As an owner or manager that runs a brew on premise store you know that finding an affordable tool to help you perform your daily chores is not an easy task. In most cases you compromise and end up using generic tools spending a lot of time trying to make them work for you. While there are many POS programs out there to handle sales and invoicing, there are few that integrate sales with the brewing process. To this end, Brass, an acronym for Brewer's Assistant, has been developed with a rich set of features in an affordable package. This program was not developed for other industries and modified for yours. It was developed to uniquely address the needs of brew on premise stores like yours. Brass is under constant development as new customers come on board. Its evolution is steered uniquely by its community of users, that is, brew on premise store owners. Brass’ goal is to become the single source program to meet all the needs of the brew on premise industry.

As you are probably aware there are several programs available out there that help you manage your wine, Brass not only manages your wine, it helps you manage your business. Incidentally, Brass is not limited to stores that only brew wine, we also handle champagne and beer. There is no other program out there that matches the value offered by Brass, a full set of features at a price affordable for all shops. Unlike other programs, selecting Brass as your POS system includes:

• setup assistance
• support
• updates
• no contracts
• no limit on users

You are probably thinking that Brass is beyond your budget or is too good to be true, you would be wrong, it is being used by all size businesses. If you wish, we can put you in touch with our existing customers and you can get the facts from them. If you are looking for a full featured tool to help you manage your business you owe it to yourself to take a serious look at Brass. You will be pleasantly surprised, guaranteed.

Overview

Brass contains all the basic functions of a point of sale system but also supports a list of optional components to make this software your "go to" tool for your industry. Here is a list of functions supplied by Brass:

• Point of Sale
• Wedge Scanner Support
• Quotes
• Back Order Management
• Gift Cards
• Customizable Brew/Ferment on Premise Processes
• Bottling Appointments
• Appointment Rescheduling
• Brewing Events Tracking (not just wine, any process)
• Batch Parking
• Barrel Aging Management
• Timed Specials
• Daily Balance Sheets
• Customizable Customer Emailing
• Email Templates With Keyword Substitution
• Customer History
• Customer Loyalty Program
• Customer Referral Program
• Activity Calendar
• Product Repackaging
• Product Grouping
• Product Ratings
• Product Shortages
• Inventory Control
• Inventory Value
• Purchase Orders
• Employee Punch Clock and Time Tracking
• Employee Scheduling
• Employee Access Controls
• Employee Messaging System
• Expense Ledgers
• Guard Tour
• Optional Portable Scanner (MC3190)
• Multi-User
• Networked
• Reports

Here are a few questions you should ask yourself when considering a software system to help you run your business:

Will it pay for itself?

Any tool that you purchase should, over time, pay for itself. You need to take a serious look at the features offered and how they may be integrated in your business to make you and your staff more efficient, and productive. Brass is a mature product that has been in use since 2003 and has proven itself in many shops.

How much time do I have to invest in this?

Like most systems you will need to spend some time upfront to get it up and running. You will need to enter your company profile which may take an hour or so. We are here to help you with this step and get it done as fast as possible. The tasks that require the most effort will be to enter your products. If you choose, we can help you with this step by writing customized filters that will import your existing customer list and products. Once imported, you will need to go through each list and finalize them.

Once you are setup, all you will be adding are new customers and products.

Will My Customers Benefit?

Without a doubt, both directly and indirectly. If you are more efficient, your customers will benefit from this. All it takes is to mess up once with a customer and he is most likely lost. With Brass chances of making mistakes are greatly reduced. All prices are setup in the database and it is impossible to overbook appointments.

Once a batch is in the system with its unique ID, all tasks that need to be performed on that batch are dated. At the click of a button you can check the entire status of all batches currently in-house. It is empowering for an owner/manager to be able to visualize this in one window.

Creating an invoice with a customer in front of you takes seconds; pick your products, if the product is bottled on premise then you may set the bottling appointment at that time or later when the product is ready for bottling, take payment and print the invoice. This is even more impressive if you offer barrel aging. Trying to locate an available barrel manually can be a frustrating experience, even more so with a customer in front of you. Brass performs this seamlessly as you add products to the invoice. Your customers are given a clear invoice detailing all of their purchases, along with detailed tax breakdowns and bottling appointment details.

If you wish you may configure Brass to automatically send emails to your customers reminding them of their upcoming bottling appointments. This feature has been received favorably and it helps ensure that your customers show up as scheduled.

What Am I Getting For My Money?

If you decide to come on board, we provide you with a unique fee structure that makes Brass affordable for everyone. The fees you pay are all inclusive(1), you are entitled to unlimited support by phone and all updates are available to you at no charge as long as your account remains in good standing. Please feel free to contact us for more information. We are convinced that you will be impressed by this tool, its pricing, and what it will do to help you control your business.

How do I get it? 

If you would like to take a look at Brass just contact us  during regular business hours (EST) and we will provide you with access to our Downloads page where you may get a copy for your review, at no charge. The copy that you receive is a full-featured copy of Brass that contains both a demo and a full production version. You may take as long as you like to review the demo, when done, you may install the production version. At this point, we are here to assist in any manner to get you running, we can help import your existing customers and products and guide you through the setup. You may start using Brass in training mode, when you feel comfortable to go on-line, you may 'wipe out' all training invoices and start from fresh. Once you start using Brass, if for whatever reason, you are not satisfied you may stop at any time. Even if you do use Brass for several months and are not satisfied, you simply walk away, no contracts, no obligations, and you did not put out a small fortune. You have probably noticed by now that we are serious about getting your business and we will do everything in our power to keep it.

Notes

(1) Brass pricing is all inclusive on personal computers running Windows X.X. If you opt for the wireless scanners, which run Windows CE, you will be charged with a one time fee to install the software on each portable device and a minimal yearly maintenance fee. There is also a separate optional web component (WebA) which allows your customers to change/set their bottling appointments on-line. This component is also available at extra cost. In other words, if you do not opt for the portable scanners or WebA there are no additional fees to using Brass.