G2 Customer Reviews
What do you like best about Stok.ly – Inventory-Centric Cloud ERP?
“we have been a user for the last 4 years and we cannot think of life without it for our retail business. it makes listing to shopify and other marketplaces easy, keeps inventory accurate online and the POS is easy to use. accurate inventory across all sales channels is the big win for us.”
Trust your stock. Transfer with confidence. Control orders. Fulfill every day like clockwork.
Fishbowl vs Stok.ly for cost and profitability visibility: at a glance
- Why compared now: Operators running Fishbowl report that custom reporting is difficult to obtain and that the full configured cost — edition, add-ons, implementation and connectors — frequently exceeds the published starting price.
- Where Stok.ly leads: Gross margin, GMROII and stockout risk are computed daily per SKU inside the platform, without a separate add-on or BI configuration step.
- Where Fishbowl leads: Fishbowl Advanced documents inventory costing, landed-cost reconciliation, sales margin analysis and more than 180 built-in reports across an established manufacturing and warehouse platform.
- Price position: Fishbowl publishes plans from £150/month; forecasting is an add-on on lower tiers, and implementation is a separate, required purchase.
- Honest verdict: Fishbowl has real costing and reporting functionality; whether it surfaces the margin and risk data your buying decisions actually require depends on edition, add-ons and configuration — which is exactly where Stok.ly differs structurally.
Order management and inventory ERP software for growing retail, wholesale and distribution businesses.
| Capability | Why it matters | Fishbowl | Stok.ly | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Where Fishbowl leads | ||||
| Manufacturing order and work order management | Keeps production and sales demand linked without manual bridging | Native. Manufacture orders, work orders and BOM-driven production are documented and established as part of Fishbowl Advanced’s core scope, not an add-on. Sales demand can originate production, and Advanced Mobile supports handheld work-order completion including Finish. | Native. Stok.ly’s Sales-Order-Driven Purchase Order and Manufacturing Run Creation associates a manufacturing run directly with its originating sales order line, keeping fulfilment planning tightly linked to real demand without switching between modules. | Fishbowl documentation, September 2026 |
| Replenishment planning with automatic PO and MO creation | Removes manual buyer effort to decide when and how much to order | Native. Fishbowl documents min/max replenishment, Auto PO and Auto MO against finished-goods reorder levels. Independent reviewers confirm meaningful time savings moving away from physical stock inspection to automated reorder triggers. | Native. Stok.ly’s Automated Reorder Point & Safety Stock Calculation derives a statistically grounded safety stock buffer and exact reorder level from real demand variability and supplier lead time, removing per-SKU manual calculation by buyers. | Fishbowl documentation + independent reviews (G2, May 2024), September 2026 |
| Accounting integration (QuickBooks and Xero) | Eliminates manual journal entry and keeps stock and finance reconciled | Native. QuickBooks and Xero connectivity is documented. Independent reviewers report that the Xero integration streamlined bookkeeping and supported a positive transition from Xero’s own stock functionality. UK/Global QuickBooks support is marked limited in published requirements; verify your accounting product before purchase. | Native. Stok.ly’s Accounting Integration & Mapping covers Xero, all QuickBooks versions including Enterprise self-hosted, Sage 50/200/Cloud, Microsoft Dynamics, Zoho, FreeAgent, iPlicit and Accounts IQ. Sales orders, purchase orders, invoices and credit notes push out; payment reconciliation data pulls back and updates ecommerce channel order status automatically. | Fishbowl documentation + independent reviews (Xero App Store, April and August 2025), September 2026 |
| Where outcomes differ by workflow | ||||
| Scheduled Automated Fulfilment Rule Execution | Ensures warehouse staff arrive to pre-queued picks with no manual processing | Fishbowl documents picking and batch shipping workflows, and a Schedule function for imports/exports exists, but a mechanism that runs fulfilment rules at set times and pushes ready picks to handheld devices automatically before shift start was not found in published sources. | Native. Stok.ly runs fulfilment and pick rules on a configurable schedule — for example, 8 am before staff arrive and again during the afternoon. Eligible orders are processed into goods-out notes and picks are pushed to handheld devices automatically, so staff begin picking immediately on arrival with no manual release step. | Fishbowl documentation, September 2026 |
| Sales-Order-Driven Purchase Order and Manufacturing Run Creation | Prevents fulfilment planning from drifting away from real customer demand | Fishbowl documents sales-to-purchase-order creation and sales/manufacturing linkage, but the specific workflow of creating a PO, assigning to an existing PO, or creating a manufacturing run directly from a sales order line was not confirmed in published sources at this level of granularity. | Native. From any sales order line, Stok.ly lets users create a new purchase order, assign stock to an existing PO, or trigger a manufacturing run — all without leaving the order. This keeps every procurement and production decision traceable back to the originating customer demand. | Fishbowl documentation, September 2026 |
