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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Feature ratings

Value for Money
4.1
Features
4.1
Ease of Use
4.1
Customer Support
4.2

Browse Fishbowl Reviews

819 of 819 reviews
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Yuji
  • Industry: Information Technology & Services
  • Company size: Self Employed
  • Used Daily for 2+ years
  • Review Source
Value for Money
5
Features
4
Ease of Use
5
Customer Support
5

5
Reviewed on 12/04/2022

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.

Louis
  • Industry: Mechanical or Industrial Engineering
  • Company size: 11–50 Employees
  • Used Daily for 6-12 months
  • Review Source
Value for Money
4
Features
4
Ease of Use
4
Customer Support
4

5
Reviewed on 18/07/2020

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.

Alternatives Considered

kintone and Finale Inventory

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.

Replied 07/10/2021
Trevor
  • Industry: Sporting Goods
  • Company size: 11–50 Employees
  • Used Daily for 1+ year
  • Review Source
Value for Money
3
Features
4
Ease of Use
3
Customer Support
4

3
Reviewed on 28/01/2022

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.

Alternatives Considered

GiftLogic and Trident 1

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

Jessi
  • Industry: Food & Beverages
  • Company size: 11–50 Employees
  • Used Daily for 1+ year
  • Review Source
Value for Money
3
Features
4
Ease of Use
4
Customer Support
5

5
Reviewed on 31/05/2021

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

Wherefour

Reasons for Choosing Fishbowl

It was too difficult to prepare for an audit.

Reasons for Switching to Fishbowl

Customer service and overall capabilities

Response 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.

Replied 07/10/2021
Bernui
  • Industry: Pharmaceuticals
  • Company size: 51–200 Employees
  • Used Daily for 2+ years
  • Review Source
Value for Money
N/A
Features
5
Ease of Use
5
Customer Support
5

5
Reviewed on 25/04/2022

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 ERP

Reasons for Choosing Fishbowl

ERPNext didn't fulfill our needs preparing work orders.

Switched From

ERPNext
Steve
  • Industry: Wholesale
  • Company size: 2–10 Employees
  • Used Daily for 2+ years
  • Review Source
Value for Money
1
Features
2
Ease of Use
3
Customer Support
1

1
Reviewed on 21/07/2023

Useless

Pros

It was good in the past... fishbowl has gone downhill

Cons

Fishbowl support doesn't know how to fix their own software. My fishbowl has been unusable for months, I have been in contact with Fishbowl on a number of occasions trying to get the issue resolved.. the GUI keeps glitching. The user interface is not display properly and the glitching in the GUI makes it impossible to work. Instead of fixing the problem me They just try and blame it on your computer. I have a new Alienware computer that is extremely powerful. I've been a very loyal Fishbowl customer over the years, but if this issue doesn't get resolved , I will have no choice but to bring my business elsewhere.

George
  • Industry: Transportation/Trucking/Railroad
  • Company size: 2–10 Employees
  • Used Daily for 6-12 months
  • Review Source
Value for Money
5
Features
5
Ease of Use
5
Customer Support
5

5
Reviewed on 17/02/2022

Inventory Management

Inventory syncing with Amazon, Ebay and Shopify makes our life easier. ORder processing in Fishbowl is another winner. Great for the price...

Pros

Inventory Management syncs with Amazon, Ebay and Shopify. Order processing under one roof.
Ease of use for my staff.

Cons

Data migration needs to be more hands on with your team.

Alternatives Considered

Sage Intacct and NetSuite

Reasons for Choosing Fishbowl

Functionality and Reporting was not adequate. Support was very bad.

Reasons for Switching to Fishbowl

Price was afforable for a small company

Response from Fishbowl

Thank you so much for leaving this review, George. We appreciate you taking the time to tell us about your experience.

Replied 17/03/2022
Kasie
  • Industry: Food Production
  • Company size: 11–50 Employees
  • Used Daily for 1+ year
  • Review Source
Value for Money
4
Features
4
Ease of Use
4
Customer Support
4

4
Reviewed on 25/04/2022

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.

