Windward System Five POS — bank compatibility

Windward System Five is a point-of-sale system for retail, built by Windward Software. A 1984 Canadian program written for a single furniture store, now owned by Constellation Software.

Certified on Linkly, running on premise. Linkly reaches more acquirers than any other middleware in the market, which is why most POS start there.

The Linkly integration runs on premise.

Dennis Jacobsen built the first version in 1984 as inventory software for one furniture store in northern British Columbia, working out of his basement; the company moved to Penticton in 1990. The name came from a shortlist that at one point included "Barbados Software" — he worked out in 1988, looking at minus 35 degrees outside, that with a phone, fax and modem he could support customers from anywhere warmer. Windward has been part of Volaris Group, and so Constellation Software, since 2019.

It is a business-management system for inventory-heavy, service-and-rental retail rather than a hospitality or fashion till. Its own business-type list runs to appliance showrooms, auto and truck parts, hardware and lumber, garden centres, gun stores, industrial and plumbing supply, powersports, RV dealers, lighting showrooms, medical supply and party and equipment hire. It claims thousands of clients across 35-plus countries and over 10,000 active stations processing US$1.5 billion a year, from a team of about 25.

Check this one carefully before committing in Australia. Windward lists Australian phone numbers and runs an Australian storefront, but the Australian page served identical North American content, no Australian or New Zealand customer is named anywhere on the site, and its published payment-processor list is entirely North American — Datacap NETePay, Global Payments and Worldpay, with no Australian payments middleware named at all.