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

Xero & Dear system user (new user experience).
Everything you need to manage warehouse inventory!
Detailed Inventory information, Order process flow, purchasing order management, stock control, eCommerce website eBay/Amazon integration, - easy to use once you get used to it.
Helpful support team, and plenty of information provided to understand and learn DEAR systems.

Cons

Takes some time to know the DEAR systems (navigate) due to many features.
I guess we need to use DEAR systems for some time to get a better understanding and therefore, give a revised review of experience and possible Cons we might have.

Alternatives Considered

Sage Accounting, QuickBooks Online Advanced, Sage 50cloud Accounting, Khaos Control Cloud and Khaos Control

Reasons for Choosing Cin7 Core

Quickbooks Desktop service termination in the UK from 2023

Switched From

QuickBooks Desktop Enterprise

Reasons for Switching to Cin7 Core

Inventory management - stock control - plenty of features to use now or in the future. Amazon-ebay-ecommerce integration. Daily order routine progress, overall DAER systems feels pleasant to use

Pros

- Comprehensive and even has manufacturing components (unfortunately we don't require this)
- Comparable pricing to TG/QBC
- Some onboarding agents are very knowledgeable about the system
- Support staff are very responsive and queries get answered pretty quickly

Cons

- Not as user-friendly compared to the system we used before. Even things like stock availability isn't readily shown on the product page - you either need to go into a tab within the product page, or a separate 'Availability' to check the stock
- Slightly confusing configuration where you can't easily change the purchase prices as they are grouped together on a 'suppliers' tab within the product listing
- Product family is quite confusing and a little tedious to create. During the import of our products, there were a large number of single-variant products created as product families with 1 product, and there doesn't seem to be a easy way to stop classifying it as a product family
- Automation module (for things like out of stock notifications) are not provided FOC; you have to add on $50/month
- Purchase orders only show product name and not variant/option names so if you are trying to order 3 colours of the same product, the PO will show 3 line items of the same product.
- We sell on different e-commerce channels but there's no easy way to reflect that. We were informed that the only way we can only create the e-commerce channels as 'Sales Representatives' so that we can track them. Our sales from Shopify aren't differentiated between POS and online
- The sync with Shopify seems a little glitchy and sometimes after receiving stock in Dear, all our products descriptions in Shopify get erased. This is less than ideal because our product listing on our website becomes blank

Alternatives Considered

Cin7 Omni, Vend and Unleashed

Reasons for Choosing Cin7 Core

QBC will no longer be offered to customers outside of the US soon

Switched From

QuickBooks eCommerce

Reasons for Switching to Cin7 Core

Robust enough, had the integrations we required, better priced than some

Pros

I LOVE the fact that I can invoice before receiving the inventory physically. We work with an overseas company and their business practice is to invoice once the product leaves their hands, however accepting their invoice made my inventory way off in QBO. So glad to be able to maintain what the true physical inventory is and not have to try to keep up with the travelling inventory too.

Cons

The feature I would like the least is the CRM. I was really hoping that it would work for our sales team and that they would be able to have access to the inventory information easily. However, the CRM lacked a lot of the capabilities that our sales managers were looking for to help with managing their teams.

Pros

Best support I have ever had with any business software. The live chat is full of highly experienced operators who respond very quickly to get you back on track.
Very fast and easy to understand onboarding. Much less help needed than others.
The video tutorials are excellent.
The interface is modern looking.
The process from CO to MO is visual and easy to follow.
The Automation option is worth every dollar.

Cons

Not enough Business intelligence information.
Not enough visual information in reporting like graphs and tables. There is a taste of it in the dashboard but thats the extent of it.
B2B Portal needs the option to pick what products certain groups of stores get to see vs others.

Pros

Nothing. It's been a battle from start to finish.

Cons

Appalling integration with Shopify and Xero.Total lack of decent supportHas driven more cost into my business than remove it - extra staff required.Incoherent logic - eg posts Sales but not corresponding COGS if fulfilment is delayed.No on screen reportingDiabolical UI

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

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

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

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

We transferred from Quickbooks to Dear Systems and it has been a great improvement. Our ability to manage inventory is far greater than before with QB. It's simple/easy to use, but also robust and has some very helpful features. We're in the wholesale industry. On the sales side - we love the pick, pack, and ship functions. This allows us to easily provide another level of detail for our customers that we couldn't before. We can enter what we packed on what pallet and then easily print pallet break downs and detailed packing lists. I also like the way you can mass pick, or mass print sales orders. The advance sale option is nice, so you can track back order shipments right on the same screen as the original order.
On the purchase order side, the advance receiving functions let you receive inventory against one PO more than once which is helpful.
We also just started keeping some inventory in another warehouse, so the ability to keep track of that through dear is nice.

