User Reviews Overview
About Fishbowl
Fishbowl is the #1 manufacturing and warehouse inventory management software! Its powerful inventory control system gives your small or midsize business the exact tools needed to transform your inventory management and scale your...
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- Industry: Information Technology & Services
- Company size: Self Employed
- Used Daily for 2+ years
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Review Source
Great Extension for QB userrs
It provides more than enough capability for small & medium size manufactures & distributers with fraction of cost of regular ERP. If you are QB users and you have inventory, order or purchase management, this is what you need.
Pros
This software is easy to use and easy to deploy. Great extension for QB users. It can also connect Shopify, Amazon, Ebay, Shipping management such as Shiprush, etc.
Cons
In Inventory, you have 2 types of materials: Part and Product. This is somehow confusing.
- Industry: Mechanical or Industrial Engineering
- Company size: 11–50 Employees
- Used Daily for 6-12 months
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Review Source
Fishbowl Manufacturing Software has proven an invaluable inventory management tool for our...
Fishbowl Management software has offered our team a complete supply chain management and physical sales tracking system in one convenient system . In this time especially , we understand that organization and efficiency are paramount to surviving let alone prospering and we are thankful to Fishbowl for helping.
Pros
Our team found both these ease of use and relative ease of integration to be among the most attractive components of Fishbowl. The variety of modules allow close monitoring of essentially every aspect of
physical asset tracking . With Fishbowl we can organize warehouse parts inventory , print labels,and
organize purchase orders which organizes our supply side. Fishbowl's sales side module allows for effective tracking of lead times as well as sales item forecasting so we are never behind on available inventory .
Cons
Fishbowl Manufacturing software at this time time requires the use of a server which we had to supply .
In exchange for all other features , we see this as a nominal and not inconvenient requirement as at the time we were adding new computer assets. This requirement may not suit all smaller companies.
Reasons for Switching to Fishbowl
We selected Fishbowl Inventory Management software over alternatives for its comprehensive module options which allow for a complete organization of our office and warehouse now optimized with a primary consideration to sales output and production. We could not ask for more in this area of business operations.Response from Fishbowl
Thank you for taking the time to leave this review, Louis. We appreciate your business and are happy to know that your experience has been satisfactory.
- Industry: Sporting Goods
- Company size: 11–50 Employees
- Used Daily for 1+ year
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Review Source
Functional but Complicated, Expensive but Unrefined, Capable but Rigid.
Overall, the Fishbowl program is decent. It is capable of doing almost all of what they claim, but the day-to-day usability is clunky and unrefined. It is as if they only stay on the development/conceptual side of things and never test their product daily. If they were to address the issues that I outlined that relate to the user experience, I would more confidently feel that this product would be more worth its large price tag. Until then, It remains difficult to recommend this product to others.
Pros
I like that this program allows your company to do a lot, as long as you know how to do it. It has also helped our company create more rigidity and procedure (Whether we wanted to or not).
Cons
I do not like that we have paid over $30,000 for a program that has basic functionality issues. We experience issues with basic things like scanning products, typing in fields, synchronizing inventory with our online store, etc. Also, their kitting function is what we were originally sold on, but we have now completely stopped using the function because it has fundamental issues. They are not always detrimental, but the accumulation of these small issues results in a program that you wouldn't believe costs what it does. Quite unfortunate.
Another common issue that we face is the program's habit of freezing constantly. From what I have learned from support, the program does this on purpose to protect the database from data loss, but what it results in is our Sales guys needing to restart our POS program CONSTANTLY. Literally, on almost every transaction, their "Checkout" program freezes and they need to force quit and reopen. Our purchaser has also often been in the middle of a large PO, and the program freezes, requiring a restart and loss of that whole PO.
Speaking of the POS side, their "Checkout" program is not great at all. It experiences all of the aforementioned issues but is also just a program that feels like they don't work towards improving at all. On top of that, they don't even integrate with any other POS programs or companies that work for basic retail applications, so we currently don't have an alternative.
Reasons for Switching to Fishbowl
We chose Fishbowl because it the functionality and capability that they claimed to have, as well as their unique kitting feature.Top Fishbowl Alternatives
- Industry: Food & Beverages
- Company size: 11–50 Employees
- Used Daily for 1+ year
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Review Source
Fishbowl has been great for us as a small food manufacturer
Overall, good experience - we needed a tool like this and it meets our needs for being SQF and USDA Organic.