Scott
  • Industry: Health, Wellness & Fitness
  • Company size: 51–200 Employees
  • Used Daily for 1-5 months
  • Review Source
Value for Money
5
Features
4
Ease of Use
5
Customer Support
3

4
Reviewed on 04/03/2022

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

NetSuite

Reasons 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.
Lynzey
  • Industry: Executive Office
  • Company size: 2–10 Employees
  • Used Daily for 1-5 months
  • Review Source
Value for Money
4
Features
4
Ease of Use
4
Customer Support
4

4
Reviewed on 06/05/2022

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.

Alternatives Considered

WooCommerce and QuickBooks Desktop Pro

Reasons for Choosing Fishbowl

We needed a more in depth system.

Reasons for Switching to Fishbowl

Functionality, accessibility, market standards
Lucas
  • Industry: Electrical/Electronic Manufacturing
  • Review Source
Value for Money
1
Features
1
Ease of Use
1
Customer Support
1

1
Reviewed on 27/09/2016

We totally regret the purchase!

Pros

The Part & Product feature works fine.
The Calendar function is good.

This guy (can't say his name) was the ONLY PERSON that should not take the blame for a bad customer support. He was excellent and I am very thankful to him!

Cons

Everything, or pretty much everything.

Customer service is TERRIBLE, really, I am not exaggerating, it is the W O R S T P A I D customer service I've ever seen, looks like that they are your customer instead.

Glitches, you will find MANY glitches! After 7 months using it and having issues with my inventory quantities day after day, month after month, I came across to a discrepancy in my inventory numbers that I was sure that wasn't a human error, got (miracle) on hold with their support team and what happened?
"This is a glitch in your database that we can't solve, what YOU(yes, we, the customers) will have to do is to start a NEW database, from ZERO"
And guess what?
"Oh, by the way, you CAN'T import SO's that were already fulfilled/shipped(that means that we LOST our HISTORY of everything that we sold from the past 7 MONTHS!)"
Do you think they helped me to import data to the new DB? No they did not, they simply stated that this is unlawful and they would not be helping me on the process.
Plus, but not least, you CAN'T, as well, import fulfilled PO's, meaning that you also loses the history of your purchases! (like, dude, seriously?)

Everything above is part of my recent issues, pretty much all that had happened around 09-01-2016 - 09-15-2016
_____________________________________________________________________________________________

Let's talk about scanning (yes we also did the mistake of purchasing the scanner and Fishbowl GO).
Mind you that I am not even going to talk about the promises that were made in terms of fulfilling our needs and stuff, so you can assume that everything I am concerned about, it's just because we've spoke about it before purchasing it.

Scanning(Fishbowl GO) is SIMPLE, that's the word.
If you need to scan order's(doesn't a matter if it's a SO or PO) by boxes, FORGET ABOUT IT, the system will bring over the total amount of pieces/boxes that you are supposed to receive right after the first scanned bar code. What I want to say with that is that you ARE NOT ABLE to scan orders by boxes, having the sum of everything at the end, and THEN matching with the order.

Police actions
Pretty much everything in the system can be changed, when comes to dates, memos, SO's, PO's, etc. But Fishbowl won't hold a tracking of who has changed it, it simply won't. That's a big deal for us, and I believe for the majority as well.

UOM - Conversions
Be careful when setting UOM's and Conversions, this can REALLY screw up with your inventory!

Training
DO YOURSELF A FAVOR AND TAKE NOTES ABOUT THAT - IT'S REALLY IMPORTANT!
They will usually provide you with a 12h (the basic package) support, which will be also used to train you.
Along the way with Fishbowl, pieces of information were given to me in a monthly basis. Meaning that I did not have someone that would come to me, study our needs deeply and work with it.
Instead, I had to "play with it(as per what they told me to do)" and find errors, problems, situations where I'd need support with, in order to get an answer.
YOU MUST KNOW exactly what you need, you must let them know it, and you must BOTHER them in order to get information. They will simply careless if you have a big issue.
It took me about 6 months to fully (if I really do understand it) understand the software, and it was VERY painful. I don't even remember how many times I took the blame for errors that I came to realize that weren't my fault, but fishbowl's lack of information (or misleading information).

I would not be writing all that if I was even a bit happy with the purchase, my life has been a nightmare since we bought it, mind you it was 7 months ago. The software isn't that bad, Fishbowl's consultants are the problem, or it's company's culture.

