Fishbowl Reviews

Pros

Fishbowl is a great asset to our company. It has been wonderful in helping us manage inventory for our warehouse and tracking errors. The customer support is always amazing. [SENSITIVE CONTENT HIDDEN] our representative is one of the most helpful people. He goes above and beyond to make sure we are satisfied with the product.

Cons

Some reports cost extra, but I understand that it takes them time to write it. The turn around is usually fast.

Pros

Fishbowl adds the missing link to our capabilities with QB online that does create hurdles and workload for us. fishbowl finally allows tracking on all levels and satisfactory customer orders without having to manually track. Also we like the serial number tracking and free mobile app.

Cons

The software could be more aesthetically appealing and if there was a more seamless transfer from QB to Fishbowl with all order history that would be awesome

Alternatives Considered

Reasons for Switching to Fishbowl

Pros

Fishbowl seems to be a comprehensive inventory management software but has some serious flaws that the company is not willing to acknowledge.

Cons

The customer support has been dismal at best. We were promised certain features during the sales process only to be told they are "still in development" once in our contract.

Pros

We can manage all of our inventory efficiently. It is much better than the system we used to use.

Cons

It would be nice if we could void a shipment. It is also a little frustrating that we can't edit a purchase order after the product has moved, eg: been committed to a sales order. Sometimes we get invoices for freight after we receive the product, and there is no way to edit the reconciliation after the product has moved. So we're forced to go in and manually re-enter each product with the new landed cost.

Pros

The support & confidence of the team at fishbowl. The system is SO user friendly and high tech.

Cons

That we didn't use it sooner. We were recommended it many times but were hesitant because of the cost.

Pros

Absolutely amazing support for start up and look forward to going live

Cons

Nothing to mention at the moment as we're still in the start up space.

Pros

I love how hands on and easy to use the Fishbowl system is. The staff is knowledgeable and walks you step by step.

Cons

I can honestly say in the 6 months of using this software I haven't found anything I don't like.

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

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

Ease of use for inventory. Scanner makes it easy to scan and remove product from stock.

Cons

Intergration is a little problematic. Unfortunately, some things will not transfer from Microsoft AX.

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

Reasons for Switching to Fishbowl

Pros

Fishbowl is an incredibly comprehensive inventory management tool. It has a wide range of features and options that make it easy to keep track of all the items in your inventory. The user interface is intuitive and easy to use, and the customer support is top-notch. I highly recommend Fishbowl for anyone looking for a reliable inventory management solution.

Cons

Fishbowl's pricing structure can be a bit confusing, and it can be hard to determine what the best option is for your particular situation. Additionally, the customer support could be improved, as there is sometimes a long wait time for help. Overall, though, Fishbowl is a great option for anyone looking for a reliable inventory management solution.

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 appeared to be a great product before we purchased it

Cons

Point of sale software is nearly un-usable. It does not support gift cards or customer accounts in any functional way. Implementation and support from the software company are beyond poor even after paying many thousands of dollars for extra support and help with implementation.

Alternatives Considered

Reasons for Choosing Fishbowl

Switched From

Reasons for Switching to Fishbowl

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

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

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

Reasons for Choosing Fishbowl

Switched From

Pros

Migration to SQL database allowing integration with other systems.

Cons

After selling to a larger company, support is almost non existant, if your small thet dont seem to care. Have tried to book many support sessions and never any availability unless you want to wait 2+ months. Good luck getting them on the phone, the chat works and will waste an entire day trying to explain any issues

Pros

1- Ease of use for end users
2- Ease of use for administrator
3- Functionality for process manufacturing
4- Pricepoint

Cons

Having used other, more expensive manufacturing software in the past, there is nothing that I do not like about Fishbowl

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! :)

Pros

It's great if you are manufacturing the same thing over and over, so you need 500 or 1000 widgets made the same way. It's a pretty powerful tool for warehousing and inventory. It costs for just the warehousing, plus users and add-ons. They'll give you a discount if you ask them, but you almost should just go with a saas program you'll get quicker updates. fishbowl you can save lots of money down the road if you don't buy there support package. They have a pretty good product development team, but it takes them at least a year it seems like to roll out any useful new features you talk to them about.

Cons

Very challenging to set up, learning curve is huge in my opinion. The BOM stages work for the most part, but you'll spend a lot of time in a sandbox database seeing if what you want works (if your doing multi stage builds) If your doing 1 to 100 of anything, and what your making varies order to order, I'd recommend some other software like ordoo, shopvox, or corbridge. They are alot quicker to set up on the

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

Pros

The app is looking ok and easy to use, actually the only good thing I found and it took me a while to think about something.

Cons

- Software looks from the 90’s
- CUSTOMER SERVICE IS DANGEROUS to this country. We all need to make sure companies like that are not existing in AMERICA.
- software is really hard to use
- not enough barcode sizes
- the set up guys are very unprofessional and doesn’t think out of the box
- the software is very square and can’t be customized AT ALL.
- TOO EXPENSIVE
- they really don’t care about their clients. But really. You can’t even imagine.

Pros

Fishbowl is relatively easy to use (by nature, ERP systems are complex) and is relatively reliable for companies whose transactions number in the low hundreds per day. Their support is quite effective but may be slower than you like -- if your business is effectively down due to an ERP issue, the last thing you want to get when you call support is voicemail. Unless things have changed in recent (2017) releases, one must update the local client with each system update, and that can be problematic for small shops that do have centralized software management and have restricted local rights on their PCs. They did change from FireDB to MySQL late last year, which improved performance drastically, but the database still requires a lot of optimization, care and feeding in order to get peak performance. Eventually, the company I worked for decided that it had outgrown FBI and migrated to NetSuite.

Cons

* Slow support response
* Relatively slow performance
* Cannot cancel running batch jobs
* They recommend(ed) running Quickbooks and Fishbowl on the same server, which meant an extremely expensive server was required. The alternative was to split the two apps onto different machines and experience super-slow batch updates (some ran hours)

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