My wife and I are re-opening a vintage theatre early in 2009. One of the first things I did was research POS systems and settled on one that was regularly recommended and offered the features I need.
The drawback is that the independent software vendor who wrote it requires an additional and substantial annual fee to provide support for using my own card processing vendor -- in my case, the bank who handles my merchant accounts has given me a very good rate on transactions that would more than make up for the ISV's fee. When I talk with the ISV, the REALLY push their preferred processor.
The major credit cards now require that all acquisition software, processors, and merchants be
PCI DSS compliant, and thus my bank requires it as well.
The problem is that the software package I had decided on is still not certified. Compliance was required by the end of October, but nothing in site yet. When contacted, the ISV claims they have until the end of the year (they don't) and that I should consider their processor, who doesn't require the compliance certificate (but the card companies do require it of all processors). They REALLY, REALLY want me to use their preferred partner.
I don't like how hard they push their partner and it has made me really suspicious of the business relationship between the two. Maybe some co-ownership or something.
In any case, now I've decided to open with regular tickets and standalone card scanners. That way, I only have to deal with getting my PCI compliance in place. It really blows. Now I need to re-evaluate the other packages out there.
Has anyone else run into this?