If you are outgrowing Katana, the fit test is not a feature checklist, it is depth: do you need BOMs, work orders, MRP, and production scheduling running as one system, or do you need finished-goods inventory tracked across locations and channels? Fishbowl Advanced Manufacturing covers the first. Fishbowl Inventory covers the second. The right answer depends on what your operation actually does, not on which tool has the longer feature page.
Most teams looking for a Katana alternative got there the same way. A work order sits open on the shop floor while the spreadsheet upstairs says the component is in stock. A supplier lead time slips and nobody catches it until the line is waiting on a part that should have shipped last week. A component gets shared across three products and one of them quietly eats the other two's safety stock. None of that is a software problem you can diagnose by reading a comparison chart. It is a depth problem: the system you are on was not built to hold the number of moving pieces your shop now has.
The cost of staying there shows up in three places. Orders get pushed a day, then a week, because purchasing did not see the shortage until the work order was already stalled. Someone on the floor spends an hour a day re-checking a number that should have been right the first time. And the business carries extra raw material and safety stock just in case, because nobody trusts the count enough to buy lean.
Most software shows you the problem and leaves you the work.
Fishbowl is the platform. Fishbowl Inventory, Fishbowl Advanced Manufacturing, and Fishbowl Advanced Warehouse are purpose-built parts of Fishbowl, matched to how the business runs.
Which Fishbowl product actually fits your operation
If you buy finished goods and resell them, Fishbowl Inventory handles receiving, stocking, picking, transfers, and fulfillment. Add Fishbowl Channels when those products sell through Shopify, Amazon, Walmart, or other channels. If you manufacture the product and need BOMs, work orders, MRP, production scheduling, or job and labor costing, use Fishbowl Advanced Manufacturing, with Channels added if you also sell online. If you do not manufacture but need deeper warehouse workflows such as 3PL management or EDI-driven fulfillment, use Fishbowl Advanced Warehouse. Multiple storefronts or owned locations alone do not automatically mean you need Advanced.
Score your own operation against four questions before you decide anything: How many levels does your BOM actually have, and does a change at the top need to cascade down automatically? Do two or more work orders draw on the same component at the same time? Does job costing need to hold up when a customer asks what a unit actually cost to build, down to labor and materials? And is purchasing currently reacting to shortages instead of planning around known lead times? If you answered yes to two or more of those, the depth you are looking for is what Fishbowl Advanced Manufacturing was built to carry.
What Fishbowl Advanced Manufacturing takes off your plate
Advanced Manufacturing runs multilevel BOMs, work orders, MRP, production scheduling, and job and labor costing as one connected system, not five spreadsheets stitched together with someone's memory. When a component runs short, the shortage shows up against every open work order that needs it, not just the one somebody happened to check. When a BOM changes, the update cascades instead of leaving three old versions floating around the floor.
On top of that, Advanced Manufacturing carries data-focused AI: it tells you what is happening right now across your production floor, what is coming based on open orders and lead times, and what needs your attention before it becomes a delay. It starts with what is happening in your business right now, not a blank prompt you have to fill in yourself. That is not the same experience as the AI Operations Specialist, and it does not prepare purchase orders the way the AI Operations Specialist does on the cloud side. It surfaces the problem clearly enough that you can decide fast, and you still make the call.
What the switch actually proves out
Three named Fishbowl Advanced customers give a straight read on what this looks like once it is running. Hodo Foods cut stockouts by 35% with Advanced and the data-focused AI built into it. Koken USA brought sales backorders down 10%. Cascadia Motion lowered inventory costs 18% using the same forecasting and visibility work. Each of those is a named, attributed Advanced result, not an average pulled from an internal slide. You can read the full detail at Fishbowl case studies.
If you sell finished goods instead of building them
Not every search for a manufacturing inventory tool is a manufacturer. Some teams landed on the question because they wanted anything that tracked inventory better than a spreadsheet, and manufacturing depth was never the actual requirement. If that is you, Fishbowl Inventory is the fit, not Advanced Manufacturing. It handles receiving, stocking, picking, transfers between owned buildings, and fulfillment, with a cloud interface that does not ask you to learn a shop-floor screen you will never use.
