DEAR 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

[sensitive content hidden] was very helpful in getting my B2B store setup. I already created my product list that had 10k skus with variations and didn't want to have to recreate the store manually in Cin7. Using the families feature in the catalog, I was able to group my skus and eliminate the redunancies of variations.

Cons

Nothing I can really say about it negatively

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 DEAR

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

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. Order processing, purchases, new product loading, quoting

Cons

Bulk Pricing updates are not very easy to perform.

Alternatives Considered

MYOB Advanced Business, NetSuite and SAP Business One

Reasons for Choosing DEAR

Outdated platform

Reasons for Switching to DEAR

Price, features, customer references

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 DEAR

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

Switched From

QuickBooks eCommerce

Reasons for Switching to DEAR

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

Pros

Easy set-up/parameterisation. Cloud based implementation - small infrastructure investment required, on the whole, a reliable 24/7 service. Intuitive and consistent user interface. Help Desk support people are responsive and helpful.

Cons

B2B application has not matured and has functional gaps - needs additional investment to make it the finished article.Direct access to 2nd line technical support is non-existent - everything is handled via the help desk - therefore, on more technical queries, issues are not always fully understood which can cause delay in resolution times and is frustrating.

Pros

The inventory management is very easy to use.

Cons

One issue i have noticed is when doing a stock transfer on the IPad it doesnt show the bin location.

Pros

its a great help for managing the orders and production

Cons

can be sometimes confusing with the features that can be somehow be utilized but if you are not aware that it exists, you will not be able t o make the most out of.

Pros

support is outstanding

Cons

cost - it's too expensive for the add-ons

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

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

Reasons for Choosing DEAR

Quickbooks Desktop service termination in the UK from 2023

Switched From

QuickBooks Desktop Enterprise

Reasons for Switching to DEAR

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

While thinking, as a Distributor, we have 'out-of-the-box' requirements for managing our inventory and processes around it, the exercise of evaluating our idiosyncrasies in order to go shopping for a new IM system has taught me that there's possibly not the absolute perfect system for any business, but the Dear system is beating the rest as it ticks most of the boxes on my wish-list for an inventory management system. For a complex system it's relatively intuitive and seems to be built with real world functionality in mind. In addition to my list of specific features, I was looking for a system that could automate as much of our manual tasks and work flows as possible - reduce the amount of data entry required and minimise opportunities for human error. Compared to other systems reviewed, Dear excels in this area.

Cons

Possible just a COVID thing ...or just a modern day thing, but I remember the days when; if you were looking at making a big commitment to something as important at the system that would manage all your inventory and link to your financials, someone would sit down with you and work through your specifics, helping you evaluate their offering as the right purchase decision for you to make. These days, it's "down load a free version and have a play". I've probably reached the sames decision based on the latter, but it's definitely taken up a lot more of my time to do so. Granted, phone calls and screen sharing sessions are on offer, but I find the time-limited sessions, working with generic databases etc. less beneficially that the old fashioned way. Not a short coming of the Dear System itself and every software company may have the same M.O, but perhaps an opportunity for Dear to differentiate themselves from the masses and win more fans - and quickly?

Pros

// DEAR SYSTEMS DOES

+ Manage inventory with different sales channels
+ Send PO/Invoices/Quote/.../... with customisable template
+ Auto assemblies
+ Bundles
+ Issues to production
+ Sync to accounting software
+ Handles goods in transit, FX gain or Loss etc
+ They are working on a reseller portal
+ They are working on a POS
+ Chat support is knowledgeable and they really try to help you

Cons

They have a forum where users can chat together and upvote functionalities requests.

- They are totally absent from that forum, they say they scan it to update their roadmap but they won't engage in the conversation at all.

- Functionalities are added too fast without feedback from their users.

They really need to work on their communication with their active users.

Pros

The software is made for small businesses interested in keeping track of basic inventory, basic purchasing, and basic invoicing.
- Perfect for 1-5 employees, this is the base number of users and gives the most bang for your buck.
- Perfect for no more than 50 SKUs

Cons

- Serial Numbers are NOT UNIQUE, duplicates can be entered easily with no warning
- Navigating a Bill of Materials for more than 1 level is impossibly complicated and needs a separate spreadsheet or software to track
- Transactions randomly duplicate without warning. Several times we have had stock transfers or purchases receive twice, creating inventory discrepancies and overall chaos in the warehouse.
- This random duplication allows inventory to be a negative number. Example: A serial numbered part was pulled twice by the system instead of removing it from inventory, it created a negative line item and showed the serial numbered part as -1 instead of 0. This in turn affected the overall inventory for that SKU.
- It is impossible to find a specific inventory level on a given day, this feature simply does not exist.
- Stocktakes cannot be backdated so if a count is taken on day 1 and entered in day 2 if any assemblies took place they will screw up counts.
- Sync between Xero accounting is a multi-step process. Invoices and payments do not sync back and forth on a consistent basis. Sometimes a voided invoice in Dear or in Xero will not transfer over and the entire Sale or Purchase needs to be voided and redone for the voided payment to sync OR alternatively you can enter the information manually which defeats the point of the sync.
- Customer service is atrocious except for the basic help which is already covered in depth by videos or other consultants.

