Internet Cafe Programs

Internet cafe programs include Internet cafe management and timer software.

When starting an Internet cafe, your consideration includes the software programs you are going to provide for your customers, as well as the programs you'll need to manage and operate the cafe with.

The types and amount of software programs you can offer to your customers depends on your business model.

Those cafes that offer a wide variety of office-like services, such as printing, typically provide their customers with at least the basic MS Office programs in addition to the basic programs for surfing the Web and reading email.

In addition, if you are located on an area that has demand for such services, you may also think about offering individual workstations with high-end graphics programs, for example.

Internet Cafe Programs - Managing Your Cafe

Internet cafe business works around computers, but you don't necessarily need a lot of software to run it.

You could keep manually tabs on how much your customers spend time on a computer terminals and then charge them based on that use. This approach is used by many smaller cybercafes around the world.

For managing a larger Internet cafe, however, you may also want to use software packages for managing the business.

One software package that many Net cafes use is for managing the customers time on the computer terminal.

The simplest metered access systems are programs that you assign a code with a predetermined time, and then sell those codes (written on pieces of paper) from your counter.

The customer then logs to the computer with the code, and is automatically logged off when the time runs out.

You may also want to use Internet cafe management software, to record business volume, discounts, and expenses.

Ideally, you may want to get the timing, billing, and management all in one package.

There are several Internet cafe programs that can do this for you, but most of these packages are not free.

The world's most popular Internet cafe software, Internet Caffe from Antamedia, does the timing, billing, and management from one centralized computer.

Having such advanced software also allows you to use several types of billing. For example, Internet Caffe has features including:

• Play and Pay: customers use your services (Internet, scanning, printing, etc.) and pay afterwards
• Pay in advance: customers pay for the services beforehand
• Time codes: You sell prepaid tickets that can be used as long as customer has time left on it
• Members: prepaid or postpaid members. You can setup individual prices per hour, accessing options, unlimited usage etc.
• Free use: promotional mode which enables usage for specified time without charge

Another thing that is good about the Internet Caffe Software is that the program will run on any Pentium II computer (ex. 400 MHz and 64 MB RAM), according to Antamedia.

These low hardware requirements allow you to start your business with computers that are not the latest high-end models, thus saving you start-up capital (on hardware) and reducing business risk.

Other available packages for managing your cybercafe that you may want to take a look at, include:

• CafeSuite
• Anywwwhere.com (hosted, turn-key Internet cafe solution)
• CyberCafePro
• SmartLaunch