NCR Silver Review: Is It Right for Your Business?
Meaghan has provided content and guidance for indie retailers as the editor for a number of retail publications and a speaker at trade shows. She is Fit Small Business’s authority on retail and ecommerce.
Anna is a retail expert writer for Fit Small Business with over six years of evaluating dozens of software for small business. She holds a double degree in Accountancy and Financial Management and is currently pursuing further education in financial and payment technology.
This article is part of a larger series on POS Systems.
NCR Silver is a retail point-of-sale (POS) system by NCR designed to work with other NCR services for an all-in-one POS solution. The system is flexible and fits a variety of use cases, including everything from service businesses to chain stores and franchises. Features include inventory, employee, and loyalty management, ecommerce tools, reporting, payment processing, mobile sales, and multilocation tools. You will need to contact NCR or its resellers directly for pricing.
What We Like
- Intuitive POS interface
- Includes integrated payment processing
- Choice between using iPad or proprietary Android hardware
What's Missing
- Tiered pricing for mobile payments
- Reports of early termination fees
- No offline processing
- Payment processing includes a 3-year contract
Deciding Factors
- Monthly processing: Contact NCR
- Transaction fee:
- For mobile payments: 2.4% + 15 cents (qualified, mid-qualified), 3.55% + 15 cents (non-qualified)
- Swiped fees (in-store): Contact NCR
- Hardware:
- Mobile card reader: $15
- Countertop setup: Contact NCR
- Customer support: 24/7
- POS package includes installation and setup
- Wide range of add-on services
- Terms vary depending on reseller
When To Use NCR
We have examined dozens of POS systems and can say that NCR offers the widest range of POS software and hardware on the market. However, it’s also the most difficult to get a price on because the software has so many variations and add-ons—plus, it works with third-party vendors that offer different deals.
The fact that NCR’s pricing is so complex and not transparent, and it typically requires long-term contracts are among the reasons NCR seldom makes the final list when we review the best POS systems.
Having said that, NCR Silver is a good fit for:
- Stores with multiple sales types: NCR’s breadth of features makes it good for the bookstore with a coffee shop, the grocery with a deli and fuel pumps, or the service station with an attached restaurant. Other POS software can handle multiple uses, but NCR has systems specifically designed for it.
- Self-service retail: If you are looking for self-checkout, NCR’s FastLane Mobile Shopper is worth considering.
- Businesses that want a single point for all their needs: If you prefer having one place to go for all your business tools, then NCR is a good fit. In addition to POS, inventory systems, and payment processing, it also has a comprehensive set of HR and payroll programs.
When To Use an Alternative
- Businesses wanting a mobile POS: NCR’s mobile solutions are not especially popular or well-rated, although Ring Up is getting fairly few reviews. If you need a mobile POS system, consider Square, which tops our list of the best mobile POS apps and best mobile credit card processors.
- Stores needing a simple POS system: NCR Silver has excellent flexibility and a variety of hardware/software combinations. However, this could mean a long process for purchasing and deploying. If you need something fast and simple, check out our best iPad POS systems.
- Businesses wanting a low-cost system: NCR can simply be more machine—and at a higher price point—than many small businesses need. Free POS systems can offer a great value, but even higher-end, feature-rich systems like Lightspeed and Shopify have lower price points than NCR.
- Boutiques and specialty shops: Small stores could be better served by an affordable retail POS system with flexible hardware options and online store offerings.
NCR Silver Alternatives At a Glance
NCR Silver is often on our list of POS systems to consider—and it always fares well for its feature set but is not exceptional. Here are a few of the top NCR Silver alternatives if you’re looking for more value for your money.
 |  |  |  |
|---|---|---|---|
Best for: Small businesses wanting easy software | Best for: Inventory management | Best for: Online retailers | Best for: Retailers w/ an existing merchant account |
Base monthly fee from: $0 (2.6% +10 cent transaction) | Base monthly fee from: $69 (2.6% +10 cent transaction) | Base monthly fee from: $39 (2.4% transaction) | Base monthly fee from: $0 (2.3% + 10 cent transaction) |
Hardware from: $49 | Hardware from: $500 | Hardware from: $49 | Hardware from: $49 |
See our top picks for the best retail POS and best quick service POS for even more alternatives.
NCR Silver Pricing
NCR does not advertise pricing for any of its POS solutions, including NCR Silver, and instructs interested business owners to contact NCR or its resellers directly for information. Subscription rates will then most likely depend on who you contact. The same can be said when choosing a payment processor, although you may want to ensure that NCR will not impose additional fees for using a service other than its own payment processing.
Because NCR is a one-stop shop for POS systems, it’s not surprising for NCR Silver’s pricing package to include hardware and merchant services. To give you an idea, NCR quotes its restaurant software from $0–$175 per month, with transaction fees starting at 2.25% + 15 cents.
Mobile Payment Processing
NCR offers a mobile payment processing service called “MyMobileMoney” which allows you to accept payments remotely or anywhere in your store using a mobile card reader and mobile device. Monthly fees are free, but it will require you to apply for a separate merchant account.
