Current
Open tickets, orders, and layaways from live CIMARA documents. Drill to the register line.
“What's on hold or on layaway right now?”
CIMARA™ Ask · Frontier Retail, Inc.
Ask your store anything.
CIMARA Ask AI, “The Brain” of the CIMARA platform: AI dashboard & reports.
CIMARA Ask AI is your personal business analyst, not a chatbot.
Years of sales data, answered in plain English.
CIMARA Ask AI is part of the CIMARA retail platform for travel, tourism, and destination businesses, by Frontier Retail, Inc.
CIMARA Ask AI works with CIMARA Core, and with NCR Counterpoint for shops still on it.
CIMARA Ask AI updates overnight, so each morning you see results through yesterday.
Caption. Just Ask, CIMARA Ask AI, from Frontier Retail, Inc. Shop owners at a gift-shop counter ask a phone in plain English and get a chart back. A store manager and a coworker use Suggested Stock Reallocation to see which stock to move between locations, and why. Purchasing Recommendations show what to buy more of and what to hold, with the reasoning behind every suggestion. The same question works at a kayak rental dock and in a nature-center gift shop, so the shelves are full when families arrive. CIMARA Ask AI is your personal business analyst, not a chatbot. It works today, on the sales you already keep, and updates overnight.
Questions
Ask it anything.
Type a question in plain English, or say it. The answer comes back as a columned report with subtotals and a grand total, and CIMARA Ask AI reads it aloud. The full report stays on the screen.
Ask for a column in plain words, such as price minus cost or units times retail. Drill into any line, follow a suggested next question, or switch to a chart. Every answer includes a 'Read as' note explaining how each number was calculated. Ask gives you the numbers. You make the call. CIMARA Ask AI updates overnight, so each morning you see results through yesterday.
Inventory turns
Sell-through
GMROI
Days of supply
On-hand value
Dead or slow stock
Stock-to-sales
Ask for these inventory numbers by name. They come back as a report.
Reports
Every answer is a real report.
Export any answer to Excel, PDF, or CSV, or print it. Excel, PDF, and print include money-column totals and a record count.
📗Excel
📄PDF
🧾CSV
🖨Print
Save a report and rerun it on the latest data. Saved reports follow you across devices. You can search, pin, and rename them.
- Read as on every answer, so you can see how a number was worked out
- A usage meter shows how much you are using
- A per-shop on/off switch turns CIMARA Ask AI on for the shops that want it
- An in-app guide and a Help chapter
- Our team reviews questions CIMARA Ask AI couldn't answer and adds answers.
Dashboard
It runs your whole dashboard.
One question box. Current, History, Matrix, and Edge are four views of the same company file. Open it in the phone browser, or add the site to your home screen. Nothing to install from an app store. The same web dashboard runs on a laptop or a phone.
History
Monthly sales, on-hand, GMROI, turn, and weeks of supply by class, store, and vendor.
“How many weeks of supply are on hand by class?”
Matrix
Color, size, and width by vendor and class, then which kayaks rented by the hour.
“Which sizes should I reorder before the season ends?”
Edge
Clerks, peak hour, best days, weather at the store ZIP, and buy-more / buy-less.
“What should I buy more of?”
- Before the reorder, each vendor line reads Buy, Hold, or Reduce.
- Aged inventory is goods with 13 or more weeks since the last receipt, listed by vendor.
- Matrix finds a broken size run. Plan the markdown on the leftovers without going below cost.
- Weeks on hand, turns, and GMROI keep open-to-buy honest. Ask does not rebuild open-to-buy, and it does not place the order or change the price.
Option
Advanced Dashboard & Reporting option
The Advanced Dashboard & Reporting option is on when the license includes it. It is the foundation for the full integration of CIMARA Ask AI into CIMARA Core. Today it is the gated dashboard, headlined by Suggested Stock Reallocation and Purchasing Recommendations, plus open-to-buy replenishment, promo suggestions, margin and gold AI reports, saved reruns, and exports.
Suggested Stock Reallocation (smart location reallocation)
AI analytics reads sales velocity, on-hand, open-to-buy, and margin across every location, then names which store should send stock and which store should take it, with the reasoning behind every suggestion.
Purchasing Recommendations (smart buying)
AI analytics reads sales velocity, on-hand, open-to-buy, and margin, then names what to buy and from which vendor, with the reasoning behind every suggestion.
- Open-to-buy replenishment: what to bring in, from the stock and the sales you already keep.
- Promo suggestions for what to feature.
- Margin and gold AI reports.
- Saved reports that rerun on the latest data.
- Exports to Excel, PDF, CSV, and print.
