Comparison of Fishbowl and QuickBooks Enterprise (Part 1)

QuickBooks Enterprise is the top-tier version of Intuit’s popular accounting software. It has the best features available to businesses. Let’s see how the very best QuickBooks has to offer stacks up against Fishbowl. Both offer a great deal of inventory management and manufacturing features, as well as plugins and integrations. Let’s take an honest look at both solutions. When QuickBooks outmatches Fishbowl, we’ll point that out and when Fishbowl outmatches QuickBooks, we’ll point that out, too. We’ll begin by going through many of the inventory management features found in Fishbowl and QuickBooks Enterprise.

Costing Methods

Fishbowl: You can use Average, Standard, Last In First Out (LIFO), and First In First Out (FIFO) costing methods. QuickBooks: You can only use Average and FIFO costing methods.

Lot/Serial Numbers

Fishbowl: You can associate both lot and serial numbers with items on a case-by-case basis. QuickBooks: Lot and serial numbers can be associated with every item or no item. However, you can’t associate both with an item. You can only choose one.

Standard Features vs. Upgrades

Fishbowl: The ability to track inventory items by lot number, serial number, expiration date, revision level, and/or custom tracking criteria is a standard feature in Fishbowl. No extra purchase or upgrade is required. QuickBooks: Lot or serial number tracking in QuickBooks requires an upgrade to Advanced Inventory.

Line Items

Fishbowl: You can attach various lot numbers and quantities to items without having to insert them into separate line items. QuickBooks: You can only attach one lot number per line item on an order. Extra lot numbers require separate line items.

On-Hand Quantities

Fishbowl: There is no separation between lot number quantities and item number quantities. QuickBooks: These quantities aren’t connected, so it’s possible to have a lot number quantity higher than the actual on-hand quantity.

Generating Tracking Numbers

Fishbowl: Able to auto-generate a variety of inventory tracking numbers. QuickBooks: Unable to auto-generate lot or serial numbers.

Linking Tracking Numbers by Item

Fishbowl: You can associate lot numbers, serial numbers, expiration dates, and other tracking criteria to a single item. QuickBooks: You can’t associate an item’s expiration date with its lot or serial number.

Invoices and Lot Numbers

Fishbowl: You can’t create an invoice with a lot number that isn’t in the system. QuickBooks: You can create an invoice with a lot number that isn’t in the system, which can cause problems.

Required Tracking Numbers

Fishbowl: You will be required to enter lot numbers, serial numbers, or other tracking numbers when necessary. QuickBooks: There is an option to turn on or off a warning message that reminds you when to add lot numbers. If lot numbers are in use, there may be data entry errors if you attempt to avoid adding them when you’re required to.

Spaces in Tracking Values

Fishbowl: You can insert spaces into tracking values. QuickBooks: You can’t do that in QuickBooks Enterprise.

Due Dates

Fishbowl: You can add due dates to orders and item levels. QuickBooks: You can use Past Due stamps.

Outsourcing

Fishbowl: There is a feature that allows you to outsource processes. QuickBooks: This feature is unavailable in QuickBooks Enterprise.

Barcoding

Fishbowl: Fishbowl Go is an app that can be installed on Android and Apple mobile devices to pick, pack, ship, receive, and fulfill orders. It also helps with making inventory adjustments, transfers, and more. QuickBooks: The mobile inventory barcode scanning features allows items to be picked and added to a sales order or purchase order.

Custom Fields

Fishbowl: There is no limit to the custom fields you can add to Fishbowl’s modules. QuickBooks: You are limited to 15 custom fields in the Item list, and 12 in the Customer, Vendor, and Employee lists with a total limit of 30 between those three.

Other Fields

Fishbowl: By default, Fishbowl includes other fields on the Purchase Order screen to reveal the customer sales order, vendor sales order, date issued, date confirmed, date completed, purchase order revisions, and the user who made the most recent modification to the order. QuickBooks: This feature is unavailable in QuickBooks Enterprise.

Receiving

Fishbowl: You can receive more than what is contained in an order, if necessary. QuickBooks: You can’t receive more than what is contained in an order. Anything extra will have to be added as a separate line item.

Multitasking

Fishbowl: The Purchase Order module lets you receive, reconcile, and fulfill purchase orders all in one place. QuickBooks: Purchase orders, item receipts, and bills must be accessed separately in different windows, so it’s a little more complicated to take care of them.

Automatic Reorder Points

Fishbowl: There is a featured called the Auto ROP, which allows you to automatically assign reorder levels to every part in your inventory. QuickBooks: There is no equivalent feature in QuickBooks. You’ll have to assign reorder levels manually.

Automatic Purchase Orders

Fishbowl: The Auto PO feature lets you automatically generate purchase orders when inventory items hit their reorder points. QuickBooks: This feature is unavailable in QuickBooks Enterprise.

Landed Costs

Fishbowl: There’s a fairly simple process to add landed costs to incoming items. QuickBooks: Adding landed costs requires a much more in-depth and complex manual process.

Picking

Fishbowl: The Picking module shows you all of the orders that are waiting to be picked or already committed. You can print out pick lists and scan barcodes to pick, pack, and ship items. QuickBooks: You can print a simple pick list and scan barcodes to pick items.

Shipping

Fishbowl: You can integrate with a variety of shipping solutions, such as UPS, USPS, FedEx, DHL, Endicia, OnTrac, ShipStation, ShipWorks, and ShipWorks, as well as Fishbowl ShipExpress. Tracking numbers and other data get automatically sent to Fishbowl via these integrations. QuickBooks: There are a variety of Shipping Manager connections, but tracking numbers aren’t automatically added to QuickBooks.

Packing and Shipping

Fishbowl: The Shipping module helps with packing and shipping items. You can monitor tracking numbers, batch ship products, print packing lists, and more. QuickBooks: You can print packing lists.

Next: Manufacturing

We’ll continue next week with Part 2 where we’ll compare the manufacturing features of Fishbowl and QuickBooks Enterprise.