From Fishbowl Inventory

Q: What is Fishbowl Inventory?

A: It is full-scale, inventory-control software designed for companies that are currently using either QuickBooks or spreadsheets to track their inventory.

Q: What are Fishbowl Inventory modules?

A: Fishbowl Inventory is designed to allow the user to easily select an inventory item, observe the properties of that item (ie: quantity, location, tracking parameters, and detailed allocation), then easily adjust inventory levels and properties without having to sort through multiple screens to reference or edit the data. The Fishbowl organization of inventory information into modules gives our clients the ability to view their inventory at a glance. See Key Features for more details.

Q: Does your inventory control software have a Bill-of-Materials?

A: Yes. For a more detailed overview of Fishbowl's ability to handle Bills-of-Materials, please see our 10-Minute Test Drive.

Q: Can I run Fishbowl Inventory without integrating with QuickBooks?

A: Yes. You can run Fishbowl Inventory as a standalone product. You need to integrate Fishbowl Inventory with QuickBooks only if you want to import data from QuickBooks or have Fishbowl Inventory send accounting transactions to QuickBooks.

Q: Which functions does Fishbowl Inventory take over from QuickBooks? How does Fishbowl Inventory integrate with QuickBooks?

A: Fishbowl Inventory takes over all inventory functions from QuickBooks. Sales and purchase transactions fulfilled in Fishbowl will automatically post "Invoices" and "Vendor Bills," respectively, to QuickBooks. As manual adjustments are made to Fishbowl's inventory levels, any affected accounting data will be exported to update the General Ledger in QuickBooks.

Q: Is Fishbowl Inventory Scalable?

A: Fishbowl Inventory runs on the Firebird database engine: a very fast, reliable, efficient database. This means that as your data accumulates and the complexity of your business increases, you will not be constrained by this virtually unlimited database.

Q: On which platforms does Fishbowl Inventory run?

A: Fishbowl Inventory Server and Client will run on Windows and Linux platforms. Fishbowl Client can run on the Mac platform. Please note that in order to integrate with QB, the server must be on the Windows platform.

Q: Will Fishbowl Inventory run on Windows 95 or 98?

A: The Windows version of Fishbowl Inventory will not run on Windows 95. And, while it may run on a specific configuration of Windows 98, we cannot support Windows 98 because it is becoming obsolete and lacks native Java components. We recommend Windows 2000 or newer as a Windows operating system.

Q: What are the hardware requirements for Fishbowl Inventory?

A: The Client should have 1024 x 768 screen resolution or greater, a 2 GHz processor (or greater), at least 512 MB RAM, and 1 GB of free space on the hard drive. For a Server, you should have a 2 GHz processor (or greater), at least 1 GB RAM, and 1 GB of free disk space on the hard drive. For a more detailed list of requirements please view our system hardware requirements page.

Q: Which versions of QuickBooks does Fishbowl Inventory integrate with?

A: Fishbowl Inventory 5.0 or later only integrate with QuickBooks 2007 (or later) - Pro, Premier, and Enterprise Editions. It does NOT integrate with the QuickBooks Basic or QuickBooks POS editions. Fishbowl Inventory 4.5, 4.6 and 4.7 integrates with the latest release of QuickBooks version 2003 (or later)- Pro, Premier, and Enterprise Editions. It does NOT integrate with the QuickBooks Basic or QuickBooks POS editions.

Q: Which features does Fishbowl Inventory have that appeal to the independent manufacturer or wholesale/distributor?

A: Fishbowl Inventory gives awesome functionality to the manufacturer and wholesaler with:

• Multiple warehousing
  * Specific inventory locations
  * Lot, revision, expiration date, and serial number tracking
  * Auto-purchasing for re-order points and backordered parts
  * Outsourcing
  * Dropshipping
  * Consignment management
  * RMA Tracking
  * Flexible pricing levels
  * Landed Costs and Purchase Order Reconciliation
  * LIFO, FIFO, Standard and Average Costing accounting methods
  * Pick lists, packing slips
  * Finished goods possessing Bills-of-Materials
  * Work Order generation for manufacturing, repair, and disassembly
  * Staging with work orders
  * Auto-Work orders for staying up to designated levels and sub-assemblies
  * Basic Point-of-Sale capability
  * Extensive Reporting
  * and much more

See Key Features for more details.

Q: Does Fishbowl Inventory handle multicurrency?

A: Not currently.

Q: Can you attach files to records in Fishbowl Inventory? Like an Excel or Word file?

A: Yes, in Fishbowl's "Materials" modules, various URLs are available for ready reference to files on your PC or the Internet.

Q: Can Fishbowl Inventory print bar codes?

A: Yes. Fishbowl Inventory prints bar codes in various standard formats. Custom bar-code labeling is available through iReport, an open source report writer that comes bundled with Fishbowl Inventory.

Q: Does Fishbowl Inventory track work in progress?

A: Fishbowl Inventory has some WIP functionality and is continually developing to improve its WIP compliancy.

Q: Can part numbers be exported to QuickBooks?

A: No; because Fishbowl is a robust inventory-control software, we strongly encourage QuickBooks users to disable purchasing and inventory tracking in QuickBooks after the Fishbowl Integration.

Q: Is Fishbowl Inventory ODBC compliant?

A: The database is ODBC compliant and therefore can maintain ODBC connections with other compliant programs, such as Crystal Reports, Wasp Bar-coding software, and Microsoft Access.

Q: What is the maximum number of items I can have in Fishbowl Inventory?

A: Fishbowl Inventory has no limit to the amount of inventory items you can manage in your database.

Q: Does Fishbowl Inventory 5.0 run on Vista?

A: Yes. Note: For QuickBooks integration, User Access Control must be turned on. For Fishbowl Inventory 4.7, you must install in compatibility mode as 'admin' (administrator).