AIM

What do you like best?

AIM is a great solution for a smaller scale operation who is comfortable using a physical server (non-cloud). For the retail industries it serves, they really have most everything covered in terms of day-to-day operations. The inventory tracking, repair tracking, and sales components are well thought out and relatively user friendly. Contract billing and the lease data tracking are typically smooth to use once they're properly set up.

What do you dislike?

There is quite a bit of maintenance that is required to keep file data from being corrupted I have found. Backups must be done manually or set up outside of the program. The main reason that we moved away from AIM was the need for a physical server which can be prone to mechanical failure and other issues that are not problematic when a cloud server is utilized. The program is based on FoxPro, which Microsoft discontinued years ago and no longer offers support for. While the customer service team at AIM was always helpful, I was finding myself calling quite frequently and they were only available during their business hours which don't always coincide with other retail operations. Reporting data was available, but needed to be manually extracted and sometimes have custom reports created.

Recommendations to others considering the product:

If you are planning to use AIM for eCommerce in addition to in-person POS, weigh your options carefully. While the eCommerce function for AIM works well, there are many more solutions that are much more robust and may allow for more freedom when it comes to SEO and other data distribution.

What problems are you solving with the product? What benefits have you realized?

We needed a comprehensive POS software that included serial number tracking and recurring billing possibilities. We were able to store this data and retrieve it when needed.