Pros
Fishbowl helps us maintain all lot tracing records, re-order points, and sales and purchase orders. It makes audit time much simpler!
Cons
There aren't as many reports as I would like and it isn't very intuitive to setup - we had to hire an outside expert.
Alternatives Considered
WherefourReasons for Choosing Fishbowl
It was too difficult to prepare for an audit.Reasons for Switching to Fishbowl
Customer service and overall capabilitiesResponse from Fishbowl
Thank you for taking the time to review your experience with our company, Jessi. We appreciate your feedback! We are glad to hear your experience has been satisfactory and will look into improvements based on your suggestions as well.
- Industry: Pharmaceuticals
- Company size: 51–200 Employees
- Used Daily for 2+ years
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Review Source
Fishbowl Inventory Review
Pros
Integration with our manufacturing process was easy. Purchases, Receiving, Bill of materials and Work Orders fulfilled our needs.
Cons
Reports provided are too basic, no help documentation to create your own reports. If you need a detailed or custom reports you have to purchase them apart.
Alternatives Considered
BatchMaster ERPReasons for Choosing Fishbowl
ERPNext didn't fulfill our needs preparing work orders.Switched From
ERPNext- Industry: Consumer Goods
- Company size: 2–10 Employees
- Used Daily for 1-5 months
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Review Source
Lots of bugs.
Fishbowl needs to take data integrity more seriously. We are currently having to double-check everything manually and are being told by Fishbowl that our issues may or may not make it to the dev team's list to work on a month from now.
Pros
The concept of Fishbowl is great. We needed software that would help us pick and ship more efficiently and get us away from a paper-based system. We also needed it to plug in to QBO. I also like that we got access to a well-trained implementation specialist.
Cons
Now that we are actually using Fishbowl, we're running into critical errors that force us to do things manually. This means we are less efficient and slower than before we used it. I've invested a lot of time and money into transitioning into new software and feel like I cannot trust them with our data.We were also not warned about additional costs (like costs per user and hosting fees) until after we had committed.
Alternatives Considered
NetSuiteReasons for Choosing Fishbowl
We needed a more efficient shipping process and more visibility into our inventory.Reasons for Switching to Fishbowl
I thought it would be more user-friendly.- Industry: Retail
- Company size: 11–50 Employees
- Used Daily for 2+ years
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Review Source
Fishbowl
Pros
Ease of use. Seem to make updates from requested ideas.
Cons
They don't currently have an online version, only through hosted.
Alternatives Considered
AgilironReasons for Switching to Fishbowl
Agiliron support is horrible. Worst company I have ever dealt with.- Industry: Food Production
- Company size: 11–50 Employees
- Used Daily for 1+ year
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Review Source
Fishbowl
It is easy to use and has some great features
Pros
The ease of using and tracking our inventory
Cons
It still is not 100% accurate- there were errors in our set up -not sure if it was internal or with the software.
- Industry: Health, Wellness & Fitness
- Company size: 51–200 Employees
- Used Daily for 1-5 months
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Review Source
Fishbowl Works for Us
I've implemented about five ERP/MRP systems and this was the easiest of them all. Our team has picked up on it quickly and likes to use it. Very user friendly.
Pros
The software is easy to use and intuitive. Unlike SAP and others, a new person can jump in and start using the software day one. Things are easy to find and the learning curve is days not months. A system the people won't use is worthless.
Cons
Can't think of anything...does what we need it to do.
Alternatives Considered
NetSuiteReasons for Switching to Fishbowl
One of our senior leadership had implemented it before and liked it at a previous company. The others liked the simplicity of the system, and its ability to work with our already existing Quickbooks.- Industry: Executive Office
- Company size: 2–10 Employees
- Used Daily for 1-5 months
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Review Source
Fishbowl
Overall the software seems to manage most of our needs. I am frustrated with the lack of nesting capabilities for parts and products. My understanding of the product tree was that it solved those issues.
Pros
Haven't used it enough to say, but it was very essay to cycle our inventory numbers.
Cons
The login process isn't reliable. Havening to purchase multiple users. That seems very impractical as our company grows. The appearance of the software itself seems a bit dated.
