All Fishbowl Reviews
1-25 of 850 Reviews
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Billy
Verified reviewer
Facilities Services, 11-50 employees
Used daily for less than 2 years
OVERALL RATING:
5
EASE OF USE
4
VALUE FOR MONEY
5
CUSTOMER SUPPORT
5
FUNCTIONALITY
4
Reviewed April 2022
Great investment
We have saved quite a bit of time with Fishbowl compared to our previous software.
PROSFishbowl is simple to use. Everything is easy to find. Search features work well. All facets integrate well.
CONSIt’s been a bit of a struggle to integrate all aspects of our diverse business.
Reason for choosing Fishbowl
Price
Reasons for switching to Fishbowl
Fishbowl had more to offer.
Todd
Sporting Goods, 11-50 employees
Used daily for less than 12 months
OVERALL RATING:
5
EASE OF USE
5
VALUE FOR MONEY
4
CUSTOMER SUPPORT
5
FUNCTIONALITY
5
Reviewed April 2024
Awesome customer support
We have been very pleased with our Fishbowl experience.
PROSOur implementation Specialist was absolutely incredible. When you has this level of customer support, implementing was a breeze. I don't know that we ever had a question that he could not answer.
CONSThere are some reporting barrier on canned reports that is a bit frustrating, but I am sure there are work arounds for those.
Reasons for switching to Fishbowl
We needed a more robust system to deal with the manufacturing ascpet of our business and manger all of our component goods.
Takako
Mechanical or Industrial Engineering, 11-50 employees
Used daily for more than 2 years
OVERALL RATING:
3
EASE OF USE
5
VALUE FOR MONEY
4
CUSTOMER SUPPORT
5
FUNCTIONALITY
4
Reviewed March 2024
Functional inventory system
It was easy to implement FB as we did not have many integration with other systems.
PROSUser-friendly interface and tons of training materials.
CONSReports customization. Cost of goods calculation.
Reason for choosing Fishbowl
reasonable price and multi-currencies handling function
Matthew
Machinery, 201-500 employees
Used daily for less than 6 months
OVERALL RATING:
5
EASE OF USE
5
VALUE FOR MONEY
5
CUSTOMER SUPPORT
4
FUNCTIONALITY
5
Reviewed April 2024
Bulk Equipment
The roll out period and training could be more structured.
PROSEase of use. Cost effective. Simple to train on.
CONSThe sell ware integration to Shopify. I used Fishbowl in the past and the direct back-end connection was beneficial, but no longer exists.
Reason for choosing Fishbowl
Cost, we are still considering a full ERP solution.
Reasons for switching to Fishbowl
Limited capabilities to manager the warehouse and inventory functions
Scott
Food & Beverages, 11-50 employees
Used weekly for less than 6 months
OVERALL RATING:
4
EASE OF USE
5
VALUE FOR MONEY
5
CUSTOMER SUPPORT
5
FUNCTIONALITY
4
Reviewed March 2024
From Netsuite to Fishbowl in 30 days
Compared with operating Netsuite, the overhead is much lower, a sandbox was provided free of charge, the set up is more straightforward and the users feel more empowered to work with the system to improve the initial implementation. Its more forgiving and likely a better choice for a smaller business.
PROSWe appreciate that Fishbowl does what it says. Its not trying to be everything to everyone which keeps the implementation relatively straightforward. Fishbowl has great customer service, and their support and availability during the setup phase of implementation has been excellent!
CONSThe client/server architecture seems a little old fashioned and the integration with manufacturing QC is not very strong. Internal reporting functions aren't awesome but connectivity to Power BI enhances the experience.
Reasons for switching to Fishbowl
To simplify and streamline. Netsuite requires too much overhead and its really not that awesome. Netsuite customer service is the worst of any company that we've ever worked with.
Jarron
Plastics, 11-50 employees
Used daily for less than 6 months
OVERALL RATING:
4
EASE OF USE
4
VALUE FOR MONEY
4
CUSTOMER SUPPORT
5
FUNCTIONALITY
5
Reviewed April 2024
DK Plastics
Fishbowl allowed us to gain a lot more traceability within production all the way through sending invoices. Collected all of our data from multiple different spreadsheets and combined it all into one user friendly hub.
