One of my last projects was a custom optical store system and I thought maybe it would be worth trying to write something new that could be useful to more businesses seeing that now I understand the industry a little better. But I wouldn’t want to go ahead and try to create something based on my own assumptions but rather I’d prefer to work with people who use this kind of systems daily to understand their pain points. So if you’re a person who uses / used optician software for work please help me out and tell me the top things you didn’t like about it
optical software is more like a health care system than a retail system pos. it needs to be HIPPA compliant. it needs to interface with medical and vision plan claims systems, and inventory needs to be able to be highly customized by the user but still able to interface with frame vendor systems. there are huge databases of frames for various different vendors, most high volume shops would need to integrate with those databases to avoid manual entry of every frame they carry. the system needs to keep inventory up-to-date against sales and returns. integration between the ordering system and the billing system and payment processor is Key to happy users and minimizing accounting errors due to people making mistakes. there’s a lot that goes into optical behind the scenes even if you’re not planning to support optometrists or opthalmologist users.
Thanks, a lot of these aspects weren’t my concern when working on my previous project so it’s great that you’ve mentioned all that. What were the least favourite aspect of the optical software that you’ve used so far?