Cin7 Core Reviews

Pros

As a cloud integration consultant working with SMEs in Adelaide and interstate to solve inventory management issues by implementing the right software, DEAR has proven again and again to be the leading choice for these businesses and is now our recommended choice as an implementation specialist.

DEAR has the functionality to provide a central solution to any SME looking to sell online or instore across a number of channels, and manage all the inventory in one place.The integration with Xero is top notch and the most robust I've seen of almost any app that connects to Xero.

The integrations to eCommerce channels are consistent in their setup and options and allow a great deal of flexibility. Complementing these integrations are shipping service integrations that allow for a full suite of inter-connected apps with DEAR as the hub.

Cons

If I had a gripe, it would be around some minor inconsistencies within the UI across various parts of the software, as well as some minor inconsistencies with various reports that are available.

Pros

Dear was straight forward and reasonably easy to set up. It is good for our daily transaction, inventory management, and handles multiple warehouses and foreign currency well.

Cons

Features that could be improved are: visibility of stock on hand and sell price whilst in inventory, instead one has to either drill down on each stock item or go to reports. A general ledger section that has P & L, Balance Sheet, Trial Balance, etc would also be more user friendly- instead of going to reports.

Alternatives Considered

Sage Intacct

Reasons for Choosing Cin7 Core

Changed from Evolution as wanted a simpler, more user friendly, cloud based package. Preferred Dear over Unleashed due to better GL for inventory

Reasons for Switching to Cin7 Core

I could setup Dear myself, I was advised Intacct would require costly support to setup.

Pros

What I like most is that it is built by accountants. Costing is done better than most systems. I also like that it has a fairly strong inventory management and production modules. Purchasing / Receiving is average but the WMS below average. We use it all.

Cons

Customer support is absolutely horrendous. They are reasonably fast to respond but you will always be given a tier 1 support agent who can't do much but reiterate the documentation to you. Their technical team seems outsourced because in 4 years I have not been able to have a live troubleshooting session with them.

Many times they push out updates to the system which cause problems with operations and integrations.

For over 6 months we had an issue where any advanced purchase (a purchase with more than one invoice and receiving) would not place the correct receiving record with the correct invoice. And you can't even choose which receiving note to associate to which invoice. So we would have open invoices which were actually received and closed invoices which had not been received. I had dozens of back and forth messages with support and I ended up having to get a DEAR partner to reach out to them on my behalf and get in touch with someone who could actually get it fixed. Then after we got told they would work on a fix it took another month or two for the fix to be implemented. And it still isn't perfect.

Another time, the support team deleted one of my eCommerce store applications. This meant we had to re-add the store and it re-imported and duplicated about 50,000 orders, causing a disastrous mess. Technical team refused to help so we had to go page by page in the interface and void 100 at a time.

Alternatives Considered

Odoo, NetSuite and Stitch Labs

Reasons for Switching to Cin7 Core

It was cheaper. And it was also a mistake. 4 years later and it is by far the source of the most frustration. If you're evaluating ERPs support must be your number one criteria your business will not be able move quickly if you have to fight to get information and action from your vendor's support team. The system is not bad. And in some cases the issue was with the third party they were integrating with, but these issues can never be resolved without the two teams working together. And that just does not happen at DEAR. The technical team seems like a whole other company. I suspect it is outsourced or something. The support and willingness of the technical team to help is abhorrent. I have more horror stories but I ran out of space to write.

Pros

Ease of use and almost instant access to support when required

Cons

No mobile app - it’s not easy to use the system in a browser on a phone

Alternatives Considered

MYOB Advanced Business

Reasons for Switching to Cin7 Core

Value for money. But in hindsight, it’s also much easier to use, updates are reliable and it just works. Plus the support is first class. It’s what I’d expect from a cloud based system.

Pros

Easy to learn the different modules and to teach others how.

Cons

When you have to undo sales orders, it completely undoes everything. The sales order should hold the inventory already taken from the system. Sometimes it is impossible to redo because the inventory is no longer available.I also wish that additional costs would add to the per unit cost of inventory.

Pros

I like the ability to import purchase orders via CSV.

Cons

We would like more user permission controls in the POS app. We wish the Cash Management screen's cash balance wasn't visible to all users of the till.