CONSThere is a lot of specificity to different functions that don't apply the best in a factory with ever changing made to order products.
Reason for choosing Fishbowl
We chose Fishbowl over other ERP software's for a combination between pricing and functionality.
Sarah
Construction, 51-200 employees
Used daily for less than 6 months
OVERALL RATING:
5
EASE OF USE
4
VALUE FOR MONEY
5
CUSTOMER SUPPORT
5
FUNCTIONALITY
4
Reviewed March 2024
Review for a Remolding Company
ease of use and fantastic customer support
CONSbetter accounting visability prior to uploads and more options for FIFO, little bit touchy and tough to troubleshoot some problems without support but overall very efficient and worth the money
Reason for choosing Fishbowl
well reviewed and operated by several sister companies
Reasons for switching to Fishbowl
no FIFO management on the warehousing side. very poor tool for warehouse and inventory management
Nicholas
Telecommunications, 2-10 employees
Used daily for more than 2 years
OVERALL RATING:
4
EASE OF USE
4
VALUE FOR MONEY
1
CUSTOMER SUPPORT
1
FUNCTIONALITY
5
Reviewed March 2024
RUN SUPPORT IS NONE EXISTENT
It was ok during the sales period but the after-sales support was a joke. Also, fishbowl was recently depracated from the shopify platform. They know require you to use saleware software and have increased their cost by 400%. We attempted to get a partial refund since the software is now worthless to us and they are stealing our money. Keep in mind we have been a customer for at least the last 5 years. We are beyond disappointed with this change and the way we have been treated. STAY CLEAR!
PROSThe dashboard feature is nice since it helps you keep track of partial shipments on orders.
CONSThe support is a joke. Do not expect anyone to pickup the phone.
Thomas
Automotive, 11-50 employees
Used daily for more than 2 years
OVERALL RATING:
4
EASE OF USE
4
VALUE FOR MONEY
4
CUSTOMER SUPPORT
5
FUNCTIONALITY
5
Reviewed April 2024
ShipExpress Support
The technical support in particular [sensitive content hidden] were attentive and professional in resolving my issue.
CONSThe issue was with a Global shipping selection for Saturday Delivery. This box try's to dictate all of your shipments arrive on Saturday when checked.
julieanne
Publishing, 5,001-10,000 employees
Used daily for less than 6 months
OVERALL RATING:
2
EASE OF USE
1
VALUE FOR MONEY
1
CUSTOMER SUPPORT
1
FUNCTIONALITY
1
Reviewed March 2024
Horrible customer service
Just came here to write a bad review about their horrendous customer service. No pros come to mind, because if they don't have the customer service to support their product, the product is therefore junk.
CONSIf you need customer service, you wait a long time. They also don't even give solutions when you have issues. Customizing reports takes forever and the account manager barely replies. Run for the hills! Find a better solution, this company is a joke.
Michelle
Apparel & Fashion, 11-50 employees
Used daily for more than 2 years
OVERALL RATING:
5
EASE OF USE
5
VALUE FOR MONEY
5
CUSTOMER SUPPORT
5
FUNCTIONALITY
5
Reviewed February 2022
A Great All Around Product For Inventory
Fishbowl has helped us save money by being able to control everything from inside and not having to hire multiple 3rd parties to make connections. Fishbowl continues to add and upgrade the software to what consumers ask for.
PROSFishbowl software is easy to use. I like that you always have step by step instructions and some videos to help guide you. If you don't find what you are looking for, all it takes is an email, and support helps you as quickly as they can.
CONSThe only negative issue I have while using Fishbowl software is with the reports. Even though they have multiple reports to choose from, I feel as some of them can be upgraded to include more than one product a t a time. Example, when searching for a product that was sold on a particular day, and you have more than one size of the same product, it would be nice to be able to select as many products as you want to look at versus one at a time.
Reasons for switching to Fishbowl
The company I work for will have multiple users at any given time, the other big named software could not handle more than 1 or 2 people in it, or it would freeze up. We had to adjust our schedules to get work done which was very frustrating. We started out with Fishbowl in 2017, switched over to the big name in 2018, but after a few short months, we made the switch back to Fishbowl in 2018, as it is the best option for what we need and can accommodate our inventory management. We still have the big named software but it is only used for accounting.
