Mongo pawn in game of life

April 28, 2017 7:59 PM

Recommendations for software to run pawn store?

Friend called me up to check on their computer at the pawn store they own and operate. It turns out software designer who created the proprietary software the shop uses, Pawn Magiq, died a couple of years ago. PM is now completely unserviced software. Worse, the shop does not have admin access.

So now the shop needs to convert and switch over to another software. (Or…?)

I turn once again to the great hivemind. Cast your all-knowing eyes upon this interesting challenge and make a recommendation, maybe? Thanks!

posted by Mike Mongo to Computers & Internet (3 answers total)

If you shop for a new software vendor, you might be able to have them migrate your current system into their system as part of the sale / contract. Just avoid giving them the impression that you're dead in the water without it. I'd mention it later in the negotiation, and you can use it as a bit of a bargaining cheap between equally-qualified vendors.
posted by reeddavid at 9:51 PM on April 28, 2017

Use it as a bargaining chip, of course. And I think you'd want to mention the fact the original developer is out of the picture and there's no admin access.
posted by reeddavid at 10:59 PM on April 28, 2017

The 3rd result in the search results I see when clicking on the link in your question leads to alternate software , which says:
"Your current Pawn-Magic data can be converted to PPSS format to be used in Pawnbroker Pawn Shop Software."

So it appears that other pawn shops have founds themselves in the same situation and a solution has been developed. This would almost certainly be cheaper than having someone do custom work to migrate the data.
posted by Gomez_in_the_South at 1:51 AM on April 29, 2017 [1 favorite]