AIM Reviews

Its really easy to make reports which is good for this type of software

Pros:

I really like how you can easily generate reports, that's important for my business and I believe this software can do the best job of it.

Cons:

I don't like that's a little clunky to use, but that should go without saying because this is super complex software we're dealing with here.

Small shop with multiple needs

Comments: Overall the POS has helped us make large improvements to how we do bussines. In many small ways the software is inflexable and since we have an owner with a CPA he has noted that the accounting side of the software is not as intuitive as others like quickbooks. As we get more familiar with it things are making more sense but the learning curve for the accounting reports is steeper than expected.

Pros:

Customizing the menu system makes it easy to help new users get familiar.

Cons:

The bugs that we do have often leave issues that take time to find or resolve after the initial issue is corrected.

It's a shame - good ideas, bad execution.

Comments: There are a lot of good ideas in this software, but things like a staff that's not on the same page, and a long-awaited refresh of their base tech keep AIMsi a frustrating software package. We stay because our lesson program is to big to be handled by any other solutions we looked at, but I would advise others to hold off until their promised rebuild is released.

Pros:

Lesson management is good. Inventory management and sales are serviceable.

Cons:

Built on outdated technology, which means the system will get slower and more bloated as your business grows. Simple ancillaries (like date lookup) require Googling to find outdated Microsoft files when you replace computers, and support won't have those files available. E-commerce is excruciatingly complex to execute; why must it be this complicated when options like Squarespace and Shopify exist? They don't require the user to learn XML to take full advantage of their features. The PO system is convoluted, the workflow makes no sense. Inventory management could stand to lose some processes to speed things up and make it more understandable. Reporting doesn't make much sense, either. But the most frustrating part for us has been the staff. Calling support is rarely a good experience; it often sounded like someone was paging through a manual to find a solution. Recently, I found out why: support is tiered, and we are on the lowest tier. I've been using this software for 5 years, and no one at TriTech offered us an upgrade. Online help files don't offer much more in the way of assistance. Navigation is clunky, and entries are often incomplete or outdated. We've also experienced the classic "sales promises features that developers say can't be done" routine. The most recent involved running their product on a Windows tablet - sales said it could be done, but later, support said it was only possible using Remote Desktop Protocol (a thing I wish I knew before I purchased the Windows tablet & an additional license). More than once, I've been scolded by sales for "not understanding how [their] software works." They require you to buy gift cards & hardware through them, at a substantial markup. I'm getting frustrated just thinking about this stuff...

Pleased!

Comments: Overall we are very happy with AIM for our business. The tech support is awesome! They are always ready to help and super friendly. I love that they can remote in and show us what to do.

Pros:

We have been using the contract module side of AIM for our instrument rental contracts to keep track of monthly payments since the beginning of our business in 2004. We pulled away for a brief stint to try another company and it was a disaster. The instrument rental contracts are the bread and butter of our business. If it fails, we fail. If the customer doesn't feel like they can trust us with their personal info because the system fails, we fail. It's a reflection on us. We came back to AIM in 2019 and went all in with the full point of sale system and we've never looked back. We highly recommend AIM.

Cons:

We do wish that there weren't so many steps to follow. Seems like there is a huge learning curve to this program. Once you live it and breath it like it do it's one thing. But my employees tend to make mistakes often because they miss a step. And for example: having to get out of one frame and into another one for the same customer with a different question about their account is sometimes frustrating. Also. I really wish that an email went out immediately to my rental contract customers on autopay when their card is declined. The ability is there, as they receive an email immediately when the payment goes through, but not when it declines. This would help our collection dept out tremendously if this option was implemented.

Product Review

Comments: My overall experience has been great. From the beginning the help to set this program up for our needs was challenging but very successful. Josh, our salesman has been nothing but helpful and informative and always replys quickly and is always checking in. That is very important to us, someone who takes the time to email every so often to check in and make sure everything is going well. If we have a question he always responds quickly.

Pros:

The more we use the software the more we learn and love the product. We use this software everyday runnig reports, for our POS, inventory, and much more. We love the button feature to make everyday use easy.

Cons:

I find that it is hard to find a credit card company that is compliant with AIM.

AIM by Tri Tech

Comments: Inventory Control.

Pros:

Retail POS, Service, Rental programs all in one program.