Vendor Response
Thank you so much for this review, Michelle. We appreciate you taking the time to provide your feedback. We are happy to hear that your experience has been satisfactory and will take your suggestions into consideration while we continue to make improvements.
Replied March 2022
Louis
Mechanical or Industrial Engineering, 11-50 employees
Used daily for less than 12 months
OVERALL RATING:
5
EASE OF USE
4
VALUE FOR MONEY
4
CUSTOMER SUPPORT
4
FUNCTIONALITY
4
Reviewed July 2020
Fishbowl Manufacturing Software has proven an invaluable inventory management tool for our team.
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.
PROSOur 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 .
CONSFishbowl 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.
Reason for choosing 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.
Vendor Response
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 October 2021
Dasha
Medical Devices, 11-50 employees
Used daily for more than 2 years
OVERALL RATING:
3
EASE OF USE
2
VALUE FOR MONEY
2
FUNCTIONALITY
3
Reviewed December 2020
Too Expensive, Unintuitive, and Aesthetically Unpleasing
It meets our basic needs for manufacturing and sales.
CONSThe flow from the creation of a sales order to the fulfillment is flawed. If a customer pre-pays, we have to artificially fulfill the order, export it to QuickBooks, charge the customer through QuickBooks, then manually notify the fulfillment department to release the purchase order to UPS.
Reason for choosing Fishbowl
Allows inventory management for manufacturing purposes.
Reasons for switching to Fishbowl
Manufacturing needs were not met using InFlow.
Cindy
Automotive, 11-50 employees
Used daily for more than 2 years
OVERALL RATING:
5
EASE OF USE
5
VALUE FOR MONEY
5
CUSTOMER SUPPORT
5
FUNCTIONALITY
5
Reviewed March 2022
Fast and Easy to Use!
Integration with our accounting software. Able to save documents to the drive for later recall. Multiple users in the system without slow down. Get ship quotes while staying in the sales order. Able to email customer estimates from sales order.
CONSUpdates sometimes cause issues with the software and need to be addressed by customer service. Customer service is only open 8-6 mountain time. Our third party forms are easily broken when major updates are needed. This slows our processes down.
Reasons for switching to Fishbowl
We were having issues with the amount of data slowing our call center down.
Dennis
Used free trial
OVERALL RATING:
5
EASE OF USE
4
CUSTOMER SUPPORT
5
FUNCTIONALITY
5
Reviewed May 2013
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.
Jeff
Electrical/Electronic Manufacturing, 11-50 employees
Used daily for less than 6 months
OVERALL RATING:
1
EASE OF USE
1
VALUE FOR MONEY
1
CUSTOMER SUPPORT
1
FUNCTIONALITY
2
Reviewed December 2023
Will Fishbowl Survive in the coming years?
Like many ERP systems, it has been overhyped and falls short of expectations. We initially implemented it alongside QuickBooks 2022. Interestingly, QuickBooks 2023 and subsequently QuickBooks 2024 have incorporated nearly all the features and functionalities that initially prompted us to integrate FishBowl. With the enhanced capabilities of QuickBooks 2024 and the shift towards cloud-based solutions, it's doubtful that FishBowl will sustain its business for more than a few years.
PROSOnboarding was smooth and responsive. The team was responsive and helpful, although be prepared to do all the work yourself. while it seems crazy at some point its worth starting from scratch on your inventory and negating Quickbooks inventory all together.
CONSOnce your system is operational, support becomes a distant concern. Seeking assistance entails potentially shelling out thousands for even the most straightforward requests, if and when you manage to get a response. The scheduling for a simple fix or question may drag on for up to two weeks.