Open-to-buy replenishment shows what to bring in. It does not rebuild open-to-buy, and it does not place the order or change the price. Those reports do not write the purchase order, the transfer, or the markdown. That writer is CIMARA, not a Counterpoint writer.
Suggested Stock Reallocation and Purchasing Recommendations are where Ask becomes a business resource: that same intelligence feeds CIMARA Core when it creates the purchase order and the stock transfer. Coming soon to CIMARA Core: the same CIMARA Ask AI, built right into your daily workflows. Its merchandise recommendations become ready-to-review purchase orders, transfers and markdowns with no manual entry, saving untold hours of tedious data analysis so you can make informed decisions with the reasoning to back them up.
Your data
How CIMARA Ask AI handles your data
A third-party AI service answers questions and sees totals, not raw sales rows. The AI never sees your sales rows. Your data isn't used to train AI models. Our team reviews questions CIMARA Ask AI couldn't answer and adds answers. The dashboard shows the source and date window. The provider name and how long those questions are kept are not published here.
- A third-party AI service answers the question.
- It sees totals, not raw sales rows.
- Your data isn't used to train AI models.
Season
Built for seasonal retail.
Illustrative questions a seasonal shop can ask.
- “What sold best last July, and do I have enough on order?”
- “Which days were busiest last season?”
- “How did my beach store do against downtown this summer?”
- “What summer carryover should I mark down before the off-season?”
Software and consulting
Ask AI services
Frontier Retail, Inc. offers senior-led retail AI consulting on the same Ask experience. CIMARA Ask AI is the pillar: plain-English answers, charts and merchandise recommendations from the sales, inventory and margin you already keep.
CIMARA Ask AI
Type the question the way you would ask a buyer. Ask returns a finished chart from the data plumbing already in place. Ask a question in plain English and get a chart back.
CIMARA Ask AI answers plain-English questions on the Ask dashboard, including what sold and what to reorder, mark down, or promote. The manager decides.
CIMARA Ask AI works with CIMARA Core, and with NCR Counterpoint for shops still on it.
Retail AI consulting
We sit with your operators, learn how the store actually runs, and wire Ask to the data that matters. A short discovery call, a Host install against your data, and a focused pilot.
Ask limits each answer by the user's security role and by the question asked. Staff only see what their role allows. The same question from two people can return two different views.
Built for specialty retail customers.
Frontier Retail, Inc.Meet the founder
Kevin Bowden
Founder of CIMARA (Frontier Retail, Inc.)
🎓 MIT Professional Education credentials in Artificial Intelligence
Kevin Bowden, founder of CIMARA (Frontier Retail, Inc.), started out building software for CPAs and has spent 45 years working with retail business software and integrations. CIMARA is built from years of retail technology experience for specialty retail customers. We listen to retailers first and help them get the most from their technology. Kevin is supported by a brilliant and experienced team of architects, engineers and quality control specialists creating the next generation of retail platform, one that truly leverages intelligence to improve success and create meaningful efficiency.
Real people you can call: (843) 277-8555
C&K Systems, Inc. is our Authorized Preferred Installation Partner.
Questions
CIMARA Ask AI, in plain terms
Which systems does it work with?
CIMARA Ask AI works with CIMARA Core, and with NCR Counterpoint for shops still on it.
What does it cost?
How accurate is it?
CIMARA Ask AI answers from the totals in your sales data. Each answer shows its source and date window. Check that window before you act on a number.
How long is setup?
Setup depends on the system you already run. Book a demo and we will walk through what your shop needs.
Is my data safe?
A third-party AI service answers your questions. It sees totals, not raw sales rows. Your data isn't used to train AI models. Read the CIMARA Ask AI section of the privacy policy.
What is the Advanced Dashboard & Reporting option?
The Advanced Dashboard & Reporting option is on when the license includes it. It is the foundation for the full integration of CIMARA Ask AI into CIMARA Core. Today it is the gated dashboard, headlined by Suggested Stock Reallocation and Purchasing Recommendations, plus open-to-buy replenishment, promo suggestions, margin and gold AI reports, saved reruns, and exports. Open-to-buy replenishment shows what to bring in. It does not rebuild open-to-buy, and it does not place the order or change the price. Those reports do not write the purchase order, the transfer, or the markdown. That writer is CIMARA, not a Counterpoint writer. Suggested Stock Reallocation and Purchasing Recommendations are where Ask becomes a business resource: that same intelligence feeds CIMARA Core when it creates the purchase order and the stock transfer. Coming soon to CIMARA Core: the same CIMARA Ask AI, built right into your daily workflows. Its merchandise recommendations become ready-to-review purchase orders, transfers and markdowns with no manual entry, saving untold hours of tedious data analysis so you can make informed decisions with the reasoning to back them up.