Reasons for Choosing Fishbowl
We needed a more in depth system.Reasons for Switching to Fishbowl
Functionality, accessibility, market standards-
Review Source
We are a Head Start agency that uses FishBowl to purchase, track, and issue inventory to 60 Head Start classrooms and agency departments. Our system uses SharePoint, which is accessed by each classroom/dept. to place their order which is in turn sent to the approving supervisor. Once it is approved, it goes to the Purchasing office were it is imported into FishBowl (all done electronically within the magic of computer land...and the IT department).
We started looking for new inventory software when the software we had did not support the Windows 7 that we were upgrading to. We needed a fully integrated inventory software program that not only supported our classrooms, but would provide the Finance dept. with the information they needed.
One of the features I like about FishBowl is that as soon as Purchasing processes the classroom/dept. request, an email is sent to the requestor letting them know Purchasing has received their order and it is in the process of being filled. When the order has been shipped, another e-mail is sent to let the requestor know the order is on it's way. This email feature has greatly reduced the number of calls received from our classrooms requesting status on their order and when it will be sent to them (I really, really like it).
We have set up reorder points and default vendors, which makes placing orders to replenish warehouse stock easy and nearly effortless. Each vendor has their own part unit of measure and unit of measure conversion, which makes processing receipts magic (well almost). The tracking feature on a warehouse part has helped to track expiration dates on food (milk, yogurt, cheese, etc.). The expiration dates are printed on the packing slip that goes out with each order and helps us resolve expiration date issues. FishBowl will also let us know an item is nearing its expiration date prior to processing the shipment.
Another feature of FishBowl that has come in handy is the ability to monitor specific warehouse stock. I use the feature to monitor our milk products (Soy, Lactaid, Rice Milk, Goats Milk, etc.) to make sure we have enough on hand at all times to ensure we receive Federal reimbursement for meals served. These items are monitored on a daily basis due to their sensitive nature. The Dashboard tab provides a quick synopsis of sales, purchase orders, RMA,s etc. The first two FishBowl tabls I look at are the Monitor and DashBoard tab that will let me know the health of our inventory and status of orders. Thumbs up to the programmers that wrote these features into the system.
Sales orders and back orders are easily maintained and monitored. I can process order requests, and hold them until such time as I need them to be processes for shipment.
FishBowl provides us with reports on classroom expenditures (food/supplies or combination). We maintain two warehouse identifyiers to identify our supply items from our food items. There are custom fields that can be added to input processing that can further help in processing specific types of reports and tracking data.
Prior to using FishBowl we had trainers from FishBowl give us module by module training and help us set up and transfer data from our old inventory system to FishBowl. I cannot say enough good things about the help we received. Note: The online help and training is a great resource also.
FishBowl provideds many features which we are utilizing and others that we will grow into. FishBowl has a different look and feel from the software we were using, but once we started FishBowl, it has become second nature. There is so much more about FishBowl than there is space to write this review. If you need more information please contact me.
- Industry: Electrical/Electronic Manufacturing
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Review Source
Could be a good fit/value for some with a few significant caveats
Pros
We run FB 2016.11 with QuickBooks Premier 2015. FB handles quoting, sales orders, your basic pick/pack/ship, purchase orders and inventory. It has BOM capability but we find this limited. The price was right for us, esp. compared to our previous Sage software. Prepare to spend 3 to 4x the cost of the software in customization, support and initial set-up. Find other companies doing what you do (or more importantly the way you do it) and see FB in action. The software continues to have limitations and I have continued reservations about that. Some previous reviews bring this up: one's requests aren't really acknowledged or their sort of pooh-poohed. That doesn't make for a good feeling. Despite all the frustrations, limitations, and problems, Fishbowl has helped us. We'd purchase it again. We're at a point where we are again growing, and I think FB can grow with us.
Cons
I read through all the reviews (at this time 126 of them) and agree with the many that indicate that support is very difficult to get a hold of. I also echo the complaints about the need for A LOT of custom reports for simple things. And the fact that the software has bugs and that you WILL be resetting your server to complete end-of-day export to Quickbooks. Maybe more often if you export more frequently. But it is getting BETTER with every release. Still, there is no "user accountability" (again, to echo another review) with SO, PO, etc. Nor is there accountability with inventory entry. You simply have very few opportunities to have documented the ways in which your users interact with Fishbowl. And this lack is serious and can have consequences for your business.
