Fishbowl Inventory has a history of deceptive advertising and horrible service. Don't get fooled like we did.

Fishbowl inventory management software is a basic ERP system that links with Quickbooks. It may serve your needs, but what happens if a feature doesn't work? What if it isn't compatible with your processes in the end? Will they help you fix it? Sadly, no. They will take your money, then leave you high and dry. You might lose thousands of dollars, just like we did. Read our review and experience:

We purchased a Fishbowl license with warehouse features, and integration with the Magento 2 ecommerce platform. We're not a big company, and $18,000 was a pretty big investment for us. But we thought it would be great, because it would give us better inventory management with Quickbooks, and link together our eCommerce website running Magento 2, where we take in all of our orders.

We bought Fishbowl because they specifically advertised compatibility with our website platform, Magento 2. Based on the information that's (still) on Fishbowl's website, you would think Fishbowl works fine with Magento 2, to at least collect sales orders, and post tracking information and inventory levels back to your website:

In reality, the compatibility was severely limited, and the software they happily sold us did not work with Magento 2 for a number of key features. The entire software was completely useless to us because we had no way of bringing inventory data into the inventory system! We can't manually enter hundreds of orders every day. We asked why it didn't work, and rather than fixing the problem, they just confirmed that it doesn't work. Yeah, we know that.

Can't we just get a refund? No. Fishbowl makes you sign an agreement when you purchase saying there won't be any refunds after a certain period, no matter whether the software keeps working or not. The should have been a red flag, but I guess I'm a trusting person.

Should we have discovered the deficiency earlier? Sure, but it took us a while to get everything set up and tested with our website. We spent weeks entering items, preparing the system, and finally discovered that the software did not function as advertised. Even if we were late in discovering the problem, is any agreement legal when there's clear negligence, and false and deceptive advertising? Is that right? You decide.

Instead of fixing the problem, or offering any kind of compensation, Fishbowl suggested we build and use a completely new website. Never mind the fact that it would take hundreds of hours of work to transition to a different website. Will that new website platform be compatible? Who knows! But I'm sure Fishbowl will tell us it is, so they can make a sale, just like they did the first time.

But it doesn't stop there! After refusing to offer any kind of refund for our useless, non-functioning software, Fishbowl directly emailed all Magento 2 customers to tell them that the software does not work. Yeah, we know. It's been a few months since then - have they fixed anything? Of course not. Nevermind the fact that other software applications do successfully link with no problem. And get this: the same day, they emailed us asking if we wanted to renew our service agreement early. You've got to be kidding me.

But wait, there's more! Almost a year later now, they're contacting us again to see if we want to renew our service agreement. This poor sales rep knows that the software doesn't work, but as you can see, his job is to try and collect as much money as possible. He sent us an invoice for $8,831, for two more years of service. Service for what? Software that does not work?

Fishbowl, you did not respond to our concerns. Your "service" team never even answers the phone. If the product worked in the first place, we would have used and enjoyed it. And now, you seriously expect us to pay another $8,831 for two more years of service?

 

Fishbowl advertises functionality that still doesn't exist, then instead of fixing the problem, they ask for more money. If you think it's worth the risk, buy with extreme caution.

 

 

Don't take it just from us. Here's some more reviews:

"DON'T DO IT! - There are no pros to this software... Customer service is possibly the worst part of this software. The sales department will promise you the world and say, "Oh yeah Fishbowl can do that". But once you actually bite the bullet and spend $20k you realize that fishbowl doesnt do half of the stuff promised by the sales rep."

"HORRIBLE !, HORRIBLE !!, HORRIBLE !!! - Promised everything we needed, took our money, $50,000 and 2 years later still do not have usable inventory management system. The sub contractors Fishbowl recommends to integrate does not care and provided minimal support."

"THE SUPPORT IS HIDEOUS, THE MOBILE APP IS USELESS, SALESPEOPLE ARE LIARS...

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...

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. THIS SOFTWARE SUCKS!!!"

"We tried to stay committed to the implementation of Fishbowl at our company for over a year. Basic functions like printing labels had a million flaws and dead ends. We were given work-arounds far more often then solutions... it never worked like the expectations we were sold… nor were we ever given any new expectations for this software to ever work in any reasonable capacity."

"Terrible Customer Service - Good luck trying to get them on the phone, every time and I mean every time counting at least 10 phone calls, not once has a real live person picked up. Don’t bother paying for their “Support Plan” that you pay yearly. From my experience so far, I am not sure what I am paying for."