Rates are quoted as:
- Qualified or mid-qualified: 2.4% + 15 cents per transaction
- Non-qualified: 3.55% + 15 cents per transaction
NCR Silver Hardware
NCR Silver allows you to choose between using your own iPad, NCR’s proprietary Android tablet, or one of its countertop hardware solutions. There are also a selection of customer displays, cash drawers, scanners, vault stands, and receipt printers. Prices vary by plan and reseller. You may also be able to find used ones.
 |  |  |
|---|---|---|
$15 | Contact NCR | Contact NCR |
NCR offers a range of integrated POS terminals. View NCR’s complete list of hardware options.
NCR Silver Payments
- Credit card
- ACH and e-checks
- Batch processing
- Ecommerce
- Mobile
- Tokenization
NCR Payments Solution offers both payment gateway and payment services. It will integrate with other payment processors, or you can use its own. NCR Payments can process credit cards, ACH and e-checks, and card-not-present transactions. It keeps payments secure with Point-to-Point Encryption, tokenization, and PCI compliance. It also partners with Chargeback Gurus for chargeback protection online.
NCR batch processing lets you load multiple credit card transactions at once into NCR’s system for processing. Considered best for businesses that process over 50 transactions a day, it’s a good choice for recurring payments. NCR resubmits “soft declines” for 12 days, renews aging authorizations, and updates renewals and card account changes.
NCR POS and eCommerce systems can also process PayPal, Zelle, Bitcoin, and other payment types. Talk to the sales representative if you have a specific payment type you want to use.
NCR Silver Standout Features
Application & Signup
NCR does not have free plans or free trials, but you can arrange to see a demo and decide if you want to sign up for an NCR Silver POS system. A sales representative will assess your requirements and make recommendations.
Alternatively, you can order NCR from one of its partners. Its website has a directory that lets you search by industry, country, and state. After signing an agreement, you will be provided with access to a customer login portal.
The customer account will give you access to a list of NCR software and hardware products available to NCR Silver users.
(Source: NCR)
NCR Counterpoint Inventory Management
- Support normal, gridded, or serialized inventory
- Track on-hand quantities
- Up to six user-defined classifications for grouping items
- Unlimited barcodes per item
- Random weight barcodes for produce or meat
- Five alternate selling units (each, box, carton…)
- Weight
- Images, sounds, or video clips
- Vendor management
- Order management, including batch processing
- Employee commission codes
- Kit capability
- Margin-driven pricing, pricing rules
- Markdown tracking
- Transfers
NCR’s inventory tracking system is called Counterpoint. It’s an extremely versatile system, good for standard retail or more complex cases where you need to consider weights, variations, or even expiration dates. You can freeze items, categories, or locations while you do an inventory count and adjust items. Transferring items between locations is simple, and there’s a report to recommend moving items between stores. When making kits, you can even add delivery, assembling, or warranty fees.
You can assign multiple barcodes with different pricing such as for discounted stock or price differences between your store at the airport and the kiosk in the mall. It includes order management that can process ecommerce, mail orders, or special orders.
You have a lot of choices for categorizing and defining a product.
(Source: Softwareconnect.com)
NCR for Mobile
NCR offers several mobile applications, none of which garnered many user reviews. The overall scores were not good, either, although Ring Up is well-liked. The app allows you to process sales on mobile just as you would on an NCR register, and includes a catalog and inventory. The Ring Up app also has basic reports. The restaurant version (iOS only) looks more sophisticated, with the ability to manage employees as well as sales.
NCR Silver’s iOS app looks dated and has low reviews.
(Source: Apple App Store)
As of this writing, users gave NCR mobile these scores:
- Android (Ring Up by NCR Silver): 4.3 out of 5 stars with 5+ reviews
- iOS (NCR Silver POS): 2.6 out of 5 stars with 40+ reviews
Overall, we were not impressed by the applications. If you need mobile POS, check out our list of best mobile POS systems.
NCR Multichannel Sales
NCR offers online tools for retail and restaurants. Retailers can build their own online stores and set up omnichannel sales. It can process credit card payments securely and integrates with NCR Counterpoint for inventory tracking as well as shipping services. If you have a third-party online store, NCR can integrate with it. For restaurants, it offers online orders and integration with third-party delivery services.
NCR Loyalty & Customer Management
- Segmented promotions
- Real-time data
- Identify at-risk customers
- Personalized promotions
- Personalized receipts
- Gamification tools
- Analysis, business intelligence, reports
- Fraud prevention tools
- Automations, machine learning
- Advanced promotions
- Manage third-party offers
NCR includes some of its discount, customer management, and loyalty tools in each of its platforms. For example, most have customer databases with notes and loyalty programs built-in. Some include email marketing tools and customizable receipts. However, if you want more extensive marketing and loyalty programs, NCR offers additional programs to help.
NCR’s Loyalty Pro program includes in-depth analysis and business intelligence tools.
(Source: NCR brochure)
NCR Loyalty Pro includes machine learning and personalization so it can make offers to match a customer’s preferences and buying history. Meanwhile, the Advanced Marketing Solution (AMS) provides omnichannel promotion, loyalty, and rules-setting for promotions. It also offers tools to prevent misuse of discounts, copies, or code-breaking. Want to honor third-party coupon codes? NCR AMS can handle it.
