Finale Inventory Reviews

Pros

Finale Inventory has a very simple import tool. You simply copy data from an excel spreadsheet and paste them into the inventory system through you web browser as the inventory is cloud-based. Finale takes care of the rest. This truly intuitive copy/paste import method saves time, and having the ability to edit products in your catalog editing your catalog makes it struggle free.

Generating Purchase Orders (PO) is pretty automated. Our team was able to jump straight in an create PO's in no time at all as it is streamlined and self explanatory.

You can have unlimited users that can be added to your team.

There are a huge amount of integration possibilities. So whether you are integrating with WooCommerce on a Wordpress CMS, or integrating with ShipStation, Final Inventory has you covered.

Cons

The system is sometimes a little glitchy. The Finale team do promise to iron some of these out in the near future, but right now they still remain.
Their team rarely apologies if the system hasn't been working as it should, and never admit fault.

Alternatives Considered

Cin7 Omni and Zoho Inventory

Reasons for Switching to Finale Inventory

The price range was more in our budget, and I believe after trying out a demo of all three products, Finale Inventory seemed the easiest to use and learn.

Pros

Throw into the bargain that integration with Prestashop does not work straight out of the box and that none of the support staff could be bothered and I'd find it very hard to continue with this trial.

Cons

No support, couldn't get it to talk to prestashop

Alternatives Considered

QuickBooks eCommerce and Unleashed

Reasons for Switching to Finale Inventory

I havn't chosen it yet, and it doesn't look like I'm going to. Also the reviews look a little non-kosher, whenever I see 5 star and 1 star reviews only I tend to take the 1 star review as the genuine one.

Pros

We have a lot of product assembly kit items and finale allows you to create those and have the pieces taken out of inventory when the kit is sold. It is hard to find a good kitting inventory software.

Cons

We had to convert our cases to pieces to make this software work with the multiple locations. It is very hard for us to get use to this.

Alternatives Considered

Cin7 Omni

Reasons for Choosing Finale Inventory

Inflow was not able to communicate with the multiple selling channels.

Switched From

inFlow Inventory

Reasons for Switching to Finale Inventory

Mainly because they could do it all and were cheaper than Cin7. They are United States based so that for us was a big plus too as we wanted to be able to contact someone during business hours should we have a problem.

Pros

The setup process was very straight forward. Setting up your inventory system can be very tedious but it's very important that it is done correctly. Finale can be fully customized for any type of business.

Cons

I wouldn't change anything at all. Finale can be pretty complex to a new user so I would suggest teaming up with support. They're very friendly and can help you become a Finale pro in no time.

Alternatives Considered

Extensiv Order Manager and SkuVault

Reasons for Switching to Finale Inventory

The reviews were amazing and the onboarding team sealed the deal with their excellent customer service. They went over and beyond to make sure we had everything we needed to succeed.

Pros

I like most is its flexibility to handle items with serial numbers.

Cons

Some functions are not present like returning an item to a supplier is not available in the Purchase Order and I would have wanted to be able to write a note per serial number/Lot ID.

Alternatives Considered

inFlow Inventory

Reasons for Switching to Finale Inventory

Finale offers more of what I'm looking for in a system.

Pros

The software is very easy to learn and use, along with great features and functionality. Has some great workarounds and has been able to do everything we've needed and much more.

Cons

It's great so far, no complaints that I can think of to date.

Pros

It solved our most major problems, which was keeping track of thousands of products across several marketplace platforms, and getting our warehouses organized and everything barcoded. As manufacturers as well as retailers, we also needed a way to keep better track of components and predict usage, and Finale has a very intuitive and robust system that covers all of that and far beyond. Truly, though, their greatest asset is their customer support team, who know the product thoroughly and has spent many meetings with us to get everything implemented step by step. They are fantastic at explaining and demonstrating how to use the product.

Cons

There were two features that I expressed a wish for, and it turned out that both were in development (and one has come to fruition already). It is an extremely powerful program and to tell the truth, I don't feel I've even scratched the surface of what it can do, so it is possible that whatever I could think of as a wish is already a feature.

Pros

This product is probably the easiest to use and understand. I like how simple and self explanatory it is.

Cons

The only thing I didn't like was that I couldn't stock change myself and at times some things wouldn't populate.

Pros

I love all the inventory features being able to make changes, transfers, and look at the stock history.

Cons

It would be easier and more helpful if they had a feature that tells you which inventory is low so we know what to order and when. It could also use a separate inventory section for rejected material instead of adding it with the other inventory.

Pros

We are part of a university research lab group that uses Finale to track supplies of biospecimen collection kits (builds) and lab supplies. The ability to create builds (to track individual components) for our kits is wonderful! Also, the ability to track lot identifiers and expiration dates is critical for lab reagents and things like blood collection vials.

Having Finale Inventory has really helped as our group as we have grown. It's very easy to use and their are still numerous features that we haven't fully explored. Pricing is very reasonable as well.

The customer service is FANTASTIC! Chinh (Co-founder, Finale Inventory) has always been very accessible and replies promptly. He's spent extra time walking through problems with us over the phone. This company really goes out of their way to make sure their customers are happy. I can't stress that enough.

We have used Finale since late 2014 and are currently in the process to expand our use of it. We are very pleased with both the software and the tremendous customer service and user support.

Cons

Overall, we are extremely happy with the software. Sometimes our inventory numbers get off due to user error, especially when our builds change (which is not often). So we don't suggest relying solely on re-order thresholds. This is a problem more with our workflow than the software, but it would be nice if there were some kind of mechanism to assist with build changes and inventory audits (though there are great report features and barcode tracking is an option). We have discussed upgrading to use the barcode tracking (which would probably help alleviate this problem for us), but have not made that commitment.