Further: be prepared for the result of the lack of customer support: Fishbowl relies on a network of consultants. You've got to get a good one to help you with bugs, problems, fixes, custom reports. And that can be expensive. There's some good consultants and bad consultants. The best consultants I've worked with admit Fishbowl's shortcomings but see the *potential*
I can understand the criticisms of FB's sales staff in previous reviews. But these have to be put into context. I guess it's like a lot of sales people who promise you things. But what I would add is the sales people at the beginning of the process are so attentive than when you arrive to the post-sale status, it's just a little jarring how non-attentive the customer support staff are. So that might be the source of that criticism. From what I understand, you've got a lot of sales people, very few support people, and a lot of earnest, hardworking (and overworked) developers and programmers. I think they want to do good work and make a good product. I could speculate why the difficulties are present here but I don't have a full enough understanding to say anything more useful beyond my initial impressions and conversations with Fishbowl people.
Finally: speaking of *potential*, I really do think Fishbowl has been good us and has the potential to be even better. But the number one problem may be the corporate culture. And I think I'm being fair in my assessment here. For the culture is a circle-the-wagons mentality. And it lacks transparency. Sure, there are customers who express their frustrations, but one must put those frustrations and the way the users express them into *context*. I think to its own detriment, Fishbowl does not do this.
I'm not sure if I were purchasing today (and without having had the experience with Fishbowl that I now do and seeing what I now see it can do for us) that I would purchase it. One small example: Fishbowl used to have a user support forum where users could interact and sometimes FB employees would participate. That forum allowed us to see ways in which people were using Fishbowl. Apparently, some people were badmouthing the company (sometimes rightly), so FB canned the forum. (I think you can still see a google cache of it). I can think of dozens of user support forums from big (Apple) to small (smaller software) where users proffer all sorts of opinions. This doesn't stop them from allowing the community a voice. Or from users helping one another and building a supporting (and supportive) community that can benefit users. But again, the corporate culture is such that transparency appears to have little value. Perhaps FB wants to "control their narrative" from a centralized place. Many of its users would, I'm sure, defend Fishbowl from silly or inane comments and yet let the substantive comments stand as beneficial. For example: case studies. It's important for the potential buyer to get a full view of what and how FB is serving a particular customer with particular needs. That can influence a purchasing decision. You're not going to get serious help with understanding whether FB is right for you with these with facile, superficial "case studies" not generated by real users themselves but rather downloaded from the company website. These types of things often lack substance. They are more marketing material and than informed aids for purchasing decisions. We were approached to participate in such a study and we said no. In that context, we didn't think it wasn't the right thing to do and it didn't feel like a good fit with our values.
- Industry: Furniture
- Company size: Self Employed
- Used Daily for 2+ years
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Review Source
Don't buy Fishbowl
I paid a lot of money for this software for my small and growing business. Training was expensive and took many weeks. Integrations with Quickbooks and my Sales channels were buggy and resulted in hours of extra work to edit changed sales orders and sift through garbage data sent to QB. A few months ago I uncovered a bug with how data was sent to Quickbooks that totally screwed up my books. Two different support people logged on and watched my workflow, confirmed I did everything correctly, and verified it was a program bug. A ticket was created and then....crickets. Nothing. I followed up repeatedly for weeks. For a while I got assurances that the "best people" were working on it. Eventually no one would reply to my emails, not even my account rep. They completely abandoned me so I switched to Katana which has been awesome for my needs. I've never been treated so poorly by a software company EVER. Maybe they have chosen to abandon their smaller clients in favor of bigger ones.
Pros
At first the customer support was great. You could call and a human would answer the phone and log into your screen and help you quickly. Those days are over apparently.
Cons
Fishbowl support has gone in the toilet. The phone menu you get for support doesn't even have an option for just solving a workflow problem or explaining an unexpected error or problem. They have the call back feature, which can take hours, if they actually call back. They promise to look into problems and then don't.
- Industry: Food & Beverages
- Company size: 11–50 Employees
- Used Daily for 1+ year
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Review Source
Absolute Ripoff
Ignore any of the positive reviews they are clearly lies placed by the company. Notice how only the negative reviews mention any specifics. If you can adopt this software to fit your business needs, you will quickly find it is not a scalable solution whatsoever. The software allows for minimal to zero customization and requires to follow every step of their preset workflows. The product is essentially an open-source, i.e. free, database packaged with a one size fits all schema and a slow and clunky front-end. They include an open-source reporting platform (iReports) and market it as having fully customizable reporting. Yet they do not support this free reporting platform and barely support getting it connected if you're patient and don't mind waiting up to a week for answers. They also sale a completely impractical mobile interface that will quickly make anyone prefer to run over to a computer before trying to navigate their handheld device software. It could NEVER be used by someone operating a forklift.