Alternatives Considered

Odoo, NetSuite and Vend

Reasons for Choosing Cin7 Core

EPOS has major issues with their purchase order modules and inventory management capabilities.

Switched From

Epos Now

Reasons for Switching to Cin7 Core

DEAR checked most of the boxes we needed for inventory management. The speed of implementation was also a big factor for us compared to the other products we looked at.

Pros

The great integration with woo commerce and the easy invoicing and ordering processes plus advanced inventory management capacity.

Cons

The zero/ non zero stock can be a little confusing and awkward.

Alternatives Considered

Cin7 Omni, Fishbowl and Unleashed

Reasons for Choosing Cin7 Core

We tried to go through the onboarding process with cin 7 which was very disorganised. There was no clear structure or time frame and we were pushed to go live having absolutely no idea what we were doing. The support was terrible, so we cut our losses and went to DEAR and lost a lot of money in the process. Dear is ironically now owned by CIn 7 so we are in the process of seeking compensation.

Reasons for Switching to Cin7 Core

Inventory capacity, onboarding, more pleasant user experience/ interface

Pros

DEAR academy made it very easy to learn the software and helped us implement the software with ease

Cons

I wish that there were videos in DEAR academy for integrating into QBO. The integration has been a little difficult.

Pros

Great cloud-based inventory and sales software

Cons

Some features that you would have thought every other customer would want to have are missing, the Portal is a total waste - and independent Cin7 voiced "They have lost the battle on the B2B portal" Don't expect this to work as anticipated and look to deploy another type

Alternatives Considered

Unleashed

Reasons for Choosing Cin7 Core

We had to progress from site software to the cloud based software

Reasons for Switching to Cin7 Core

It was to have integration with many other software packages - without the need for $2000 extra a year

Pros

You understand the software perfectly after 1-2 weeks of use. It is simple and generally error-free.

Cons

The fulfillment module needs work. For B2C sales each item should be scanned individually to reduce picking errors.

Alternatives Considered

Cin7 Omni and Fishbowl

Reasons for Choosing Cin7 Core

Locate was mercifully discontinued.

Switched From

LOCATE

Reasons for Switching to Cin7 Core

Dear was better suited for manufacturing and easier to use.

Pros

Easy to use, value for money, cloud based, integrates with finance package, support is great.

Cons

Reporting functionality needs work, no ios app, light on more advanced features

Alternatives Considered

Cin7 Omni and Unleashed

Reasons for Choosing Cin7 Core

Old solution was too feature rich, overkill for our current needs, Dear suits perfectly, although is probably going to be too feature light for us in 12-18 months unless their roll out of features increases.

Switched From

Dynamics 365

Reasons for Switching to Cin7 Core

Just fitted our needs better in terms of layout and usability. Personal perference, all the options we looked at were pretty much the same in terms of features. Cin7 is more expensive though and requires implementation and a fee for that.

Pros

Cloud .... Cloud .... Cloud - This cannot be understated in the world we currently live.

The support is amazing - its on what's app for goodness sake, can't get much better than that.

The UI is very clean and intuitive.

The integrations save loads of time and money.

Plus all the bog standard features you expect from an ERP system but will actually use because dear is easy to use - the amount of times I hear ' we can do that in SAP but there were too many technical issues so it was never implemented' you don't get that with Dear and if you need help its there for you.

Cons

It is unable to negotiate a UK-AU free trade deal - Dear please work on that ;)

There is not much I can put in this box that dear isn't aware of and attempting to address in earnest.

The dear academy will address the difficulty of onboarding new employees that aren't used to ERP systems.

Alternatives Considered

Unleashed

Reasons for Choosing Cin7 Core

Covid 19

Reasons for Switching to Cin7 Core

Your never going to get a software that 100% fits with your current business processes but the fact you have a software provider that actively looks to improve and seeks criticism (its not always a bad word) then publishes its roadmap on addressing gaps, is pragmatism in action. Supported (and well documented) API access can plug any holes in dears offering.