The ability to control user permissions and access (like completely separating inventory) is also a little limited, but we haven't really had problems from this. Finale does allow you to assign inventory to different custom locations, but we did decide to get a second account to fully separate our inventory tracking between two groups that never share inventory. On the other hand, being able to share inventory and easily move items from one location to another is also a great benefit.

Pros

I love having the BoM feature. It has helped with our Kits that are either pre-built for the pick line or are a bundle that need to be shipped together. It has helped immensely with tracking inventory.

Cons

Wish it had an ios app for when I am away from my desk, that could easily pull up and display information.

Alternatives Considered

NetSuite and Stitch Labs

Pros

The ability to integrate with ShipStation, maintain an accurate inventory, produce accounting reports and make drop shipments.

I have very much appreciated my time using Finale Inventory. Their team has a can do attitude that has been always ready to address and help with any question or issue that I have had using their program.

An additional plus for Finale Inventory is that they always working to improve its functionality. Finale is not one of those companies that is stagnant and resting on their laurels, but are constantly working to grow and improve their program for the end user.

This is a great solution for smaller companies that have been outpriced by cloud based systems that are more oriented to mid to larger companies.

Cons

It would be nice if there was complete functionality on a mobile device. Drop down boxes within the program work in the Windows 10 environment, but not within Andorid.

There is a little bit of a learning curve to understanding the program, but in actuality it is only because it is such a great program and there is so much that you can do in its environment to maintain an accurate inventory and produce accounting reports.

Pros

Finale is easy to understand and their customer service is absolutely outstanding! As a multichannel ecommerce seller, with a robust magento 2 website, B2B portal, wholesale and retail accounts, Finale has been instrumental in managing our inventory, purchase orders, sales and shipping services with simple and easy to use integrations backed up by top notch customer support. Finale's support and adaptability has allowed us to gain in-depth insight into our business. By working with us and our changing needs, Finale has helped us manage profitability of our products, customer trends, ecommerce channel sales and supplier ordering, allowing us to grow seamlessly over several years. We have come to rely on Finale as an integral part of our business, and I can't imagine being able to manage the intricate aspects of our business without it!

Pros

We purchased Finale Inventory within the first few weeks of starting our business in 2016, back when $149 was an insane amount of money to be spending on software each month and we could barely afford it. It was one of the best decisions we made. Not only do we have historic data going back to the beginning of our business, Finale has allowed us to grow and scale in a way we never could have without it. Our catalog started with a few component entries and has grown to hundreds of SKUs in a short couple of years. We never could have managed this growth in a sustainable manner without the important inventory tracking capabilities that Finale provides.

Cons

Velocity tracking of build orders and material usage similar to how components are tracked from sales orders.

Pros

The handheld warehouse functionality

Cons

The lack of product filtering and grouping, Product "grids" are limited to only 4-5 filters and several of those are fixed. You also can not save searches or filtered results.

Pros

Integrating across multiple platforms is a breeze! Finale is easy to use & navigate! As our business grows Finale has the capabilities to grow with us our needs grow and at our own pace.

Cons

I Wish it had sort of customizable KPI dashboard built into the newly added analytics tab.

Pros

The integration with our other software is vital and Finale makes it seamless. Because Finale has so many functions/capabilities to fit the needs of various business structures, it can be overwhelming to set up/manage all features as needed, so the customer service is very helpful.

Cons

Not all features and names of said features are super intuitive until you're used to using them.

Pros

I have been using Finale for many years for our Pyrotechnics Inventory, Have seen much development and customer service has always been most responsive.

Cons

Would like more Mac support. Most development and support are done on Windows, would be good if they had someone familiar with the Mac OS and iOS.

Pros

Blazing fast real-time search. I can search for a product or customer with just a couple words (partial or out of order words are not a problem for Finale). The UI is customizable and this ability combined with custom fields allows for very flexible work-flows that I was not able to achieve with several other inventory programs.

Cons

I wouldn't really say it is a "con" but rather a by-product of the awesome customization potential - The custom reports have a bit of a learning curve when doing it yourself the first couple of times, but the support is AMAZING and I've gotten quick assistance and was given the exact report I needed. Reports can be duplicated and modified to quickly tweak any of the default reports.

Pros

The best thing about Finale is the ease of use of the software. Everything is mostly self-explanatory and there is no need to spend a week training on the system because it is so easy to use.

Cons

Some of the report customizations can be daunting because is requires coding some spots, but other than that it is still easy to use.

Pros

Good customer service, easy to use interface, easy to import and export inventory/products, Finale generates a wide variety of reports if needed, easy to map listings/online sales to products, kits (bundles) which many other inventory companies do not have that feature

Cons

Can be difficult to locate a specific sale or item sold because name of customer isn't listed. Sometimes when mapping items, I start to type and a drop down menu of items appears and when I click on the correct one, the wrong one gets inputted.

Pros

It's very convenient to use, and has a very wide range of functions and compaitibility. It also allows us to automate pretty much everything involved in our inventory and warehouse.

Cons

I wouldn't mind a desktop application, and maybe a bit better function with multiple tabs, I find it tends to lag with more than one.

Pros

Always excellent customer service, and very easy to use . We got help with any issues and all the training we needed too.

Cons

It's geared to a broader audience and not to our specific industry needs. We need something more specific to coffee/office supplies.