"Once you have purchased the software, good luck getting any support for it. Every support call went to voicemail and I would wait days if not weeks before I heard back from anyone. Worst part was when I finally heard from them they said that, "Fishbowl doesn't do that." Save yourself the 6 months of pain and agony and the $20k and go with something that wont destroy your whole Quickbooks company file."

"We made the mistake of not fully evaluating the program before we started using it. You have to wait for a new version, that might include the features we need. The developers appear not to have real world knowledge of what is required to run a manufacturing operation. It would appear that this software was never intended for manufacturing, just internet sales. The support is crap. They are never at their phone, they do not appear to care."

"We liked the sales rep who was prompt and professional. And then we got the software! Once some inventory was uploaded, it was very cumbersome and hard to use. We were sold this simple and seamless order fulfillment with inventory management. It was not! It took many days to get set up. And it took many steps to get orders fulfilled. The software was very hard to use and did not provide the functions that were presented. PO batch printing, batch shipping, automated order closure and email sent to customer. All this was false in our environment.

"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...

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... 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...

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."

"Lost $8,000 dealing with Fishbowl - Terrible/Non-Existent Integration. Terrible Support (read other review sites and even their own forums). Refund Policy = SCAM."

"I took over the IT dept. at the company I now work for. Fishbowl 2014 was a disaster. Everything said about the quickbooks integration failing constantly is absolutely true. We have to restart our server at least a few times a week (on good weeks)... DO NOT BUY INTO THIS SCAM! I am advising my company at every turn to steer far away from this terrible product.

"It's really difficult to find reviews of this software online. Which to me is a major red flag. I can describe Fishbowl in one word: MADDENING."

"Before purchasing the software we were under the impression that the four one-hour remote training sessions would qualify for the Satisfaction Guarantee that would extend the return policy an extra 120 days. They have since then decreased their "Satisfaction Guarantee" to only extend the return policy an extra 60 days. Fishbowl Inventory does not integrate with QuickBooks as well as it claims to, nor does it allow for a third party QuickBooks add-on to communicate properly with QuickBooks. It is very clear the Fishbowl Inventory does not and will not stand behind their product. They also seem to have a way of conveniently making sure their customers go past the 30 day return policy before finding out how terribly Fishbowl Inventory integrates with QuickBooks. The training team did not contact us until they sent an email well past the 30 day return window. Clearly they do not stand behind their own product!"

"Buyer beware when buying Fishbowl Software, they are very difficult to work with and their customer service is atrocious. We purchased Fishbowl Software, found it to be incredibly limiting and unusable in our current business model as well as unaffordable. It took us just over a month to find this out...by then, it was a few days too late to return anything, even though we had purchased the satisfaction guarantee, nothing other than a portion of the software was returnable. Fishbowl was COMPLETELY unwilling to work with us or help us out to return anything else. Their GOTCHA style contract had us just where they wanted us and they milked us for every penny they could. If your business model doesn't fit PERFECTLY into Fishbowl Software, do NOT purchase this software. Most of the employees that work there are very young, inexperienced and know very little about general business processes and procedures. Do not buy Fishbowl!"

"Our company started with Fishbowl Inventory back in August of 2013.  I have to say the sales pitch was far from transparent.  Stay far away from this company!!!"

"Fishbowl Fishbowl Inventory BUYER BEWARE; Fishbowl set-up/integration not done correctly; loss of time, labor - Fishbowl Customer Service was almost non-existent. We bought a satisfaction guaranteed option, but never received a fully functioning product/solution from the very start. On 2 June, 2014 the Fishbowl Solutions Specialist admitted (in writing) the initial set-up/integration was NOT done correctly. Once we were told this information, we cancelled their services within 24-hours. Fishbowl responded that we were "no longer within the warranty period." We are still trying to recover the monies paid to Fishbowl."

"FishBowl Inventory Glitchy product, bait and switch - Do not purchase, software does not function properly and will not ease the flow of business. Rather it will upset all employees and support is HORRIBLE. Will not troubleshoot faulty product."

These are real reviews, from the following websites:

http://technologyadvice.com/products/fishbowl-inventory-reviews/

http://www.capterra.com/retail-management-systems-software/spotlight/123794/Fishbowl/Fishbowl

http://www.ripoffreport.com/reports/fishbowl-inventory/internet/fishbowl-inventory-horrible-choice-for-any-businesss-inventory-internet-1144449

http://www.smallbusinesscomputing.com/biztools/small-business-software-review-fishbowl-inventory-2012-.html

http://www.ripoffreport.com/reports/specific_search/Fishbowl+Inventory