How to Switch Jewelry POS Systems Without Losing Data

3 minutes · WJewel jewelry software

The video version of our guide to switching jewelry POS systems: the signs it's time to switch, the data to bring with you, the switch step by step, how to avoid downtime, and how the move to WJewel works, from the first call to cutover day.

What the video covers

Workarounds, black-box reporting and missing jewelry workflows
Inventory, customers, open layaways and memo, repairs, vendors and sales history
Export, field mapping, test import, reconciliation, training and a slow-day cutover
A parallel cutover with zero downtime, and history that comes with you
How the move to WJewel works, and Excel import in any format

Chapters

0:00 The fear of the switch
0:17 Signs it's time to switch
0:36 What data to migrate
1:03 The switch, step by step
1:27 How to avoid downtime
1:49 How the move to WJewel works
2:04 Moving to WJewel
2:16 Contact us

Transcript

Read the full transcript

The fear of the switch

Most jewelers stay on a POS they've outgrown for one reason: fear of the switch. Years of customer history, repairs in progress, open layaways, tagged inventory. The fear is reasonable, but staying put costs more.

Signs it's time to switch

Here are the signs it's time to switch: workarounds every day, reports you can't get without exporting to Excel, and no jewelry workflows, like memo or metal-weight pricing, support that's gone or slow, and a website that doesn't sync with your stock.

What data to migrate

Bring the records that took you years to build: inventory with cost, retail, metal weight and stone details, and customers with their full purchase history, every open layaway, special order and memo, and every repair in progress, with its deposit and status, your vendors and open purchase orders, and at least two or three years of sales history.

The switch, step by step

The switch, step by step: export from the old system, map the fields, especially metal weight, stones and cost, and do a test import, spot-checked against the originals, reconcile every open layaway, memo and repair, train your staff before go-live, and cut over on a slow day.

How to avoid downtime

You should never close the store to switch systems. Load and test the new system first, ring the first sale on it with zero gap, and keep the old one read-only for a month or two, just in case. Done right, a customer who walks in after the switch still shows their full purchase, repair and appraisal history.

How the move to WJewel works

With WJewel, it starts with a short call about your current system. Our team maps and imports your data, you verify it in a test environment, and training is unlimited, with help at cutover.

Moving to WJewel

Style information can be imported from Excel in any format, with no need to rearrange the columns, and each customer's history comes along with them.

Contact us

You'll find the full guide on the WJewel blog. WJewel is fully web-based, and runs on PCs, Macs, tablets and phones. To learn more, visit www.wjewel.com, or call us at (646) 578-8300.