Pros

User friendly
Good video demonstration on tutorial, easy to understand and follow
excellent aftersales support - swift in response

Cons

No direct module to handle goods replacement and warranty process /RMA portions
Not too user friendly or suitable to be used on project based jobs/ activities

Alternatives Considered

Xero

Reasons for Choosing Cin7 Core

Increase productivity. No hassle of maintaining the sever locally

Switched From

Dynamics 365

Reasons for Switching to Cin7 Core

Easy to use (user friendly) Great aftersales support

Pros

The sales, production and purchasing modules provide an excellent integrated platform for our manufacturing operations. We stock over 300 chemicals to make hundreds of rubber compounds that we use in production of custom rubber products and Dear keeps the complexity under control. I love the continual upgrades on the cloud and the easy access from anywhere. Finally, the standard interface is good but the API lets us implement solutions to meet specific needs at various points in our production.

Cons

While the technical support is excellent I find I occasionally need to reach out to them because the online documentation is not well organized.

The reporting module is adequate but often requires off-line processing to get the results you are looking for. They make that easy with excel exporting but it is impossible to create a report that is self-explanatory. For example, you can build complex filters to get specific results but you can not re-title the generic report with a specific name, or include the filter values to explain your data.

I also wish the date fields would accept time information so that we could capture real-time production data in the system--at the moment you can only enter a start and stop date when you create finished goods.

Pros

It seems that DEAR is cheaper than other options, and seems to have a wide variety of functionality -- at the very least, it has all the functionality that our company and our warehouse needs.

Cons

This product in particular has been so poor that I dedicated a lot of time to find places to review it. I started using DEAR 4 years ago when I picked up my job at this company. My company was small then, and DEAR had not been in use for very long when I got there.

Speed has always been an issue, but it hasn't become a big issue until recently as we've become more dependent on inventory and getting things done in a timely manner. In addition to being slow, we experience almost daily shutdowns of the site where nothing can be accessed. Usually, these last anywhere from a few minutes to 30 minutes, but the other day it went down for over 2 hours! This was during our shipping time when we are entirely dependent on the system, although it should be noted that we are dependent on it for the majority of the working day anyways. We ended up staying late to compensate -- and it was a Friday.

Support was not any help as they always provide empty reassurance that their 'team is working hard to improve and optimize the servers', and don't provide any kind of real fix. I could accept that if it noticeably improved over the years, but it hasn't. Clearly it's not enough of an issue for them to actually address.

Overall, terrible software service and terrible customer service. If they excel at anything, it's making their website look pretty -- although I have my complaints about poor functionality of the website as well.

TL;DR -- Would not recommend to my worst enemy

Pros

The invoicing and sales management is easy to use and it has a good user interface. Customer support responds to emails within 24 hours. Some support specialists send videos which is a great way to understand the system.

Cons

There is a wide discrepancy in the quality of customer service specialists- some are brilliant and some are very unhelpful and do not seem to be empathetic to the customer's problems. Sometimes it is obvious that the person lacks the technical knowledge to support the customer so you just go around in a circle. Maybe the support emails could be flagged in different categories such as 'interface issues', 'data issues' and that way the technical emails can be sent to someone who is an analyst. The training videos are not very helpful as they only give a generic overview that doesn't help when you have your own data uploaded and face problems. Training would be more helpful when you have your own data uploaded into the system and after a week of using Dear book a 30min training session with a support member who could answer the bespoke questions you have related to your business - as the currents videos never helped when I needed help.

Pros

Its synchronization with Xero is excellent. In three years we have never had a sync issue. Also within Dear the inventory, sales and purchasing all work very well and the ability to drill through different layers to search products or orders is very good. We use the Product Availability function all the time to confirm status of sales orders v purchase orders and stock availability. We have also recently started to use the Attributes more for both sales orders and products and this has been a further tool within Dear to help us manage our day to day sales process.

Cons

What still infuriates me is the way that sales quotes show the sales margin against Average cost. This is hopeless folr any new product as there is no history and it is also hopeless if you receive a part into stock before you post the purchase invoice. Why we can't have the option in the step up to show the margin against either the supplier fixed cost or last purchase cost is beyond me!!!!!! Argh!!!!
We currently have to run all our project quotes through an Excel spreadsheet to make sure the margins are correct. This is really infuriating and as a result we are looking for alternative options for our stock management.

