interested in consulting for food co-op?

["Herb Vanden Dool" <..hidden..>]

I am a member of Karma Food Co-op in Toronto, a small cooperative
grocery store. The board is looking into upgrading the antiquated
system to a POS/ERP system. I've been investigating LedgerSMB as a
solution. I've had plenty of help from some of the developers in
understanding the potential of LedgerSMB. What I need to do is
convince the board that LedgerSMB is a real contender, even though it
will take them out of their comfort zone.

To help my case I'd like to have a good idea of knowledgeable people
in Toronto or area who are consultants, developers or users of
LedgerSMB. The ones I have contacted are fairly busy and work on their
own. They might be able to do it, but we need a better idea that we
can follow through with it.

A consultant from the US who works almost exclusively with co-ops has
quoted around $13,000 for a system with functionality similar to what
we require. The only problem is that it is proprietary, and not
extendable.

I'd like to know what consultants would estimate it to cost to setup
LedgerSMB for our co-op. Here are our needs:
- standard POS (cash registers, scales, scanner, different payment methods)
- hold membership records (names, addresses, track labour hours,
working status, surcharge, IOUs, staff discounts)
- track inventory (receiving, pricing, deduction)
- variable markup
- output various reports for finance committee
- ability to do cycle counts on inventory

Much of this is standard LedgerSMB. The one feature which might be
some work is the tracking of member hours in conjunction with working
status. In our co-op members who work 2 hours a month are considered
working members and don't pay a surcharge. Members can bank these
hours and deplete them if they don't work for some months. It's not a
complicated database but it just needs to work well with LedgerSMB.

> From this description can anyone estimate what it would cost (in hours
or dollars) to install, customize, maintain? And are you interested in
putting forward a proposal (on your own or in conjunction with other
LedgerSMB experts)?

thanks.

--
Herb vanden Dool