Cons:

When you ring up retail items, a rental, & a service ticket at the same time for a customer it creates 3 different transactions for the same payment, thus listing 3 different payments on your deposit report for 1 transaction.

AIM Software and POS System for retail sales

Comments: Positive! Their customer support is exceptional. Their Tech staff are very knowledgeableand patient. In 45-60 seconds, I can be on a call with an English speaking technical representative who knows the Tri-Tech/AIM system.

Pros:

Quickly execute sales, tracking serialized inventory and sales is detailed and quick.

Cons:

There are a million features! It was overwhelming in the beginning to decide which ones were going to be essential for our business.

Emily's Review of AIM

Comments: I have worked with many people at Tri-Tech we have been using there POS for about 4 years. I have had to call the customer help line many times in those 4 years. And no matter how frustrated I am they do an excellent job helping me solve the issues I run into.

Pros:

I enjoy the easy of being able to create things and customize the POS easily. The system does all I need plus more that I probably don't know about. Seems like I learn new things about it all the time. My most recent call was with [SENSITIVE CONTENT]. He was very knowledgeable and the questions he didn't know the answers to he was very speedy at finding them. I enjoyed my early morning conversation with [SENSITIVE CONTENT] while he helped me work on multiple issues I was having. We got them all fixed in under an hour (I was expecting it to be a multiple hour kind of call). I look forward to working with [SENSITIVE CONTENT] again.

Cons:

The worst part about this POS was the set up. Although I believe that is mostly the fact that we were transferring information from a system that was very VERY old and outdated system. But the service team was there for me whenever I had questions; and boy I had a lot of them. Those first few months most of the service people knew me by first name.

AIMsi Does it All (almost)

Comments: Been using the software for two years now, and it seems to provide a solution for everything. I wish there was a bit better integration across the different modules, such as allowing station rentals, short-term rentals, long-term rentals, and contract payments to all be made on the same checkout as regular sales orders, instead of needing to process them all at once. The payroll area also needs some improvements, it is good for recording payroll expense, but you will need a separate application to actually do the real payroll tracking/deductions/taxes. Otherwise it handles everything from rentals, bay/station rentals, it has full accounting, chart of accounts, general ledger, integrates to your purchasing/receiving, has full inventory tracking with multiple locations. Basically you can run your business with a few minor outside resources, from this one package. Even managing employees/time tracking etc... Pros: Accounting, Rentals, POS Touchscreen support, Integrated Credit Card, Employee Management, Membership Modules, Integrated Gift Cards, Inventory Control, Invoice Management Cons: The systems don't all share one checkout - each type of transaction (rental, station, contract payment, merchandise sale) must be rung up separately - The payroll is not very robust

Pros:

Accounting Rentals POS Touchscreen support Integrated Credit Card Employee Management Membership Modules Integrated Gift Cards Inventory Control Invoice Management

Cons:

The systems don't all share one checkout - each type of transaction (rental, station, contract payment, merchandise sale) must be rung up separately The payroll is not very robust

Ok for small-scale non-ecommerce shops

Comments: It was a good starting point, but we outgrew this software within 2 years of starting the company. Our eCommerce portal was functional, but cumbersome.

Pros:

The tracking data on products was quite helpful. Serial numbers were regarded as individual numbers with unique purchase order receiving data that could be cross referenced with customer service records and trade-in information. Backorder protocol for Purchase Orders is the one thing I do miss about this software.

Cons:

Local server based. This made it very difficult to process transactions remotely (tradeshows, etc) or work remotely.

One of the worst business decisions I have made.

Comments: We gained POS software with serialized inventory track-ability from this software, something that we were lacking with QuickBooks.

Pros:

It can handle a lot of inventory and a lot of different skus. The POS module is decent as far as keeping track of a lot of customers and barcodes. If you do opt for this software, stick with the very basic POS module only.