NCR HR & Payroll
- Time tracking
- Time-off management
- Training and performance management
- Payroll
- Benefits
- Compliances
- HR consultations
- Talent acquisition
- Onboarding
- Employee self-service tools
- Business loans
NCR offers a comprehensive set of HR and payroll tools and functions, from time tracking to advising you on HR compliances for your area and industry. It also provides dedicated representatives. The employee dashboard includes enrollment, pay history, documents, and more. NCR’s Human Capital Management solutions are powered by Workforce Today.
NCR Reporting
- Retail history
- Sales
- Discounts
- Sell-through (with gross margin return on investment and turn rates by item)
- Stock counts
- Valuation
- Inventory aging
- Customer analysis and segmentation
- Employee performance
- Trends by promotion
- ROI on marketing
Run a multitude of inventory reports in NCR.
(Source: C&K Systems on YouTube)
There are a variety of reports available with NCR, depending on the software you get. (NCR Counterpoint, for example, has 40 reports related to inventory, sales, and purchasing.) These cover sales, inventory, profit, time tracking, payroll, and more.
The information is cloud-based, so you can access reports from anywhere. It gives immediate and up-to-date data, from sales vs. labor hours to how many widgets you have in your branch location. Advanced reporting can calculate less-than-whole items, like split checks.
Some reports and alerts are already on your dashboard. For example, you may get an alert for higher-than-usual sales, a summary of discount or coupon use, and how your latest email campaign fared.
NCR FastLane Mobile Shopper (FLMS)
- Customer-facing
- Android or iOS
- Personal scanner hardware available
- Pairs with existing POS
- Customers can modify shopping lists and track spending
- Supports item location, product details, and price verification
- Can pay at checkout, on the personal shopping device, or via mobile phone
The NCR FastPay Mobile Shopper app lets customers shop and pay on mobile while in-store.
(Source: NCR)
As touchless and independent checkouts grow more popular, NCR is keeping up with the trend with FastLane Mobile Shopper. This application lets consumers scan their own items in the aisle and pay for them either on their mobile application or in a checkout lane. You can let customers download the app onto their mobile phones, or purchase personal scanning hardware for customers to use in-store. While we found some independent mobile applications that did similar jobs, NCR’s is dedicated to its POS system.
Launched in August 2020, the mobile application has no reviews on Google Play to date, and only one review on the Apple App Store.
NCR Silver Ease of Use
NCR Silver Essentials
Once you have your NCR account, you get access to the NCR Silver Essentials platform, which comes with a concierge feature for setup and implementation. There are also several dashboards that monitor store performance, inventory, customer analysis, and employee data.
NCR Integrations
No matter which NCR system you purchase, you have access to over 250 third-party integrations. If there’s a program that does not already have an integration, NCR can create one for you, from design to testing to make sure it’s right. Here are some of the integrations already available
- Ecommerce: Shopify, Magento, BigCommerce, WooCommerce, Brightpearl
- Delivery: UberEats, GrubHub, Chowly, DoorDash
- Loyalty: Loyverse, Loyalty3
- Accounting: QuickBooks, Zoho Books, Brightpearl, Sage, EDI
- Customer Relationship Management: Salesforce, Zoho, NetSuite, Ontraport
- Payment processors: Stripe, PayPal, Atrium, CardFree
- Shipment carriers: USPS, FedEx, UPS, eShipper, ShipStation
- Scheduling, time-tracking: 7shifts, HotSchedules
Customer Support
NCR offers installation help, from advice to complete hardware and software installation on your site. It offers local training and has self-learning resources available for customers (you won’t find these on the website, however). In addition, the customer support center is available 24/7, and you cannot only call for technical support or problem resolution but also for advice and tips to better use your system.
What Users Think About NCR Silver
There were no additional NCR Silver reviews added since our last update. Overall, users were satisfied, if not wildly enthusiastic. On the other hand, it had few vehemently negative reviews, which leads us to believe it’s an overall solid program and service.
Users almost unanimously said the front end was easy to use, making training new employees a breeze, but that the back-office tools were more clunky. There were some scattered comments about downtime and unreliability, but not enough to make a trend.
- Capterra: 3.7 out of 5 based on more than 140 reviews.
- G2: 3.8 out of 5 based on around 20 reviews.
When reading through user reviews, here are some of the trends that I noticed:
Users Like | Users Don’t Like |
|---|---|
Front end user-friendly | Inventory section difficult to use |
Timeclock function | Emails are outdated |
Bottom Line
NCR is a huge company that wants to handle all your POS and business needs, from ringing up a customer to making sure your employees get benefits. It provides quality hardware and software including NCR Silver for retail, but you will still need to sift through NCR’s products to customize the right POS system. As a result, it can be as simple or as complex as you need and it would be easy to get lost in all it offers. Pricing is not publicly available, so your best bet is to contact NCR or one of its local sellers and get a consultation. Go to the NCR website and arrange a consultation today.