Reason for choosing Fishbowl
Initially, we opted for FishBowl due to QuickBooks lacking essential features such as inventory management, site locations, landed costs, and overall functionality. Unfortunately, QuickBooks has since incorporated most of these features in their latest release, signaling an aggressive effort to reclaim market share and compete with NetSuite for SMBs. This development is likely to diminish FishBowl's relevance within a few years or even sooner. In response, FishBowl has shifted its focus entirely to the "CLOUD" version, which, regrettably, lacks the robust features found in its desktop counterpart. There are no immediate plans to incorporate these features into the cloud version. This mirrors QuickBooks' move to the cloud, where the desktop features were initially absent, but QuickBooks has since acquired Rightworks and now offers cloud hosting for enterprise, intensifying competition against NetSuites. In summary, QuickBooks Enterprise 2024 now provides 85-90% of FishBowl's functionality. As is often the case with software companies, the initial allure and onboarding process may not accurately represent the actual capabilities, potentially resulting in additional costs for support or customization. While there may be a dedicated fan base, it's doubtful that even half of FishBowl's clients are aware of the added functionalities in QuickBooks 2024. Those who do leverage these features find themselves paying a substantial premium. A noteworthy caveat is that licensing is based on the number of users, but it's essential to be cautious as the number of users does not equate to the number of devices. Each user accessing the system from both a PC and a mobile phone, for instance, counts as two users/devices. This discrepancy can lead to higher costs than initially anticipated. Considering the recent developments in QuickBooks, the sale of FishBowl likely occurred for a reason, underscoring the evolving landscape in the realm of inventory and financial management solutions.
Joshua
Verified reviewer
Management Consulting, 1 employee
Used daily for more than 2 years
OVERALL RATING:
4
EASE OF USE
3
VALUE FOR MONEY
5
CUSTOMER SUPPORT
2
FUNCTIONALITY
4
Reviewed July 2018
Can be a great product but will depend on your personnel
I'm an Advanced QuickBooks Pro Advisor and I specialize in Inventory set up and management. I haven't found any program with as many capabilities at such a low cost range as Fishbowl. Netsuite can handle what Fishbowl does but can easily go into the hundreds of thousands to setup and get started and I found the process very complex. Fishbowl on the other hand, can import from QuickBooks and have you set up and running in just a few minutes, though I stress that this should be used as test only. To accurately use Fishbowl it can take months to setup and learn properly. This largely depends on your current experience with technology, accounting practices and inventory knowledge.
CONSThe support isn't stable. Depending on your time zone, you'll get a different team. Some zones, depending on the day and time, will pick up your call immediately and be very knowledgeable and helpful. Others will take a day to get back to you and you'll get someone who's only been there a few months but will confidently tell you something as fact and you might find our later they don't actually know what they're talking about. However, the online wiki is very detailed so if you're someone who can figure out things on your own, this will be a huge help. Basically, I've found that most people who complain about Fishbowl are really complaining about inventory, which is hugely complex. But if you're a detail oriented company with personnel who don't cut corners, Fishbowl can be an excellent fit for you. Just don't expect it to be easy!
Tommy
Electrical/Electronic Manufacturing, 2-10 employees
Used daily for more than 2 years
OVERALL RATING:
5
EASE OF USE
4
VALUE FOR MONEY
5
CUSTOMER SUPPORT
5
FUNCTIONALITY
5
Reviewed June 2022
The Perfect Solution for Small & Large Businesses
We've been successfully using Fishbowl now for at least five years and it's allowed our company to process orders and control our inventory to a point where everything runs smoothly between our manufacturing team and our front of house team. Fishbowl has helped turned our "mom and pop" business into a streamlined operation with customers all over the world.
PROSI have used other CRM/inventory management applications over the years and Fishbowl is by far one of the most robust, all-in-one solutions for our business. It's ease of use, stability, and accessibility has helped run our business for the past several years in terms of POS operations, inventory control, and handling purchase orders.
CONSMy only complaints are that, under the customer tab, the SAVE and DELETE buttons are next to each other. Also under the customer tab, the check balance is next to the history button (which we have to utilize constantly throughout the day). If we accidentally hit CHECK BALANCE, the process runs and holds up Fishbowl for upwards towards a minute. Since this is not something that we utilize, is there a way to possibly disable that button?
Reason for choosing Fishbowl
The overall ease of use was the definitive selling point, along with the support offered. I foresee that we will be sticking with Fishbowl for years to come!
Reasons for switching to Fishbowl
Having worked with MSCRM in the past, it always felt bulky and did not really suit our back of house needs.