Pros

In discovering Dear Systems we found that the program allowed us greater functionality than most ERP systems. Although it is quite intuitive to use it packs a punch when you get deeper within the program with some functionality that much more expensive programs don’t have. Xero handles the accounting in the background whilst the sync between them works seamlessly so that you don’t notice that you are actually using 2 different programs.

Cons

The program just concentrates on inventory so other modules such as CRM are not fully developed and you would need to get an additional addin. Everything else works really well

Pros

Earlier this year we implemented DEAR inventory in our manufacturing company in Indonesia. The key reason we chose DEAR was the functionality. We have been searching for an inventory management system with manufacturing functionality for a very long time and couldn't understand why it was so difficult to find a system that dealt with what we felt were really core/ basic requirements without looking at customisation. DEAR seems to cover almost everything we need and is working on developing the programme for what it doesn't currently.

The other key reason was the responsiveness of DEAR to queries. I am still waiting for replies from a competitor to my requests to ask a few questions when we were looking at different systems. We had good help getting it set up. I would definitely recommend.

Cons

There are some limitations with templates - invoices, packing slips etc. - when dealing with a currency that uses a decimal place as a thousand separator instead of a comma. It also doesnt have the ability to track batches through multiple assemblies which limits the value of the production reports we can get.

Pros

The fact that it can be accessed from anywhere and that the information available is reasonably accurate

Cons

We transfer stock between locations on a daily basis eg. receipts, transfer to work in progress, then assembly and then to finished goods in more than one location and then it gets sold. when looking at a stock movement report of Raw Material, all that I want to know is receipts + stock on hand-assembly = Stock on Hand. The inventory totals in inventory do not balance with the Trial balance figures as the trial balance picks up transfers as many as three times. So the Raw Material and Finished Goods are never correct in Dear and because of Synchronisation in Xero.
second point is the introduction of the Advanced Purchase Module and discontinuation of cloning without any prior warning and with no video training module available. I have so far been unable to use that module and am working with the simple purchases module, keeping it in draft, and manually adjusting stock levels when receiving stock. I then use a new Simple Purchase to deal with the supplier invoice. Ideally, the system should be able to tell me what stock is required, but the is no correlation between Assembly and Inventory. We use about 8 to 9 different Raw Materials in different quantities to produce our finished goods, so you can understand how frustrating this all is.

Pros

I have had some really positive experiences with Dear's Support Team, [SENSITIVE CONTENT HIDDEN] in particular. She and the rest of the support team have a deep understanding of Dear's functionality and were able to help my company tackle a sizable inventory issue. Dear is also a simple software to learn and understand which is extremely valuable when it comes to training new employees.

Cons

The thing I like least about using Dear are the bugs and server stability problems. These issues range from small but daily loading errors to site-wide crashes that have halted our production for hours. For the most part these are minor annoyances/inconveniences but when they are happening on a daily basis in can be increasingly frustrating.

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

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 product has grown with the business, taking from when we produced one gin to with now over 30 products. It works well, however...

Cons

I was really disappointed by the 'management' who doubled the subscription charge mostly by charging for two modules, DEAR PoS and API that we had evaluated but not really used.
We were not informed about these change and when it was raised after a renewal rather than remove and refund, I was informed that the policy was 'we don't issue refunds.

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

Nearly every single feature of the software runs like software that is 4 or 5 times the cost runs. With no setup costs and a flexible monthly account, I would strongly recommend any user to try this software if you are thinking about it.

In particular, we really loved the POS and were pleasantly surprised by the functionality.

Cons

We are based in the UK and it was very difficult to book in a call with the support team within a reasonable timeframe. Both calls I had within the 2 months of being subscribed, I had to wait 1-2 weeks to be able to speak to someone about an issue. Support on chat was available but this didn't help me to resolve my issues.

This may not be an issue elsewhere in the world.

Pros

As cloud based platform is it very flexible

Cons

Getting hold of support quickly - I had to wait a week to schedule a call which far to long. Typing technical details into the support portal is very long winded and the replies do not always address the issue.