Fishbowl Inventory vs NetSuite: Which is the Winner?

By Kim O'Shaughnessy Inventory Management 3 comments

August 27, 2024

Undoubtedly, you’re already familiar with the massive impact small and mid-sized businesses have on our society and economy. And if you’re reading this article, you’re probably even more aware of the numerous inventory management software companies willing to cater to those SMBs. This abundance of choice is definitely a good thing, but products can start to seem the same with so many options. To save you time and energy, we’ve created an extensive comparison of the top features of Fishbowl Inventory vs NetSuite.

Compare Fishbowl and NetSuite Inventory Against Your Needs

Fishbowl Inventory and NetSuite Supply Chain and Inventory Management are two very similar products with scores that differ by only four points on our Leaderboard. You’ll have to look closely to see which Inventory Management software offers you all the requirements your company needs. Use our comparison chart to see which vendor can provide more of what you need and determine with confidence which system is best for your company.

Features Comparison of Fishbowl inventory vs NetSuite Inventory Management

Features Comparison

Inventory Management

This feature deals with things like cycle counting, outage alerts and product information. Both vendors get a good rating from us and neither one really has any qualities the other doesn’t. Both send stock outage alerts, allow remote inventory control, categorization of inventory, improved visibility and automation of various processes. Either one would be a solid choice when it comes to this feature.

Inventory Traceability

NetSuite enables users to enforce “full traceability” giving this vendor the advantage

Traceability allows your company to track your products and provides an audit trail in case of a recall or similar situation. Both Fishbowl and NetSuite’s capabilities are very similar here, but NetSuite squeezes by with the advantage. Both vendors allow users to track inventory using barcodes, RFID technology and serial numbers.

NetSuite’s capabilities are just a bit more comprehensive and dedicated to full traceability. With this system, you’re able to trace an item back through its entire lifecycle by lot or serial number. Further, all relevant information is recorded on each transaction. This way, there’ll never be a question concerning your products’ whereabouts.

Compare Inventory Management Software Pricing & Costs with our Pricing Guide

Transfer Management

Transfer Management helps you keep track of your product when it moves from one location to another, likely to another warehouse. Fishbowl has good tools for this, both tracking inventory movement and allowing bundling of products. Bundling allows to you to capitalize on unique demand trends in the market which can vary by season or holiday.

With NetSuite’s software, you’re also able to manage stock transfer and tracking. But you’ll need to integrate a third-party solution like Valogix for bundling and kitting capabilities.

Purchasing

Both vendors offer excellent purchasing tools. Fishbowl facilitates the creation of a purchase order (PO) in different currencies and bulk quantities. You can also accept partial quantities. Fishbowl also allows users to customize and upgrade products, save customized lists for quick ordering. Fishbowl provides an interface to manage vendor relationships as well.

Compare Fishbowl and NetSuite Inventory Against Your Needs

NetSuite performs equally terrific, automating the creation and submission of POs with a global perspective in mind. NetSuite provides purchasing tools to enterprise companies, but for small and medium-sized businesses as well. This is especially important for companies that serve around the globe, but might not have the employee count many vendors think of when creating purchasing tools.

Additionally, the actual purchasing interface is very user-friendly, making the entire purchasing console one of the simplest to use throughout the software. It also allows users to receive partial quantities.

Shipping

Fishbowl’s software has outstanding capability when it comes to shipping. It integrates with major shipping businesses like FedEx and USPS and enables users to print the necessary labels.

Like its competitor, NetSuite also provides users with the ability to print product and barcode labels. But this software doesn’t keep pace past that. Multi-carrier shipping is only available through integration of a third-party solution.

Order Management

Fishbowl Inventory Order Management
Order Management is one of the most important features when it comes to improving your customers’ satisfaction. Since it deals with order tracking, customer pricing, returns and multi-channel management, you’ll want to make sure this is a strong component of your inventory management software.

Fishbowl once again goes above and beyond. With this software you’re able to automate order management from selling to purchasing. You’re also able to track orders, generate quotes, manage returns and dictate your customers’ prices. Fishbowl supports pick, pack and ship so you can get your products to your customers in the most efficient and cost-effective way possible. This software allows multi-channel sales and automatic reorder points as well.

NetSuite’s attributes for this feature aren’t as strong but are still very good. Using inventory data, NetSuite gives users the ability to generate and track orders, send quotes and provide prices for customers. It’s also equipped with an excellent system for product returns. NetSuite provides the level of automation needed to reduce errors and streamline your order management.

NetSuite also allows you to set pricing with a comprehensive suite of tools to update prices across all channels taking into account multiple price levels and currencies.

Reporting and Analytics

Fishbowl’s inbuilt reporting and analytics faculties aren’t very strong at all, but there are third-party solutions available that give users much better tools to use. Terabyte Solutions, Lilypad and VA Partners are all certified by Fishbowl and are very easy to integrate. They pick up the slack, offering custom reports, analysis, illustrative dashboards and more. Some of these solutions also come with their own support team, so you don’t have to feel like you’re on your own when you need some help with your plug-ins.

For excellent reporting already built in, you don’t have to go further than NetSuite. This system contains role-based dashboards so every user quickly receives the information most pertinent to their work. The dashboard also allows users to see demand history, which they can use to more effectively plan future strategies. In addition, users can manually enter or import sales forecasts to create more in-depth and well-rounded analytical reports. Users can also choose the scope of the reports, whether they would like to review and edit the demand using a monthly or weekly forecast.

NetSuite’s analytics model also helps with supply management by balancing supply and demand. This component factors in planned and actual orders, multiple locations and your vendor relationships.

Who Wins?

NetSuite and Fishbowl Inventory both have their strengths and weaknesses. Fishbowl lacks inbuilt reporting whereas NetSuite lacks a transfer management component. However, Fishbowl does directly support third-party analytics tools while NetSuite does not offer the same for transfer management.

Additionally, Fishbowl wins three advantages while NetSuite only wins two. So while Fishbowl Inventory is ultimately the winner between the two, the vendor does not win by a landslide. The systems are still very comparable and when you compare NetSuite vs Fishbowl Inventory you may find NetSuite to ultimately be the better fit.

Do you agree with our analysis of the two products? Do you think we should have compared them using other metrics? We’re always looking to improve, so feel free to let us know your thoughts in the comments below!

Compare Fishbowl and NetSuite Inventory Against Your Needs