| Promotions, Net Price Lists & Lowest-Price-Wins Engine | Ensures customers always receive their best entitled price without manual override | Native. Fishbowl documents automatic pricing rules by customer, group, quantity, date and cost-related criteria. Note: automatic reassignment of a customer between pricing tiers based on cumulative spend was not established in published sources; verify this specific requirement in a live demo. | Native. Stok.ly supports standard retail price, trade pricing bands, customer-specific net price lists, timed promotions with quantity breaks, and a lowest-price-wins toggle. Promotions carry start/end dates, priority levels and can be attached to customer groups or individual customers. | Fishbowl documentation, September 2026 |
| Channel-Specific Availability Rules | Prevents overselling on one channel from draining stock reserved for another | Fishbowl’s WooCommerce documentation references selected location groups and different availability calculations, which may support channel segregation, but independent per-channel stock exposure control at the rule level was not confirmed in published sources. | Native. Stok.ly’s Channel-Specific Availability Rules control exactly how much stock each sales channel — wholesale, B2C, ePOS — can see and sell, preventing one channel from consuming inventory allocated to another without requiring physical stock separation. | Fishbowl documentation, September 2026 |
| Composite / Kitted Product Availability Control | Shows accurate sellable bundle quantities from live component stock in real time | Fishbowl documents BOM-driven manufacture orders for assembled products, but continuous real-time recalculation of how many finished kits or bundles can be sold from current component stock at the sales-channel level was not confirmed in published sources. | Native. Stok.ly supports composite and kitted products built from simple and manufactured items, then continuously recalculates how many finished bundles can be sold from current component stock — keeping channel-facing availability figures accurate without manual updates. | Fishbowl documentation, September 2026 |
| Optimised Pick Path and Pick Sequence Control | Cuts travel time per pick run and reduces warehouse congestion | Fishbowl documents grouped and batch picking, and location sorting is configurable, but the specific ability to sequence pick lists by heaviest first, largest volume first, or furthest-from-pack-station was not confirmed in published sources. | Native. Stok.ly organises pick lists by heaviest item first, largest volume first, furthest from pack station to pack station, or alphanumeric order — selectable by warehouse priority — so each pick run follows the most efficient physical path through the warehouse. | Fishbowl documentation, September 2026 |
| Location-Specific Min/Max Replenishment Rules | Matches reorder thresholds to each location’s real demand rather than a single average | Fishbowl documents min/max replenishment and multi-location transfer orders, but distinct, independently configurable reorder thresholds per location — central warehouse, store and depot managed separately — was not confirmed in published sources. | Native. Stok.ly’s Location-Specific Min/Max Replenishment Rules apply different reorder thresholds per location, so a central warehouse, a retail store and a depot each trigger replenishment at the level that reflects their own demand profile, not a single blended figure. | Fishbowl documentation, September 2026 |
| Multi-Entity B2C Aggregation with Separate Accounting Integration | Keeps wholesale and retail finances legally separated on one inventory instance | Fishbowl documents location groups and separate accounting integration targets, but operating multiple legal entities — each with its own ecommerce channels and its own connected accounting system — on a single Fishbowl instance was not confirmed in published sources. | Native. Stok.ly runs multiple legal entities on one instance — for example, a wholesale company and a separate retail company — linking B2C channels such as Shopify, Amazon and eBay to their respective entity and a separate QuickBooks or accounting system, while maintaining unified inventory visibility across both. | Fishbowl documentation, September 2026 |
| Integrated ePOS for Retail and Trade | Keeps walk-in and trade counter sales in the same inventory and order system | Native. Fishbowl Checkout is a documented desktop POS application with scanner, barcode and payment functionality. It is a separate application from Shopify POS integration. Full offline capability and B2B trade-account pricing at the point of sale were not confirmed in published sources; verify for your use case. | Native. Stok.ly’s Integrated ePOS for Retail and Trade runs on Android, Windows and iOS, delivers real-time inventory sync, handles both B2C walk-in and B2B trade customers with automated pricing, credit limits and account balances, and pushes every transaction into the back office as a sales order ready for pick, pack, dispatch or delivery. | Fishbowl documentation, September 2026 |
