Fishbowl

Being able to operate above and beyond to what we used to. We can now compete with our competitors

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 :)

We are a Head Start agency that uses FishBowl to purchase, track, and issue inventory to 60 Head Start classrooms and agency departments. Our system uses SharePoint, which is accessed by each classroom/dept. to place their order which is in turn sent to the approving supervisor. Once it is approved, it goes to the Purchasing office were it is imported into FishBowl (all done electronically within the magic of computer land...and the IT department).

We started looking for new inventory software when the software we had did not support the Windows 7 that we were upgrading to. We needed a fully integrated inventory software program that not only supported our classrooms, but would provide the Finance dept. with the information they needed.

One of the features I like about FishBowl is that as soon as Purchasing processes the classroom/dept. request, an email is sent to the requestor letting them know Purchasing has received their order and it is in the process of being filled. When the order has been shipped, another e-mail is sent to let the requestor know the order is on it's way. This email feature has greatly reduced the number of calls received from our classrooms requesting status on their order and when it will be sent to them (I really, really like it).

We have set up reorder points and default vendors, which makes placing orders to replenish warehouse stock easy and nearly effortless. Each vendor has their own part unit of measure and unit of measure conversion, which makes processing receipts magic (well almost). The tracking feature on a warehouse part has helped to track expiration dates on food (milk, yogurt, cheese, etc.). The expiration dates are printed on the packing slip that goes out with each order and helps us resolve expiration date issues. FishBowl will also let us know an item is nearing its expiration date prior to processing the shipment.

Another feature of FishBowl that has come in handy is the ability to monitor specific warehouse stock. I use the feature to monitor our milk products (Soy, Lactaid, Rice Milk, Goats Milk, etc.) to make sure we have enough on hand at all times to ensure we receive Federal reimbursement for meals served. These items are monitored on a daily basis due to their sensitive nature. The Dashboard tab provides a quick synopsis of sales, purchase orders, RMA,s etc. The first two FishBowl tabls I look at are the Monitor and DashBoard tab that will let me know the health of our inventory and status of orders. Thumbs up to the programmers that wrote these features into the system.

Sales orders and back orders are easily maintained and monitored. I can process order requests, and hold them until such time as I need them to be processes for shipment.

FishBowl provides us with reports on classroom expenditures (food/supplies or combination). We maintain two warehouse identifyiers to identify our supply items from our food items. There are custom fields that can be added to input processing that can further help in processing specific types of reports and tracking data.

Prior to using FishBowl we had trainers from FishBowl give us module by module training and help us set up and transfer data from our old inventory system to FishBowl. I cannot say enough good things about the help we received. Note: The online help and training is a great resource also.

FishBowl provideds many features which we are utilizing and others that we will grow into. FishBowl has a different look and feel from the software we were using, but once we started FishBowl, it has become second nature. There is so much more about FishBowl than there is space to write this review. If you need more information please contact me.

North Park is a 3rd Party Logistics and Contract Packaging business, specializing in light manufacturing, warehousing, and B2C shipping services. We provide each customer the service and attention only the 'big guys' get at other fulfillment houses.

Our search for a new Inventory/Manufacturing software solution was prompted by our move away from a warehouse operation towards a 3rd party solution for small to medium-sized businesses, that are outgrowing their current warehousing capabilities.

Prior to using Fishbowl Inventory, we used 'MS Dynamics AX' (think 'GP' on steroids). Our management team has had decades of experience using everything from BaAn and SAP to high-end custom systems, and even home-grown customized solutions.

We chose Fishbowl Inventory primarily based on value, integration w/Quickbooks, and ease-of-use.

We've been running for more than 3 years, currently running ver 13.2 Manufacturing, Salespoint and Mobile Warehouse. We highly recommend staying updated with the current version, as improvements and features are continually being added.

Initial install and implementation took us less than a full day, including import of Customer, Item, BOM, etc. from QB. User training took a week or so for all our team to be up and running well enough to use it in live production. (Only one of us spent any time in the demo.)

For the most part, Fishbowl is simple and intuitive to use. There are very few places or processes where the desired next step isn't obvious. However, we've found many useful tips & tricks that we benefit from greatly, and most would have been learned with onsite training, but we declined initially because of our extensive background with other systems.

Customer support has been absolutely fantastic for us! We use the Live Chat option as first contact, and only rarely need to resort to phone calls. Despite the recorded phone tree that is standard today, Fishbowl's is about as short as it can be and still direct your call to the right group. Once there, it's always leave a message and wait for a call-back; but I've always gotten a call within 2 hours (usually less). For truly urgent needs, I've always been able to call back, get the operator and get in touch with Support that can at least identify the issue and suggest some troubleshooting I can do while awaiting Technical help.

In 3 years we've only had 1 instance of down-time due to system failure and that was resolved and we were up and running in 2hrs.

Biggest benefits of using Fishbowl for us are ease of implementation and use; power/reliability of the system; manufacturing capabilities (only shortcoming there is full MRP/CRP/ERP modules for planning, but for our size and complexity it does surpisingly well).

The biggest shortfall of Fishbowl for us is Reporting. The nature of our business doesn't lend itself well to many of the standard informational reports (operational reports are fine). However, Fishbowl is ODBC compliant, their reporting platform is open source (similar to Crystal Reports, but a bit steeper learning curve), and if you're not comfortable with SQL there are several 3rd party options for customizing reports.