Windward System Five

What Windward System Five is

Windward System Five combines business management, accounting, inventory control, and point of sale in one system for retail, rental, and service businesses. Its POS supports barcode scanning, cash sales, estimates, and work orders, with real-time inventory tracking across stores. Inventory tools track stock, committed work orders, layaways, and available-to-sell quantities, and allow up to 99 customer price schedules. The system also offers multi-location support, employee management, customer profiles, purchase orders, and custom reporting.

E-commerce integrations can synchronize online and in-store inventory, and changes to System Five records can update online prices and stock. Listed integrations include WooCommerce, Shopify, WebSell, Worldpay, Global Payments, ShipRush, Orgill, and Microsoft Power BI through Windward Intelligence. Buyers can choose cloud-hosted SaaS or local installation. The cloud option runs on Microsoft Azure and is accessed through a virtual desktop; Windward describes continuous backups and encrypted access. A System Five API provides inventory endpoints for external systems. Windward, founded in 1984 and based in Penticton, British Columbia, Canada, says its support staff provide live global support seven days a week. Pricing is on request and depends on users, edition, modules, and deployment choice.

Who it suits

System Five suits retail, rental, and service businesses that need point of sale alongside accounting, business management, and inventory control. It is relevant to organizations managing multiple locations or syncing store inventory with e-commerce systems.

Limits

Pricing varies with concurrent users, edition, required features or modules, and local or cloud deployment; buyers must contact Windward for specific pricing.

Getting started

1. Visit the Windward System Five website.
2. Contact Windward for pricing based on users, edition, modules, and deployment.
3. Choose cloud-hosted SaaS or local installation.
4. For a local installation, check the listed Windows 10 Pro and Windows 11 Pro support.
5. Use the System Five API inventory endpoints if connecting an external system.

Verdict

Consider System Five if your retail, rental, or service operation needs inventory management and point of sale in one system, with cloud or local deployment. Look elsewhere if you need a published price or a platform beyond Windows and API.