Also the B2B portal has been a nice addition to our company as well.

Cons

I think the reporting tab is pretty clunky, that might be what I like least about Dear. They're on the right track, and some of those reports are very helpful. It's just that I have to export them to excel and modify them quite a bit for them to be what I want them to be.
Also I think the "credit purchase order" and "credit sale note" functions are pretty confusing/complicated.

Alternatives Considered

Cin7 Omni, NetSuite, Erplain, Agiliron, QuickBooks eCommerce and Finale Inventory

Reasons for Choosing Cin7 Core

We needed a more robust inventory system.

Switched From

QuickBooks Desktop Enterprise

Reasons for Switching to Cin7 Core

Great value. Many other reasons, but but was just the right fit for what we needed. It wasn't as big as some of the other ERPs but we didn't need it to be.

Pros

We have used a lot of ordering / inventory systems over the years and this is our forever change (we hope!). I really appreciate the complex level of adjustments that can be made (eg: invoice customisation, staff permissions, custom fields) as well as the robust accounting integration. Once you use it a few times, the interface is fairly straightforward. Even my less tech savvy staff have commented they find the flow of DEAR easier to use, despite the added complexity of features.

Cons

The WooCommerce integration has been a bit temperamental to set-up to manage stock correctly and we wish it would pull orders more frequency.

Alternatives Considered

Cin7 Omni

Reasons for Choosing Cin7 Core

TG pulled the plug!

Reasons for Switching to Cin7 Core

Feature-rich and staff that actually answered our questions.

Pros

Dearsystem is mostly diy so its easy to implement quick fixes/changes when necessary.

Cons

- No AR ageing report even though we use this software for payments recording
- We've been using DEAR Systems for 6 years now. I recently tried to add an additional external integration but the integration page simply refreshed without connecting to the external software and without any error message whatsoever (possibly a bug). Thinking that it could be because i didnt had sufficient external integration licenses in my subscription, i went ahead to pay for an additional external integration. However, the same issue reoccurred which prompted me to contact support. [SENSITIVE CONTENT HIDDEN] from support reached out and we managed to resolve the issue. However, in the process, i found out that not only did i already have an extra external integration license which i've been paying for months without using before the add on, i also paid for the add on license when i tried to troubleshoot this issue on my own. I followed up with [SENSITIVE CONTENT HIDDEN] to request for a credit of the additional unused license to my account (not refund) to offset future subscription charges but my multiple requests were turned down even though [SENSITIVE CONTENT HIDDEN] and the management understood my position. Effectively, we've been unknowingly paying for an extra license which we did not use and now that i've added on 1 more license, DEAR is perfectly ok with keeping the extra payment from us, again, for something we do not use. I feel that the company is being really unfair to customers.

Pros

Quite easy to implement
Syncs nicely with our current cloud based software
Interesting/complex reporting

Cons

The over promising, and under delivering of the software. simply, it doesn't do what it claims!

The inventory is not live with Shopify (during launches there is always a lag, causing major headaches for our team and requires a lot of manual adjustments) - we were promised that based on our volume this would not happen, but it does. And it happens every month, for the past 18+ months

Inability to get the specialist help when we need it. We are always given help by a customer service member, not a technician, which slows down our ability to fix the problem. I understand that you need to protect the technicians time from dealing with simple problems, but we do not receive prompt service or the respect that we know what we are talking about!

We need a quicker escalation procedure to get help more urgently

Technicians only work from the afternoon (we are located in Melbourne) so when urgency issues crop up in the morning, we have to wait most of the working day to fix them

b2b portal is not very robust, we have had a lot of issues with this

the fixed provided by DEAR are not log term fixes, they don't fix the root of the problem, but fix it for the moment, but then issues crop up again and we are in the same position.

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

Being able to integrate with a number of eCommerce platforms is huge. Support usually replies fast (especially for simpler questions and help). Also the way in which we're able to manage thousands of products over multiple locations is fantastic. Some aspects of DEAR are very intuitive and easy to use. It allows one portal for looking at sales, product orders, inventory storage and movements, basic product history. The reports on the dashboard help us see inventory and financials at a glance. They've also recently expanded, allowing more than 20,000 SKUs at a time in the system!

Cons

Because DEAR is used by so many and works with so many different platforms, integration between it and other platforms (we use Shopify) are not always seamless. A feature that works great with one may make another way more difficult to use. On that note, customizing your DEAR account to make it exactly what you need is rather difficult. We often have to find workarounds to ongoing problems that may seem basic to many. And while customer support is friendly and often fast to respond, it's very easy for misunderstandings to occur. As well, new feature requests often don't get acknowledged if they don't fit into DEAR's current plans.