Taylor
Apparel & Fashion, 11-50 employees
Used daily for less than 2 years
OVERALL RATING:
1
EASE OF USE
1
VALUE FOR MONEY
1
CUSTOMER SUPPORT
1
FUNCTIONALITY
1
Reviewed April 2023
I would not recommend this Software to anyone!
The software overall is extremely outdated. I would not recommend this to anyone.
PROSInventory tracking is mediocre at best - A pro was required for the review.
CONSCustomer service is terrible. Once you sign up and pay thousands for their system, they virtually tell you to "figure it out yourself". Information from QuickBooks to Fishbowl does not properly transfer. The invoicing process is extremely cumbersome. There are a lot of unnecessary steps when invoicing and processing orders. To edit invoice lines is extremely difficult. You cannot edit invoices once they have been processed. Printing and formatting (two very simple things) have been overly difficult with this program. We have had to reach out to Fishbowl numerous times to have the system tailored to our needs.
Reasons for switching to Fishbowl
Inventory Management
Michael
Fine Art, 2-10 employees
Used daily for less than 2 years
OVERALL RATING:
5
EASE OF USE
5
VALUE FOR MONEY
4
CUSTOMER SUPPORT
4
FUNCTIONALITY
5
Reviewed March 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.
PROSThe 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.
CONSThe 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.
Reason for choosing Fishbowl
Ease of use very intuitive. The demo that was presented prior was seamless and the flow from purchasing to inventory to manufacturing to finished goods to shipping was a breeze. The other software companies' presentation crashed during the demo, and they couldn't explain why, and it was awkward. Fishbowl is making my business life easier.
Anonymous
Used daily for less than 2 years
OVERALL RATING:
4
EASE OF USE
5
VALUE FOR MONEY
4
CUSTOMER SUPPORT
3
FUNCTIONALITY
4
Reviewed December 2017
Fishbowl Good For SMBs Wanting An On-Premises ERP, But Prepare To Outgrow It.
It provided a decent ERP for the price but is definitely geared to low transaction volumes.
PROSFishbowl 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)
Shannon
Used free trial
OVERALL RATING:
3
EASE OF USE
2
CUSTOMER SUPPORT
2
FUNCTIONALITY
3
Reviewed September 2013
I work for a full-service dental laboratory, which is a bit of a unique application for this software, and we have been using Fishbowl for about one year. Since our completed products are all custom made to patient specifications, we purchased Fishbowl primarily to organize and track internal inventory and consumption. We knew from the start that there would be no off-the-shelf solution for our situation, but we hoped that from what we had seen, we would be able to find enough work-arounds to get it doing close to what we needed. If anything, it has made the inventory management process even more arduous. While Fishbowl offers a lot of options, and will probably work very well for a more typical business, it is not a good solution for more complex situations. It simply doesn't have the flexibility. The only way to remove items from inventory is via cycle count (which leaves no record of consumption) or via sales order (which means that all of your Parts also need to be listed as Products, and you will need to do a lot of unnecessary paperwork just to maintain accurate consumption reports. The barcode scanners and label printer we ordered from Fishbowl are also antiquated devices, and we are unlikely to be able to repair them if anything goes wrong. What has been most disappointing about this system by far is the customer support. The live chat feature is their saving grace - the hours are very reasonable and the queue has generally been quite short. However, there seems to be a massive amount of turnover in the company - nearly every time I contact them, I end up talking to someone different, and have to re-explain all of our problems and our situation before I can get to the issue at hand. The communication at their level also seems insufficient (on multiple occasions, I have gotten different several different answers from different people) and the quality of training for their agents seems to be low as well. Poor grammar and spelling from live chat agents, inability to answer basic questions or provide further support in lieu of an immediate answer, and an often bored tone of voice over the phone. Overall, Fishbowl has been complicated, difficult to use and has caused more problems than it has solved. We still feel like we're in a transition phase and will hopefully reap more benefits long term, but a warning to other businesses with a lot of internal consumption or other unique features - make sure you get a very thorough demo and vocalize exactly what you need from the system. Further, bring someone in for on-site training if you do intend to purchase this software.