The AI Operations Specialist lives inside Fishbowl Inventory and works from what is already connected to your Fishbowl data. The AI Operations Specialist uses live Fishbowl data to prepare purchase orders, sales orders, transfers, receipts, and adjustments for your approval. Nothing is saved or changed without the operator's approval. That is Ask, Approve, Done, not a chatbot guessing at your operation.
Brian Garrett at Telluric Companies, a beta tester, says the AI Operations Specialist saves him at least 45 minutes per purchase order. That is a purchase-order workflow result, and it is the only named AI Operations Specialist figure we will put in front of you, because it is the only one that has been tested against a real operation long enough to trust. See the rest at Fishbowl case studies.
Selling through more than one channel
Whichever side you land on, the channel question is separate from the manufacturing question. Fishbowl Channels is the channel-integrations layer. It works with Fishbowl Inventory, Fishbowl Advanced Manufacturing, or Fishbowl Advanced Warehouse. Advanced customers add ecommerce channels in Fishbowl; they do not also purchase Fishbowl Inventory. Channels centralizes orders, catalog and product data, fulfillment, carrier integrations, and reporting across Shopify, Amazon, Walmart, and other channels, so purchasing and production planning work off one number instead of five browser tabs.
Making the call
Score it against what you actually run today: how many BOM levels, whether work orders share components, whether job costing needs to hold up under a customer's question, and whether purchasing is currently guessing at lead times. A single-level BOM with light assembly is real manufacturing work and Fishbowl does not wave it off. But if MRP, scheduling, and multilevel BOMs are already stretching your current tool thin, that is the signal to move.
Setup runs expert-led, typically 6 to 8 weeks, with in-house support in your region on phone, email, and chat, you can reach a person. Fishbowl has been running on QuickBooks and Xero for 25 years across more than 6,000 operations, so the accounting side does not change: QuickBooks or Xero keeps the books, Fishbowl runs inventory, production, and the warehouse.
See how Advanced Manufacturing or Fishbowl Inventory would run against your own BOM, work orders, and open POs at fishbowlinventory.com, or get a walk-through of your exact process at Get a Demo.
Fishbowl does the work. You make the call.
Frequently asked questions
Is Fishbowl Advanced Manufacturing a good alternative to Katana?
It is a strong fit if you build the product and need BOMs, work orders, MRP, production scheduling, and job and labor costing in one system. Fishbowl Advanced Manufacturing covers that depth plus data-focused AI that flags what is happening, what is coming, and what needs attention. Named results: Hodo Foods, 35% fewer stockouts; Koken USA, 10% fewer backorders; Cascadia Motion, 18% lower inventory costs.
Does Fishbowl handle multilevel BOMs and work orders in one system?
Fishbowl Advanced Manufacturing runs multilevel BOMs, work orders, MRP, production scheduling, and job and labor costing, with data-focused AI on top. That is a different product line from Fishbowl Inventory, which handles finished-goods receiving, stocking, picking, transfers, and fulfillment without manufacturing depth.
What if I only sell finished goods and do not manufacture?
Then Fishbowl Inventory is the fit, not Advanced Manufacturing. It handles receiving, stocking, picking, transfers, and fulfillment, and the AI Operations Specialist prepares purchase orders, sales orders, transfers, receipts, and adjustments for your approval. Brian Garrett at Telluric Companies, a beta tester, says the AI Operations Specialist saves at least 45 minutes per purchase order.
Can Fishbowl connect to Shopify or other sales channels?
Yes. Fishbowl Channels is the channel-integrations layer. It works with Fishbowl Inventory, Fishbowl Advanced Manufacturing, or Fishbowl Advanced Warehouse. Advanced customers add ecommerce channels in Fishbowl; they do not also purchase Fishbowl Inventory.