One thing that would be great could be a separation for those who need DEAR just to locate products, vs those who actually need to access all of the parts of DEAR that can change products, sales, locations... We've had a number of mix-ups where inexperienced people made changes that couldn't be undone due to the nature of the software.

Pros

The immense possibilities of your software

Cons

We had a lot of difficulty during the first few months following the integration with QBO. We asked for compensation but to no avail. I am copying an email I wrote to [SENSITIVE CONTENT HIDDEN] in July. We had a charge of 3,016.00 $CA in March 2019. We ask you for a discount for the renewal of 2020 please

Pros

<> Strong Integration with POS
<> Click & Collect from POS Sales Orders created on the Back-End
<> Bulk List / Catalogue - Very easy to List/Unlist Products on POS or Ecommerce
<> Useful Shopify Integration Features
<> Many Costing Methods to suit a lot of different types of products
<> Strong Activity Log & History of Products, Customers & Suppliers
<> Assemblies
<> Manipulation of Documents & Email Templates is great to have even though it can take a while to get it right

Cons

<> Jump in price when needing a dedicated server when Sales Orders are forecasted to be higher than a specific amount
<> Having to void Stock Adjustments to products just to be able to void a Purchase Order Credit Note for a different item just cause they are in the same original purchase order
<> Not having a report with the ability to issue a historic Stock Valuation of Products for a specific date, say for example a Stock Valuation at the end of the two years ago, or last year

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

The software logic is well thought out and relates to real life usage scenarios in our case. The organisation of the operations in the system are easy to understand and access. Support of the software has been fantastic so far, starting from deployment and thereafter. Whatever we needed, response has been near instant and competent.

Cons

The software is browser based and at times it can feel a little slow. Page load speed must be improved as it can be a little frustrating when you need to conduct many transactions in the day. The navigation could also be improved to reduce a few clicks to get to things easier and faster. For example, it is not possible to see next or previous document (SO, INV, PO). You need to come out to the main list and click into the document you want. Simple 'Previous', 'Next' navigation can be added within the document page, which will be very helpful when for example reviewing a number of Sales Orders or Invoices and need to move quickly between the documents. Mobile apps are limited and not particularly practical. Would be great if they could roll out a serious modern iPad app, which can be useful for sales/cs when out in the field to access product and inventory info, pricing, customer profile etc. and able to create a draft quotation on the fly.

Pros

Well thought out sales workflow. Really flexible and powerful in ways others weren't to enter sales orders. Takes a little getting used to, but there is a lot in there. Love the ability to price tier for B2B sales. Integrates really well with Shopify and eBay. Need to check out the B2B portal that is available, but haven't gotten to that part yet.
Even though the support is all email based, we have been delighted with the speed of response and solutions to any issues we've had. I'd say on average the response time to new tickets has been in the 5-15 minute range with maybe one that reached 45 minutes. Often I'd wait longer on hold with a tech line with other companies than it takes to get a response from DEAR support email.
Great integration with our accounting.
Easy to implement API for extending the functionality of DEAR.

Cons

There are a few things that still need improvement we've run into.
Credit Notes/Memos are terribly hard to figure out and make work correctly if you wish to give the customer a credit to use at a future date not tied to a transaction in DEAR.
DEAR does tiered pricing for sales, but there is no way to have volume purchasing discount tiers beyond manually changing every time a PO is created.
If a small change has to take place during fulfillment DEAR requires you to revert the order back to the very beginning of the workflow process and complete every stage again. Rather than just let you go back one step.
The fulfillment QC process could be strengthened a lot. It's basically based on trust with no verification. Right now it assumes all counts/data entry keyed in are 100% accurate. I'd like to see some kind of barcode based QC verification.

Pros

The main reason we picked this application is for the "Production" part of it. It allows us to setup BOMs as a template, but then adjust them on the fly during the production.

The second reason to love this application is for the APIs. It allowed us to add our "unique" processes (the way we handle commissions) and create non-standard reports.

Xero is one half of our corporate brain (the money side), while DEAR is other half (the counts side).

Additionally, we just integrated our Shopify website with DEAR and we are planning to use their B2B functionality in 2018.

Finally, they react to their clients. I have made requests for features that were handled.

Cons

They could add "Current available" as a pop up when in the Purchases section. This would allow better decision making rather than having a second window open. Very very minor. Other than that, having an API really helps.

Pros

It manages my inventory and order and is cloud based.

Cons

When Dear is upgrading its system, customers can find the software extremely slow or not working at all. This can go for weeks at a time causing massive frustration for my staff around the country as well as disruption to my business.
The lack of communication and support from DEAR mean you feel little loyalty to the product.

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.