Emil
Verified reviewer
Used daily for more than 2 years
OVERALL RATING:
4
EASE OF USE
4
VALUE FOR MONEY
4
CUSTOMER SUPPORT
4
FUNCTIONALITY
3
Reviewed February 2018
Positive. Fishbowl performs its functions efficiently
It replaced a very old and unreliable product. By integrating with QuickBooks, we greatly expanded the candidate pool for our accounting department. We were able to grow our business with lower growth in staff.
PROSThe user interface allows new users to become proficient quickly. The ability to incorporate bar codes and product images is helpful. It is a great substitute for the Inventory module of QuickBooks if you need to do a lot of kitting and assemblies as well as calculating landed costs for imports.
CONSReport writing/modifying is cumbersome. End user is captive to Fishbowl or 3rd party authors. There should be more flexibility akin to Quickbooks for users to add/subtract columns of data as well as filtering by multiple criteria. Most filters are all/everything or just one Customer, Vendor, Part Number, etc. We also had to have custom reports created for some very basic inventory management reports - FB's main purpose. More end user input should have been/should be sought EDI implementation is possible, but through 3rd party providers and automating order processing is limited.
Nathan
Electrical/Electronic Manufacturing, 11-50 employees
Used daily for more than 2 years
OVERALL RATING:
5
EASE OF USE
5
VALUE FOR MONEY
4
CUSTOMER SUPPORT
5
FUNCTIONALITY
5
Reviewed January 2020
Fishbowl Is a Highly Functional Software Service
We currently use Fishbowl to manage our inventory, process payments, and manage customer accounts. We are looking to expand and utilize many other integrations for web store and asset tracking capabilities.
PROSThe support team is always ready to dive into your database file and find the root cause of issues in your environment. Serialization and product tracking is very functional and allows us to obtain important history on each item sold Reports have high customization options and with a little SQL programming knowledge you can virtually get any information you are looking for out of the database.
CONSGrowing pains in the earlier years of Fishbowl was a little difficult but many of these have gone away after they switched from Firebird to MySQL platform. It is a little expensive.
Reason for choosing Fishbowl
We chose Fishbowl due to cost and functionality.
Vendor Response
Thank you for leaving us this review, Nathan. We appreciate you taking the time to give us some feedback on your experience here at Fishbowl. We are happy to hear that it has been satisfactory for your company.
Replied October 2021
Carl
Used free trial
OVERALL RATING:
1
EASE OF USE
1
CUSTOMER SUPPORT
1
Reviewed November 2014
RUN AWAY FROM FISHBOWL AS FAST AS YOU CAN
We have been working with fishbowl for well over 2 years now. We have had tons of issues from slow performance, to the software just crashing, to upgrades not working right. The most recent upgrade made it so every thing we did took 4 mins to respond. Fishbowl took about 4 hours just to get back to us because the customer service is the worst ever. Then they blamed it on us and our environment until I told them to take our file and try it on their end. They then said there was a bug with the software. They took awhile to figure it out and promised us an update later that night. After being at work late with others trying to get through our work there was still no update. I called the next morning (about 20 times) with no answer. When I got someone to call me back (after emailing some vp with threat of legal action) they said the update was up the night before (lies as I had checked at least 15 times). Then I was told they were not answering the phone because they were having a party to celebrate the patch which "fixed" our issue. After we got it updated the issues was better but still there. The patch also broke our ODBC connection which we needed to do just to integrate because they claim it works with quickbooks but really doesn't. Then we had to spend more money on redoing a custom report that no longer worked. The list goes on and on with all the other problems we have had and workarounds we have created. We are a growing company and inquired about new users. Beware after the initial purchase any new users will cost you about 2k each. I have never seen such horrible customer support and such a badly designed piece of software. They do one thing well and that is sell you a bunch of lies until your in to deep and just say we are going with it and maybe it will get better. Please Please do yourself a favor and find something else. Even if you pay 5 times as much for a custom inventory program in the long run you will save. The loss of money and time spent fighting this crappy software is unreal. Oh and the compensation they offered for us being down a day and half was 2 hours of training which we haven't even gone through our initial training package because the staff has no clue how to use their product. I knew more after playing around with it for 5mins than our training did and we paid for him to fly out and do an in house training.