Do yourself another favor, look trough all the bad reviews in here, it's very easy to manipulate good reviews, but the bad ones you cant. Make sure you have everything explained, and PLEASE, use the 30 DAY MONEY BACK GUARANTEE to dig into the software, even if you have to create fake SO's and PO's to test it, even if you have to spend 8h/day during the whole month working on it, but DO IT, I assure you that it will help A LOT to really find out if that works or not for your company.

I hope that you understand that this is a review of a very, very, VERY disappointed customer, and that in any situation I'd dispose myself to screw a company like that if I wasn't right.

I hope you read it all and wish you better luck than what we had! :)

Vinko
  • Industry: Electrical/Electronic Manufacturing
  • Review Source
Value for Money
4
Features
2.5
Ease of Use
3.5
Customer Support
1

3
Reviewed on 25/09/2016

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.

Verified Reviewer
  • Industry: Furniture
  • Company size: Self Employed
  • Used Daily for 2+ years
  • Review Source
Value for Money
1
Features
3
Ease of Use
2
Customer Support
1

2
Reviewed on 09/11/2022

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.

Carlos
  • Industry: Food & Beverages
  • Company size: 11–50 Employees
  • Used Daily for 1+ year
  • Review Source
Value for Money
1
Features
1
Ease of Use
1
Customer Support
1

1
Reviewed on 23/06/2016

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

Michael
  • Industry: Fine Art
  • Company size: 2–10 Employees
  • Used Daily for 1+ year
  • Review Source
Value for Money
4
Features
5
Ease of Use
5
Customer Support
4

5
Reviewed on 02/03/2022

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.

Chris
  • Industry: Electrical/Electronic Manufacturing
  • Review Source
Value for Money
N/A
Features
1
Ease of Use
1.5
Customer Support
1

1
Reviewed on 04/04/2016

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.

Yousef
  • Industry: Packaging & Containers
  • Company size: 2–10 Employees
  • Used Daily for 1+ year
  • Review Source
Value for Money
2
Features
3
Ease of Use
3
Customer Support
2

3
Reviewed on 08/09/2021

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
Michael
  • Industry: Automotive
  • Company size: 11–50 Employees
  • Used Daily for 2+ years
  • Review Source
Value for Money
4
Features
4
Ease of Use
4
Customer Support
4

4
Reviewed on 08/06/2018

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.

Adam
  • Industry: Farming
  • Company size: 11–50 Employees
  • Used Daily for 1+ year
  • Review Source
Value for Money
5
Features
4
Ease of Use
5
Customer Support
5

5
Reviewed on 11/04/2017

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.

Dave
  • Industry: Medical Devices
  • Company size: 11–50 Employees
  • Used Daily for 2+ years
  • Review Source
Value for Money
5
Features
5
Ease of Use
5
Customer Support
5

4
Reviewed on 30/01/2020

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.

Replied 31/01/2022
Michael
  • Industry: Mining & Metals
  • Company size: 51–200 Employees
  • Used Daily for 2+ years
  • Review Source
Value for Money
5
Features
4
Ease of Use
5
Customer Support
N/A

4
Reviewed on 10/10/2019

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.

Replied 31/01/2022
Christy
  • Industry: Retail
  • Company size: 2–10 Employees
  • Used Daily for 6-12 months
  • Review Source
Value for Money
5
Features
5
Ease of Use
5
Customer Support
5

5
Reviewed on 18/07/2016

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!

Kelly
  • Industry: Medical Devices
  • Company size: 2–10 Employees
  • Used Daily for 1+ year
  • Review Source
Value for Money
4
Features
4
Ease of Use
4
Customer Support
5

5
Reviewed on 01/04/2022

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.

Patrick
  • Industry: Consumer Goods
  • Company size: 2–10 Employees
  • Used Daily for 2+ years
  • Review Source
Value for Money
5
Features
5
Ease of Use
4
Customer Support
5

5
Reviewed on 08/09/2017

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.

Stephen
  • Industry: Food & Beverages
  • Company size: 11–50 Employees
  • Used Daily for 1-5 months
  • Review Source
Value for Money
2
Features
2
Ease of Use
1
Customer Support
1

3
Reviewed on 03/01/2022

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.

819 reviews