Fishbowl

Pros

The manufacturing module lets us build parts and put in inventory, which is what we needed (and did not have) in the past

Cons

Price was a bit high but if it all works the way we have been promised, it will pay for itself. There has been alot of changes in the past 5 years from the old FB, so we are hoping it is all going to work and help us all to be more proficient.

Pros

The ability to track by Serial numbers and shelf life

Cons

Everything has to have custom reports to get what you need

Alternatives Considered

Reasons for Switching to Fishbowl

Pros

Nothing. It was terrible. Worthless. Nothing good to say

Cons

Everything was terrible. Nothing was reliable. No support.

Pros

Ease of usage and ability to be flexible with our operations. We run custom electrical panels and this allows us to use the Bill of Materials module as a base, and add/delete parts in the Manufacturing module for the customs.

Cons

Some reports are not readily available and have to find work-arounds. Like annual part usage to date. I can't seem to find or modify a report that will tell me how many of a certain part I have used that is filtered by dates.

Alternatives Considered

Reasons for Choosing Fishbowl

Reasons for Switching to Fishbowl

Pros

Easy to use, generates numerous reports, and simple to navigate.

Cons

Report cannot be generated for each vendor.

Pros

Great for a small manufacturing company.

Cons

Not as robust for a large manufacture less options

Pros

Fishbowl works for our business and is easy to leanr to use.

Cons

Sometimes response time can be longer being in EST time zone

Pros

Inventory management and ease of usez it also integrates with Quickbooks accounting.

Cons

Reporting, hard to find the reports you want

Pros

Inventory system is intuitive. Ability to assign access right to users.

Cons

Manufacturing module is cumbersome
Sometimes product updates disable features that were available before, such as a couple of years ago, we could be looking at a part and hit the "To Inventory" button and be able to adjust quantities. Now only those who are able to create parts have the "To Inventory" button available. I want almost everyone to be able to adjust inventory levels, but next to no one able to create parts. The "To Inventory" button should have its own permission access right.

Pros

As a basic inventory and locationing system, and for simple shipping and sales orders it works okay. Would be great for a small startup.

Cons

Complete lack of flexibility. There are a lot of workarounds that even our Onboarding expert had to use and setup for us. They do not make even the most obvious and simple improvements. You cannot update pricing from Woo to Fishbowl, and the Quickbooks integration is horrible.

Pros

I love having the sales order summary for end of month reports. It can be easily reviewed as the sales order numbers can be clicked and it brings you to that specific sales order to be easily reviewed.

Cons

I don’t like how the sales orders and pick reports do not show the total quantity of the units or cartons being picked. That would help greatly.

Pros

Fishbowl has been an absolute lifesaver as our business has grown. Our processes before were incredibly manual and analog, and therefore susceptible to a lot more human error. The time we're saving not having to manually comb through printed sales estimates to and then walk around the warehouse to see if we have the inventory on hand to fulfill it them is absolutely immeasurable. So many processes are automated which has drastically improved our accuracy and efficiency, and therefore our bottom line. If we weren't using Fishbowl, I'm certain our business would not have been able to grow at the rate it has, so I firmly believe the investment has more than paid for itself, and as far as I'm aware, we're barely even scratching the surface with its capabilities.

Cons

It's software, so it's going to have its bugs now and then. Fortunately any I've noticed have been a minor inconvenience at worst; nothing has caused our data to be inaccurate in any way. Otherwise, I wish modifying reports was a little more user-friendly. If I could easily add a specific filter to a report, I could be substantially more efficient.

Pros

It handles sales order entry well throughout the manufacturing and shipping process. It also handles the purchasing of parts from different vendors extremely well. The Bill of Materials handles multiple levels of assemblies within assemblies very well.

Cons

It has a lot of good pricing rules for all kinds of occasions. But it lacks last cost pricing for manufactured products.

Pros

Simple and straight forward. Easy to get data in and out of the system.

Cons

Support.
Lacking in features for manufacturing processes.

Pros

Pricing and affordability. Extensive training not required for all employees.

Cons

Plug-ins not working. spent countless hours fixing Plug-in issues. Then we had to dish out another 6k for sellware after we already paid for the original plugins. Not a way to do business.!

Alternatives Considered

Reasons for Choosing Fishbowl

Switched From

Reasons for Switching to Fishbowl

Pros

nothing. after 6 months we still could not even use the system

Cons

TRASH System and Crooks.
They do not stand behind the system if it doesn't work. Watch out for the agreement, states in there "NO REFUNDS" and they do not accept fault of their system.

Too cumbersome and not user friendly. Way too many steps for daily data entry. Need custom reporting for any traceability for inventory and that is extra or takes a long time to complete.

Alternatives Considered

Reasons for Choosing Fishbowl

Reasons for Switching to Fishbowl

Pros

I liked the interface, the ease of use and how it synched flawlessly with Quickbooks.

Cons

This is so close to being halfway decent software but there are just so many odd little quirks that keep it from really being a powerful tool. Just one example - if you move a piece of inventory that you've had in your warehouse for 6 months from row 1 to row 2, the aged date resets to zero. This makes it effectively impossible for you to track your aged inventory. If you want to look up a part that you don't have in stock, you need to do an advanced search, check a box that you're looking for something not in inventory and then search for the product. If you're looking up 10 products in a row that aren't in stock, you need to repeat those steps each and every time.

Alternatives Considered

Reasons for Switching to Fishbowl

Pros

The ease of learning, understanding, and putting into action all the necessary options it has. We needed to use it for a variety of different areas within the plant and it has proven beneficial in every department.

Cons

The remote desktop can be frustrating at times

Pros

Easy to use, amazing customer service with efficient and helpful assistance.

Cons

Sometimes difficult situations arise, but customer service helps walk you through those difficult situations

Pros

It only crashes every few days, which is an improvement over its previous versions.

Cons

They spontaneously change the terms of your contract mid term. Truly unbelievably awful business practices.

Pros

The user interface of FishBowl online is reasonably intuitive.

Cons

Our warehouse business is not a typical fulfillment type setup. We're a receiving, storage, and delivery warehouse of furniture for interior designers. There are many ways in which the FishBowl functionality is not geared toward my business and not flexible enough to configure to my needs. Also, the LilyPad integration with FishBowl Online is completely broken and I've spent hours having to help both companies with the development fixes.

Pros

It can support several inventory costing methods, multiple currencies, integrations with the most popular sales channels, and has the best mobile app for Zebra scanners that I've seen -- and I have compared all of the major players in the space. The initial cost for Fishbowl is low, and grows as you grow and can afford it, through per-seat licences.

Cons

Some of the user interface design could be more intuitive (such as through the use of proper tab and body structure, or placing controls in close proximity to the data being controlled). Email-based support borders on useless.

Pros

My first impression was with the support and implementation team and they did an excellent job. After that the ease of use to get our data in and all the tools to keep our business running smoothly has been better than expected.

Cons

My only drawback so far is the interface is a bit crowded and it took me a bit to find (remember where) all the buttons were and which icon did what. I'm sure the more I use Fishbowl the less this will be an issue.

Pros

Inventory tracking features. Fishbowl wikipedia is somewhat helpful.

Cons

No support without a service contract even though the problems are inherent with Fishbowl software, not caused by the user(s). Some of the sales and technical staff are rude/disrespectful.

Pros

It is very easy to use and support is 1 click away

Cons

Nothing that i can think of. it currently satisfy all our needs