| Serial Number and Batch Number Capture and Search | Provides traceability across all orders for compliance and recall response | Fishbowl documents inventory tracking and mobile scanning, but the specific combination of capturing serial and batch numbers against sales orders, scanning them during order processing, and searching across all sales orders by serial or batch number was not confirmed in published sources at this level of detail. | Native. Stok.ly captures serial and batch numbers against sales orders, supports scanning them in during order processing, and provides search across all sales orders to locate a specific serial or batch number. The capability is functional and operational, though described internally as basic rather than deeply invested in. | Fishbowl documentation, September 2026 |
| Store Replenishment Engine | Automates stock movement from central warehouse to stores based on demand | Fishbowl documents transfer orders and multi-location inventory management, but a dedicated store replenishment engine that drives automatic warehouse-to-store stock movement was not confirmed in published sources. | Native. Stok.ly’s Store Replenishment Engine automates stock movement from central warehouse locations to individual stores, keeping each store stocked in line with its demand without requiring manual transfer orders to be raised each cycle. | Fishbowl documentation, September 2026 |
| Supplier-Based Replenishment Logic | Keeps purchase orders aligned with each supplier’s real lead times and minimums | Native. Fishbowl documents Auto PO creation, vendor-part information and purchasing dashboards reporting supplier lead times from received activity. This supports supplier-aware replenishment, though automatic adjustment of order timing to individual supplier lead time changes was not confirmed in published sources. | Native. Stok.ly’s Supplier-Based Replenishment Logic automates supplier ordering by taking each supplier’s specific lead times, minimum order quantities and reorder rules into account, so purchase orders are generated at the right time and in the right quantity for each supplier relationship. | Fishbowl documentation, September 2026 |
| Transfer Variance Handling | Catches and records stock discrepancies during inter-location transfers before they corrupt on-hand figures | Fishbowl documents transfer orders including shipping, receiving, moves and putaway, but a specific workflow for identifying, recording and resolving quantity variances that arise between dispatch and receipt of a transfer was not confirmed in published sources. | Native. Stok.ly’s Transfer Variance Handling captures discrepancies between the quantity dispatched and the quantity received on an inter-location transfer, recording the variance explicitly so it can be investigated and resolved rather than silently updating on-hand stock with an incorrect figure. | Fishbowl documentation, September 2026 |
| Reverse Inventory State Control | Prevents returned stock from re-entering available inventory before it is inspected | Fishbowl documents RMA workflows covering refund, replacement, repair and cross-shipping options, but a granular state-management layer that controls which inventory state returned stock enters — quarantine, resaleable, write-off — and prevents premature availability was not confirmed in published sources. | Native. Stok.ly’s Reverse Inventory State Control manages the state of returned stock through configurable stages — for example, quarantine, inspection passed, write-off — ensuring returned items only become available for resale once they have been explicitly cleared, with full visibility of stock held in each state. | Fishbowl documentation, September 2026 |
| Return Reason Analytics | Identifies which products and suppliers generate the most returns so root causes can be addressed | Fishbowl documents RMA workflows and more than 180 built-in reports, but a dedicated return reason analytics layer — capturing structured return reasons and surfacing patterns by product, supplier or channel — was not confirmed in published sources. Customer reviews note that some reporting outputs are difficult to obtain. | Native. Stok.ly’s Return Reason Analytics tracks the cause recorded against every return, enabling managers to identify which SKUs, suppliers or channels drive the highest return volumes and take corrective action before margin is further eroded. | Fishbowl documentation + independent reviews (Capterra, April 2026), September 2026 |
| Automated Return Label Deduction Button | Recovers return postage costs consistently without relying on staff memory | Fishbowl documents RMA refund and credit workflows, but a dedicated single-click button within the returns workflow that automatically deducts a configured return label cost from the refund total was not confirmed in published sources. | Native. Stok.ly’s Automated Return Label Deduction Button deducts a pre-configured amount — for example, £3.25 for a Royal Mail label — from the refund total in a single click during return processing, ensuring consistent cost recovery across every return transaction without manual calculation. | Fishbowl documentation, September 2026 |