Pros

After almost two years with DEAR, we couldn't be more pleased! We needed a centralised inventory system with CRM capabilities that could seamlessly integrate and sync to SHOPIFY, XERO, as well as our offline sales channels. Being in the food industry, we also needed a system that could track the shelf-life of our products, and make sure first expired items were sold first. This is an important feature for us that we did not find in TradeGecko, which we tested out as well before we made our decision in early 2016. DEAR also helps us keep track of our items on consignment (location / expiry date / batch number) as well as create hampers and other gift bundles with ease, thanks to their Bill of Materials function. I particularly enjoy the level of detail available to us, to store relevant information such as supplier SKUs and multiple price lists. The system is sturdy and the UX is straightforward and intuitive, which has made the transition easy for the whole team!

Tamara Agusta
General Manager
Profood Ltd

Cons

Occasionally DEAR can be a little slow to load, and customer service is not always as quick as one would like it to be.

Pros

We are loving this software, been using 8 months now and it is powerful. We run 5 e-commerce sites, 4 warehouses and sell in 3 currencies and it's handling all well. Support, as mentioned, isn't quite as easy as getting a call but we use their tutorials, common sense, their live chat.
We also paid for assistance with setup as we didn't want to make any mistakes and desired a bit of support from Work Smart NZ, these guys are great too and worth the extra investment if you value your time”

We are currently trying to get the good word out on various sites and we are hoping that you would to take the time out of their day to share it on Getapp:

Cons

The .docx invoice templates are hard work to manipulate, some more standardized system (like unleashed offers) would make life much easier.
No great integration with a CRM currently. Also they need a Zapier integration so it can connect to other web apps. We are using email parser functionality to achieve most of this but it's complicated.

Pros

- What we would expect from a Inventory Managment system
- Chinese interface
- advance sale function (multiple dispatches, multiple invoices for one sale order)
- integration with Shopify
-

Cons

DEAR

- faster JSON access (no limitation of 60 calls per second)
- no need to UNDO sales for non essential information fields change
- ability to edit allocation of products
- ability to edit batch/serial information
- Reports 1) shows clear information of Sale Order that have not been 1) shiped, 2) invoiced. 2) be able to extract information related to earning power of a product (% margin x rotation of a product)
- Ability to limit sales bellow certain margin or price
- Dashboard with historical inventory and accounts receivables graphs (currently not available)
- Rename product fields (example: type, category, brand, stock locator, barcode…)
- Additional fields available on more reports
- reports are missing a lot of related information that could / should be available

Pros

It is very adaptable and has a lot of features

Cons

It often takes a lot of adaptation to get exactly what I need out of the software. For example, for inventory management software, the question "what is the total dollar amount of on-hand inventory?" should be top of mind. Instead it's totally buried in a report not exactly suited for that purpose. So I had to tweak the report and favorite the amended report to have that info handy.

Alternatives Considered

Stitch Labs and Xero

Pros

It has helped us tremendously to manager our inventory and to ensure the right people get the product that they purchasing. It is great that the integrations are compatible with our POS and online store.

Cons

It does not let us print individual barcodes per product.

Pros

Cloud based and the integrations with Xero and Woo Commerce are really great and the main reasons we changed from using Lightspeed. Does almost everything we liked in Lightspeed and more. The ability to pick, pack and ship gives us great visibility on the progress of orders. Easy to use once you get the hang of it. The support is excellent - very quick and always helpful.

Cons

I would like to see price tiers on the product overview page. We can only see it on the individual product page or once it has been added to an invoice. Customer Backorders don’t automatically link to Purchase orders so there is no prompt to notify customers as soon as their order comes in. We use Dear in the front end of our retail store so a built in end of day report and reconciliation would be very useful.

Pros

I liked that it would easily integrate with the other systems I am using for my business. Shopify, shiprush, ect.

Cons

maybe a better way to pull payments and pricing through shopify.

Alternatives Considered

Orderhive and Cin7 Omni

Reasons for Switching to Cin7 Core

Friendly team, cin7 merge

Pros

Very intuitive to use.
Many detailed features.
Excellent customer support.
Responsive to suggestions.

Cons

The way they handle the serial number of unique items of an SKU can be improved. As of right now, the auto-select serial number during 'pick' is prioritized alphabetically instead of numerically (i.e. serial number 11 is higher in auto-select priority as opposed to serial number 2), which is annoying.