Cons:

There are sooooo many things.... First off, the platform itself is extremely outdated. The only people who like this software are companies who have been using it for more than 10 years and haven't tried anything newer. Our IT guy HATES it, and TriTech wants you to spend thousands of dollars on an old-school server set-up because it can't be set up with any sort of cloud system. One thing to keep in mind is the relatively cheap up front cost is just the beginning, as the hardware costs are going to get you BIG TIME when you have to keep going backwards in time and adding hardware, IT, and specialized accounting costs on top of everything else (did I mention our accounting costs quintupled when we started using AIMsi?!). You can hardly ever correct a mistake, and we found this out right away when even TriTech support messed up trying to help us correct a simple mistake early on. Making corrections is tedious if not impossible, and yet the program is so counter-intuitive it's very easy to make mistakes even if you've been working with it for awhile. The accounting module is a joke, and this is where I feel like it was truly a bad business decision. We went live officially in 2016 after practicing for about 6 months, and after 11 months of trying to get off of QuickBooks completely and get on only one reporting software we finally gave up on AIMsi as we started losing sight of numbers and business goals. Bottom line, there are way better options out there than AIMsi.

AIM software makes my job easier!

Comments: My interactions have almost exclusively been with the tech support team. I am a musician and I don't think like an accountant; they are always helpful and efficient. The support is peerless - I don't think we have ever stumped them!

Pros:

We have been using AIM for more than 10 years. It allows us to manage daily sales, keep current track of our inventory, and to update, receive, and transfer inventory as needed. The A/P invoice feature makes accounting a much easier process. The software is reliable, and the reports it can generate are tremendously helpful.

Cons:

We are a musical instrument store that is run by musicians, and it took us all a bit of time to learn to "think like the software" in more complicated processes. The availability of tech support being there to bail us out made that transition easier.

AIM Review

Comments: Overall it is very good. [SENSITIVE CONTENT] in tech support has been our go-to guy. He has been extremely helpful especially when it comes to the scheduling module. He has been willing to test issues that we have come across and implement changes to the software. I personally can't thank him enough for his patience and willingness to continue to work with us to make the scheduling module the best it can be.

Pros:

We decided to go with AIM because it was an all-in-one POS system. We have retail sales, charge accounts, repair tickets, lessons scheduling and rentals/payment plans. To have all of that in one system was the most important to us. We also did not want a subscription based software. We wanted to own the product. That was a close second in importance

Cons:

It can have it's issues. It takes a long time to understand how things work.

Small Business Review

Comments: While the program itself has given us some trouble, the customer support is excellent!! [SENSITIVE CONTENT] have been especially wonderful and patient with us and spent an abundance of time on our issues to help us get what we need and understand how to do what we need to do. Amazing customer service.

Pros:

The program has tons of features, functions, and reports which is a definite positive for businesses that need to keep track and monitor various aspects of the business. For a larger company that has a wide scale business this program would be a very useful asset.

Cons:

We are a very small business and this program for us was- and is- very overwhelming to learn and operate. Part of that is our fault for not having the time to watch the tutorials and explore the program to its fullest since we only have a few employees and are only open three days a week. For us, a simpler program would probably have been a better choice but for larger companies this would work great.

Retail software

Comments: We started as a small company in 2004 using Quickbooks. Then I hired a developer to develop a product for retail, rental processing and inventory control. After a year and $50,000 later that failed. AIM was discovered and did everything that we needed. Those were bad times during all of this. Their software is greatness. the support is 100% perfection. These guys are obsessed with solving a problem and do take care of any needs.
There is a 60 day period that you will deal with using the software until you are proficient with it. After that you will be very happy. The option of a second web hosting company is a real downside and expensive.

Cons:

They are limited with only one web hosting company that is not good. This company is very expensive and a security liability.

Why should you have to navigate between miultuple screens a 10 key strokes to do a simple cash sale

Comments: When I spoke to the salesman I told him about the system I wanted to replace, and I needed to new system to be just as stream line and easy to use. He said this system was even simpler then what I was used to, BS. You shouldn't have to go line by line and actually type how many of each items you received on a purchase order, it should default as 100% fill rate and allow you to enter the back order items individually. At over $3000 I will accept I got hosed and move on.
If anyone from AIM reads this shame on you, your lucky you're not in my town because I would return it in person.
Don't buy this, it is a POS. And no I don't mean Point Of Sale.

Pros:

It looks very professional It does cost a lot so you think your getting something special The service guys are helpful, but you will be paying for that

Cons:

Way to complicated, generating orders through multiple screens. Multiple screens to do the simplest sales. Four different screens just to add a manufacturer/vendor Line by line entries to receive an order Unable to add line items to an order once it has been generated 3 different screens to remove a part number from the data base

Best A&D and POS software I have used

Comments: The software allows us to keep all of our records on site and quickly access them from as many terminals as I would like. I recommend AIM to everyone in the firearms industry.