This product is a complete RIPOFF targeting a great group of suckers, i.e. businesses without the financial or technical acumen to move beyond the world of QuickBooks. Before you spend $50,000 on a bad, bad, solution think about return on investment and whether your business plas to grow. Then find one of the many scalable ERP systems that can be implemented for the same price, even if it takes a little longer to get setup. Better to get by with spreadsheets for 6 months and have a real solution down the road then waste time and resources in solution that if you're lucky enough to get to work, you will outgrow in a year. THIS SOFTWARE SUCKS A !!
Pros
The 2016 front end looks slick. There is an API, but it will cost you more to hire a progammer to figure out how to integrate with it than to just get better softwate that plays better.
Cons
THE SUPPORT IS HIDEOUS, THE MOBILE APP IS USELESS, SALESPEOPLE ARE LIARS
- Industry: Fine Art
- Company size: 2–10 Employees
- Used Daily for 1+ year
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Review Source
Intuitive manufacturing, inventory control and distribution software.
Overall, I am satisfied with purchasing the Fishbowl software for manufacturing bill of materials and inventory management. Have only been using for approximately one year but so far it seems much easier to use compared to the previous software that we used. We have only used the out of the box software. All other software's we use always required special programing which was always a hassle and large expense.
Pros
The ease of set-up and use of the manufacturing process. Very intuitive and do not need to spend a lot of time training new people to use. Once we set up, new users can begin working with very little guidance.
Cons
The training was good, but for a startup additional training time would be good after we are up and running. After the initial training I only heard from someone when they wanted to sell me something additional. No follow-up calls, emails or communication to determine if there were any additional questions or concerns. With software I always felt that good prompt support is essential. I still have issues with the QB accounting integration, and I receive zero support from FB.
- Industry: Electrical/Electronic Manufacturing
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Review Source
Did not work out
Pros
Customer support is thorough when you are able to reach them.
Software was very easy to understand and implement. There are a few valuable stock reports.
Data module allows you to write your own SQL queries.
Cons
1. IT issues
a. Having to reset company server every Sunday. As per IT department, this is a known issue on Fishbowl’s end with no plans to fix
b. Having to reset fishbowl server every day due to export failures. Again, known issue.
c. The client stalls on our staff daily. Just this past week, collectively we've had to kill the application 40 times due to random lock-ups. This is not an issue on our IT department's end.
d. Our quickbook's database has increased tenfold due to the amount of exports fishbowl has made over the last three years. Manuvering in Quickbook's is now a nightmare here in Canada since users are unable to compress the database anymore.
2. Internal Control
a. No audit trail as it relates to changes to SKUs, POs, SOs, changes to inventory valuations
b. Inability to lock down PO and SO items after they are issued
c. Inability to police SKU creation. We need users to be able to create SKUs and submit to management for approval. Once approved, the SKU details are locked down. Fishbowl's user account control is VERY limited.
3. Reporting
a. Poor inventory reporting – not able to view listing at a specific date. Fishbook’s workaround does not reconcile to the quickbooks ledger since the report is only a snapshot and not an actual valuation at that date.
b. Not able to customize views on reports such as POs, SOs, etc.
c. Inventory days aging calculation is flawed. If I move inventory to another location, it resets to zero. That is not how days in inventory is properly calculated. Fishbowl can’t calculate this measure since historical values are not stored. Same with GMROII.
d. Inability to create custom reports to track measures such as inventory performance and turnover. Historical carrying cost data is not stored.
4. Poor integration with Quickbooks
a. If SKUs accounts were not correctly mapped, a change must be made in both fishbowl and quickbooks after the fact. If we were able to police SKU creation properly, this would rarely be an issue.
b. Live inventory valuation in Fishbowl almost never agrees with ledger and I can’t figure out why.
- Industry: Packaging & Containers
- Company size: 2–10 Employees
- Used Daily for 1+ year
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Review Source
Okay, when it works. A disaster when it doesnt
Pros
When Functional, it is a good software. Order Management, fulfillment, inventory updates, accounting integrations are all great. keyword is WHEN it functions properly.
Cons
I was on the phone with fishbowl support at least 4-5 times a month. One issue after another, and although extremely friendly, i was given either incorrect information, or sent to an inbox with no reply. I could not get order fulfillment to work, my customers wouldn't receive tracking numbers. They blamed Woocommerce, but when i switched to multiple other competitors it worked just fine. We also had a ton of shipping integration issues.
