Upgrading from a GL to a Commander

[Roz]

I assume everyone who has a Commander is still happy with them? We are upgrading from GL to Commander for the added look and functions as we have Hamilton DAN & Hosted Solutions too. Will be selling the GLs (2) whenever the Commanders show up. I hear at the show that finding a GL is hard as I think Hamilton is trying to phase them out of their production line. They are workhorses.

 

[DiamondWash]

I have a friend that went to the ICA show and was told DRB has plans to phase out the WS2 very soon.

 

[soonermajic]

Heard the same about Wash Select II as well...

 

[bert79]

We placed an order for a Commander about a month ago. We're replacing an ACW4. Went with Hamilton again because the ACW/GL are workhorses and quality built. We ordered our Commander with the Mars Cashflow validator. Just got back from the show and talked with the guys at Hamilton. I had a very hard time finding out about a ship date on our machine. Learned today that it looks like beginning of August is likely. I do understand the supply chain issues right now but wanted others to be aware. The guys at the show also showed me the Mars Cash Flow validator and boy does that thing looks nice! They pull in the bills FAST and according to Hamilton even at an angle! We ordered a second validator as a backup because if supply continues to be an issue we wanted one on shelf. I have talked to several owners of the Commander who currently have them in service and every one of them is very happy. There is a bit of customer training to be done (as has been discussed here) but certainly not something that we haven't done before.

 

[Jim64]

I’ve had one since May 2021. Love it, would buy another.

 

[Roz]

Good to know. My only beef would be having to switch cc processor to WorldPay. Chase is much easier and customer friendly

 

[Jim64]

I was never a huge fan of worldpay in the past. When I got the Commander I was switched to a Hamilton group rate. My last statement showed fees of 3.7%

 

[Roz]

I was never a huge fan of worldpay in the past. When I got the Commander I was switched to a Hamilton group rate. My last statement showed fees of 3.7%

Have you checked that you are not being charged E-XACT fees too? They never showed up on the WP statement but we saw them on our bank account statement. Our WP fees were 4.5% to 7.5% in our short use of them on our Goldlines.

 

[Randy]

Have you checked that you are not being charged E-XACT fees too? They never showed up on the WP statement but we saw them on our bank account statement. Our WP fees were 4.5% to 7.5% in our short use of them on our Goldlines.

There are no E-XACT fee's with the Commander ACW.

 

[Randy]

I hear at the show that finding a GL is hard as I think Hamilton is trying to phase them out of their production line. They are workhorses.

There are a lot of the Goldline ACW's around, I got call last week from a operator who was wanting to sell 4 of them.

 

[Roz]

There are no E-XACT fee's with the Commander ACW.

So I checked. The answer depends on the top level credit card processor, not the machine. With the chip reader credit card machine the only processor available is WorldPay as Hamilton made a deal with WP for that hardware. They bundle the EXACT fees into their fees. When we tested the chip reader and had to use WP our fees ran about 3.7-4.2% however for our Hamilton APP they were charging us 8-10%. In part due to the lower volume. I tried to get them to bundle the two accounts into one to lower the fees for the app but they would not do so. Not certain as to the reason. For the swiper cc reader you have a few processor choices.

 

[Greg Pack]

I have a friend that went to the ICA show and was told DRB has plans to phase out the WS2 very soon.

They're very relaible basic machines and will likely be around with aftermarket support until the parts supply runs out.

 

[Ecsb82]

I assume everyone who has a Commander is still happy with them? We are upgrading from GL to Commander for the added look and functions as we have Hamilton DAN & Hosted Solutions too. Will be selling the GLs (2) whenever the Commanders show up. I hear at the show that finding a GL is hard as I think Hamilton is trying to phase them out of their production line. They are workhorses.

Did you re-use your existing d.a.n.? Did you have any trouble getting the commander to show up and run financial reports and wash counts? Mine won't show up for that stuff but does show on the home screen.

 

[Roz]

Did you re-use your existing d.a.n.? Did you have any trouble getting the commander to show up and run financial reports and wash counts? Mine won't show up for that stuff but does show on the home screen.

I have put my upgrade on pause after speaking with a few commander owners. I will wait until some of the bugs are ironed out. I suspect they are working on an upgrade to that system.

 

[TSchmitz]

I have put my upgrade on pause after speaking with a few commander owners. I will wait until some of the bugs are ironed out. I suspect they are working on an upgrade to that system.

Would you mind sharing those bugs?

 

[Roz]

The two people I spoke with is not a huge data set. The main issues were replacing several hardware components in the first two years and integration with the DAN system. There was a minor issue with slow cc processing too but that could be due to the cc processor. Once the issues where fixed things seem to have been smoother.

I will look for their contact info and PM you with it. Don’t want to publish anyones info.