Pros:

The team at AIM gave me all the support I could ask for with setting up the software. I can barely turn a computer on and they were able to set it up for me so that I could start using it immediately. Customer support is flawless. The price was well below competing software and still had all the features I could ever use plus some.

Cons:

We have experienced some lagging issues, but the team at AIM is working with us to resolve this at no cost.

Great Software

Comments: Aim has been very helpful with helping manage my inventory better than I ever could with other simple solutions. I'm very happy that i decided to use Aim for my Store.

Pros:

The software is great with all the different features that it has and offers. I particulary like the reports function that allows me to generate my inventory, sold items, and sales tax reports.

Cons:

The system was very easy to setup and intigrate with. There's a lot of functions that the software offers. You certainly need to take a lot of time during the setup to learn about the functions.

Baums Music

Comments: I have been an AIM user since 2003 and overall I have been extremely pleased. I have been working with [SENSITIVE CONTENT] and he has been extremely helpful in my last issues.

Pros:

From POS to backroom accounting and inventory management the software integrates seamlessly. Also support is crucial and they have that covered well.

Cons:

Seems to need a lot of updates to fix issues.

Experience with Aim

Comments: Overall experience with Aim has bee satisfactory.

Pros:

User friendly, tech support is good and a fair price.

Cons:

Integration with previous inventory got messed up and we had to do much more work to get corrected.

Not at all user friendly

Comments: Auto-pay feature

Pros:

Once you get the hang of AIMsi, everything is trackable. There is never any question about inventory, if or when a payment went through, or who still owes money. The auto-pay feature is also very beneficial.

Cons:

AIMsi is way too difficult to use. It takes longer than necessary to understand and get used to. It crashes if you leave it alone for too long, and automatic payments aren't actually automatic - you have to go through a whole process to run stored cards, and you have to REMEMBER to do it.

Too Much Work

Comments: The sales staff is very eager to show how the program works, but they do not tell you about data entry required, that there is only one check template, and that other parts of their program cannot be customized. The rental and lesson modules cannot be turned off, and having to enter tax by zip code is a tedious job that is unnecessary. Other accounting programs will do this automatically. Overall, the program has great features, but if we had not spent money on it, I think I would have knuckled down and gone with QuickBooks, and I hate QuickBooks.

Pros:

Integrates POS, AP, AR, inventory, and invoicing, all in one program. They offer complete training and on-site set up, for a price.

Cons:

Too much data entry to set up, which they do not tell you. I had to enter: categories (in a specific format, which I had to develop) and tax by zip code (California has over 2700). In addition, their 'conversion' consists of you putting your information in their template, and them writing a subroutine that will insert it into their program. If we had needed multiple stores, or did rentals, then it would have been more complicated. They only have one check template, and if your check does not fit theirs, their immediate response is 'why not buy them from us'. Nevermind that you might have several boxes already printed. Also, entering a customer is a complicated, several step process. For someone unused to data entry or not very computer savvy, it could be a more frustrating experience than it was for me. Their documentation is SEVERELY lacking, as well.

Scheitel's Music Review

Comments: Grant was very helpful and solved my problem today and he was friendly.

Pros:

That if I have questions I can call a tech and they are able to help me.

Cons:

That in my version, I'm not able to do everything that I want to do without paying more money which I don't want to pay at this time.

Music Biz

Comments: overall very good product

Pros:

functionality and ease of use plus great customer service!

Cons:

Too many updates. If it is necessary to implement updates every week or so... Can you set the system to do automatic updates?

Poor support, lost data,

Comments: There is little help for setting up the system. There are so many options, that it was hard to set up. When I called to get help, they wanted to charge me more than I already paid for tech support or they wanted to charge me to have someone fly out and set it up for me. When I had problems, they made me feel like I should know everything they do about computers. After having the system for over 2 years and trying to make it work, losing all my data and having to start over and paying for their top tier tech support the whole time so I would not loose any updates, I have given up. I spent thousands of dollars on software, hardware and tech support and then found out this system that I never even rang a single sale on, cannot be transferred to another buyer.

Pros:

It was manufactured by a small company so I thought the support would reflect that.

Cons:

The system crashed a few times. It is difficult to learn. The support was not great.