Any orders that had a credit card declined wouldnt come into fishbowl either. Just super glitchy
Woocommerce customers, try out orderhive, its working great for what i am doing.
Alternatives Considered
Orderhive- Industry: Automotive
- Company size: 11–50 Employees
- Used Daily for 2+ years
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Review Source
Needed Database tech support for failing upgrade
Helps the various departments of our company work together better.
Pros
One of the team members was my point of contact for our recent issue. We started upgrade at close of business and ran into issue late in the night. The upgrade process had been test driven successfully on the new target servers prior but something in the tag data at the moment of upgrade caused a failure. We opened for business the next AM dead in the water. They were excellent in his handling of the issue and giving it the attention we needed as our business was on hold due to the issue. The DB Tech that worked on the problem was also on point in the solving of the issue.
Cons
Only cure for bugs is full upgrade. Given that we have many custom reports it does not make it an easy option. Would like to also see support for iReport as it is bundled with your product but discontinued on it's own. Lastly, would like to see a solution that would create true "Admin" level accounts. We have in house admins that get all rights but cannot affect "Company" (and other misc) settings without using the factory "Admin" account.
- Industry: Farming
- Company size: 11–50 Employees
- Used Daily for 1+ year
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Review Source
In the knick of time!
Fishbowl Inventory was a great success in our first year of utilization. The biggest and easiest improvement was the vast reduction of manual order duplication, as we were able to have orders submitted from our website directly into Fishbowl, and then have sales orders pushed directly into Quick Books on the back end of the system. As we learn to better use Fishbowl, we are more accurate with reporting to our customer's accurate data, and also keep our sales representatives up to date with inventory levels, pricing, and order tracking on behalf of their customers.
For the record - our small seed company grew with the help of Fishbowl Inventory!
Pros
We really like the data transfer capabilities with an API interface from our website order platform, and the data push into Quick books on the back end. So much time has been saved from manual data entry duplication. The ability to have multiple users from all over with remote hosting allows sales reps from TX to MT to place orders and see inventory availability prior to order placing. Having the opportunity to write our own I-reports to meet our specifications.
Cons
We haven't been able to make mobile applications work yet for our systems. We still have challenges with the real time tracking of inventory between locations with using bar-codes, scanners and mobile devices.
- Industry: Medical Devices
- Company size: 11–50 Employees
- Used Daily for 2+ years
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Review Source
Results of Request for Customized Pick Ticket Report
We were all extremely impressed with the talent and expertise of the Fishbowl Reports team. They were genuinely interested in helping us improve our processes by designing a report that met our specific needs.
They were in constant communication with us throughout the design, installation, test and acceptance phases of our project and truly exceeded our expectations!
Pros
Although we requested a relatively minor modification to the resident Pick Ticket report, we were extremely pleased as to the quality and speed at which the modified report was provided to us by the Fishbowl Reports team.
Specifically, we had requested our applicable lot numbers of each of our respective products be visible on the new report, and it indeed operates just as advertised and is a big time-saver for our team.
Cons
We had absolutely no issues with the design, installation or testing of our custom report.
Response from Fishbowl
Thank you so much for this review, Dave. We appreciate your feedback and are happy to hear that our reports team has met your expectations.
- Industry: Mining & Metals
- Company size: 51–200 Employees
- Used Daily for 2+ years
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Review Source
Top Notch Support
Our company has used FB for many years now and rely heavy on its capabilities to run our business. From a support standpoint I rate it A+
Pros
Fishbowl is a simple but robust solution and meets our requirements from order entry and order fulfillment at our Headquarters and manufacturing facilities. It integrates with Salesforce via a API and is continually improving. The Fishbowl Plug-in team specifically Jacobi Sardoni is great to work with as they focus on the problem, help you resolve it and educate you on the way. Over all very professional in their efforts. Thank you!
Cons
From a sales perspective, the Salesforce API was initially limited but has gone through some major revisions to become a more robust API we can trust. Their are still some features that need to be improved relative to fulfillment.
Response from Fishbowl
Thank you so much for this review, Michael. We appreciate your feedback and are happy to hear that you have enjoyed your experience with us, here at Fishbowl.
