WinJewel

Are there any Orchidians who use WinJewel program to run their
store(s)?? If you have time during this (hoprfully) busy season, I
would love to have feedback about the program, and specifically,
their SUPPORT. Thanks, David Barzilay, Lord of the Rings.

We purchased WinJewel in 1999 and it was terrible!!! Support was
getting in touch with the programmer/owner and if he was avaialble
or home, he would speak with you. He was a very nice man in the
beginning but, that changed. His product then, was based upon
complaints and feedback from customers. We were his test dummies.

It did not work for more than one sales tax. It was not very
detailed with regard to inventory. He actually got into a yelling
match with my bookkepper at one time and tried to blame the
shortcomings of the program on us. He offered and emailed a patch
for every problem but, they seldom worked. We gave up on the
program and trashed it. Expensive, but easier than fighting it and
the owner. Hopefully, it has improved tremendiously since our
purchase but, there are now many others out there and I would most
certainly purchase any one of them first.

Good Luck

I would highly recommend Compulink’s Shopkeeper
(www.jewelryshopkeeper.com). I chose it in addition to inventory
control because of the way it handles the shop. The best of them.

David Geller

Hi.

I have no experience with WinJewel, but I have tried other programs
and achieved similar results as those already described to you. I
use, and have used for the last nine years, MYOB. It is not written
specifically for the jewelry store, but with a little imagination,
it will handle everything from Point of Sale, through Inventory
Control, to your General ledger. It has five types of invoicing
available in the release I’m using (which is two levels down) which
are Service, Time Billing, Item, Professional, and Miscellaneous.
It has a lot of flexibility. There are a lot of things I don’t like
about it, but overall, I dislike it less than others I have tried.
Their support is available for a price, a steep one I might add, but
other than fixing “I would like” items I really haven’t needed it.
But, for a couple hundred price tag, you can’t beat it. You can go
to their site and download a trial version. They are at MYOB.com.

I have no finical interest in the company other than the several
hundred dollars I have spent with them for upgrades over the years
that I have used them. I did look at some of the $5000 plus
packages though and found that they offered little, if anything, for
their additional cost that was not included in MYOB. MYOB was the
only, less than $5K, program that had a usable inventory control
module. Oh yes, MYOB is retailing for around $200 now. (My first
version cost me $49.95).

Don