated (multiple stations, users with very little time for self-implementation, data import needs, or other steps related to a migration) might benefit from working with a partner or our own internal team. If you found out about us through a partner please revert to them. If you need help finding a partner, please fill out this form.
Yes of course we can. We have experience migrating customers from Clover, Square, Lightspeed, Revel, Talech and even legacy systems like PC America, Aloha, Micros, Restaurant Manager, Future POS and others. If there is a way to get the data out of your system we can help to get it into ours but we can also help you evaluate if it makes sense to start fresh. Many systems have bad data structures and many merchants use a new POS system as an opportunity to properly structure their database.
Yes, we can assist with menu builds within the POS solution. However, even if you provide us with a menu, there is no way for our team to know every single substitution, add-on or removable ingredient, or unlisted menu item. Your engagement in the process ensures that operations run smoothly when you launch.
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