- Industry: Retail
- Company size: 2–10 Employees
- Used Daily for 6-12 months
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Review Source
Using Fishbowl for a year
I've been using Fishbowl for the past year. I bought it for a few reasons. One of the biggest reasons for me was because it can allow me to save credit card information for clients who continually order through our company. Another reason I liked it, is because I could place orders from anywhere using one of the plug ins. But the biggest reason I purchased it is because of it's accuracy in inventory, and because of the depth of the software features, I know that when I expand and have more than one location, a warehouse full of vases, ribbon, and potentially open a wholesale location for a facet of the industry in addition to the flowers, I'm not going to outgrow the software. I'm not even using all the features right now, but I can't wait until my small flower shop is big enough to have 3-4 locations, and use the reorder points! I know that sounds silly, but the software has been so nice because I can scale it for what I need now, and grow into it. And it's PAID for. That always feels nice :)
Pros
Encrypted credit card capture to charge recurring clients
Stores pictures of the products that we sell
Easy to add parts and products
Lots and lots and lots of reports--- I don't think I've even opened half of them yet!
I like how many features it has even though I don't use them all... it makes me think "When I get that far, then I can use this software to {fill in the blank} it's nice to know I literally have no limitations
Cons
I haven't found anything yet!
- Industry: Medical Devices
- Company size: 2–10 Employees
- Used Daily for 1+ year
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Review Source
Daily Fishbowl User
The best thing about Fishbowl is the Customer Service! Everyone is so knowledgeable and helpful.
I can usually get a response from someone within the hour. The Reps I have worked with will keep digging until we figure out the situation. They have been instrumental in my successfully implementing Fishbowl.
Pros
I really like the Icons and the separate modules. Our company outsources manufacturing and also uses Consignment options. I use the manufacturing order to follow the product through the process and land costs. This has been very helpful when figuring COGS. I like the options for transfer orders to move the product between warehouses. There are many ways to pull reports, to track data as well. I have not had to create custom reports because of all the choices offered by Fishbowl.
Cons
This is complicated software for someone new to the manufacturing process. You have to be very careful not to complete a process until you are sure everything is correct. There are times that you cannot delete or void once you have completed/Fulfilled a process.
- Industry: Consumer Goods
- Company size: 2–10 Employees
- Used Daily for 2+ years
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Review Source
saves time and money
This is a great start-up and small business POS program. It is robust and will allow your company to grow with out paying out for additional software upgrades. The inventory controls, vendor and receiving modules work great together. You don't have any limiitations when creating new part numbers. Custom pricing is easily learned.
Pros
For a wholesale / retail business, this is a feature packed program that handles most day to day operations and is accurate. Being PC / Server based, you don't have lag time or glitches. It's a good solid program. Integration with QBO is seamless... one button updates or create a schedule. Unlike other software companies, the service package is affordable, and the support staff is top notch.
Cons
This program is great for start up and smaller businesses, but the downside is the upfront initial cost. After using Fishbowl Inventory, you will find that the benefits outweight the cost.
- Industry: Food & Beverages
- Company size: 11–50 Employees
- Used Daily for 1-5 months
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Review Source
Caution, Over promise and under deliver!!
When I started talking with sales they really over sold Fishbowls capabilities. They will promise the world to you. Nothing is impossible for Fishbowl they will say.
Take caution because it has not been anything like that. We have been forced to change almost every procedure because Fishbowl only has "One" way of doing things. It is not as customizable as you will be told by the sales reps.
On site training is not worth the extra money they will charge you for. Our trainer spent two days covering all the different modules and then when it was time to "Go Live" instead of helping us or at least leading us through it like we had be told. We were basically on our own to figure it out.
Don't be fooled by the Demo they provide. It is very different to run through the modules when everything setup but the process to get everything setup will take hours and weeks and maybe even months to complete.
And then here is the worse part about Fishbowl!! One of the selling points is "5 star US based customer support". Only if you live in Mountain time zone.
They are only open 8-5 Mountain Time and most times we wait 2 - 4 hours to speak with tech support only to be told that Fishbowl cannot do that. Or No fishbowl cannot do it that way. Very very frustrating!
Pros
Nothing. There is nothing in this entire software that has made our jobs easier or more convenient.
Cons
I have a lot of complaints about Fishbowl. It feels like the kind of software that someone had a really good idea and set out to develop the code but then got bored with it or ran out of money so stopped developing before it was complete.
Sure it works for a few industries but I would definitely not go and call it a robust manufacturing software.