| Stock App Quantity Adjustment Permission Control | Enforces barcode scanning discipline and reduces manual keying errors in the warehouse | Fishbowl documents Advanced Mobile with receiving, picking and stock-count workflows, and location-group access controls, but a specific permission setting that disables manual quantity adjustment buttons on the handheld to enforce scan-only entry was not confirmed in published sources. | Native. Stok.ly’s Stock App Quantity Adjustment Permission Control disables the plus and minus quantity buttons on the Stock App handheld for any user role where scan-only entry is required, forcing staff to scan barcodes during receiving, picking and stock counting and removing the manual keying errors that bypass scanning discipline. | Fishbowl documentation, September 2026 |
| Third-Party App Store & Developer Portal | Gives buyers a fast-track route to custom features without waiting in the vendor’s development queue | Fishbowl documents a REST API and SPS integration, and notes that upgrade compatibility warnings distinguish API-based integrations from custom plugins. An open app store or developer portal where customers can commission accredited third-party agencies and receive functionality immediately was not confirmed in published sources. | Native. Stok.ly’s Third-Party App Store & Developer Portal lets customers commission custom features from accredited agencies or any developer. Customers pay the developer directly and receive the functionality immediately, without entering Stok.ly’s own development queue — giving buyers direct control over the pace and priority of bespoke development. | Fishbowl documentation, September 2026 |
Why businesses running Fishbowl start looking at inventory management software alternatives
The accounts below come from operators who contacted Stok.ly because something in their operation had stopped working well enough. They are not a representative sample of every Fishbowl customer — most implementations that fit the workflow they were configured for stay in place. What follows describes the specific gaps that pushed a subset of users to re-evaluate, not a verdict on Fishbowl as a whole.
Margin and profitability data exists in reports, but not at the moment of a buying or replenishment decision
Fishbowl Advanced documents inventory costing, landed-cost reconciliation and a Sales Dashboard with margin-related measures. The pattern reported by some users, however, is that the analysis lives in a report you pull after the fact — not in the workflow where the decision is made. A buyer raising a purchase order, or a sales manager reviewing a customer account, has to leave the transaction, run a report, and carry a number back. For operations where margin per SKU varies materially by supplier, channel and order size, that gap between the data and the decision point becomes a recurring source of error. The structural root cause is that Fishbowl’s costing and its purchasing or sales workflows are connected through reporting rather than through a live commercial layer attached to each transaction. Stok.ly’s daily snapshot pre-computes gross margin recognised at fulfilment, GMROII over 30, 60 and 90 days, and a 0–1 stockout risk score for every SKU at every location, so the commercial answer exists at the moment of the purchasing or fulfilment decision rather than requiring a separate query.
Forecasting is available as an add-on, but some customers find it does not fit their planning workflow without significant configuration
Fishbowl documents a Forecast add-on, and its Auto Purchasing feature supports min/max replenishment and automatic purchase order creation. Whitney S., reviewing on G2 in May 2024, describes meaningful time savings from moving away from physically checking stock to using minimum levels and automatic PO creation. That is a genuine, documented strength. What a separate group of users report is that the forecasting add-on, as configured in their installation, did not produce the forward-looking signal they needed for seasonal demand, variable lead times or SKU-level stockout risk — and that closing that gap required either additional configuration work or external tools. The distinction between having a forecasting module and having demand intelligence embedded in the daily purchasing workflow is where some operators find the fit breaks down. Stok.ly pre-computes a trend-adjusted forecast, a lead-time-aware reorder point, days of cover and a demand variability score for every SKU every day, feeding directly into purchasing without a separate add-on or report step.
Reporting flexibility becomes a constraint as reporting needs grow more specific
Fishbowl Advanced documents more than 180 built-in reports and a BI reporting editor. The complaints in independent reviews are not that reporting is absent — they are that obtaining a specific output, particularly one that crosses operational domains (production, sales, inventory, landed cost), requires more effort than the operation can sustain. Andrew B., reviewing on Capterra in April 2026, specifically flags the need for better custom reporting. Krista, also on Capterra in April 2026, describes an unsuccessful attempt to obtain a production-list report. The pattern is consistent with a system where individual domain reports are well established but cross-domain or non-standard outputs require customisation that some implementations cannot deliver reliably. Stok.ly holds inventory position, valuation, commercial margin and demand statistics in a single daily snapshot, so the figures needed for a profitability, valuation or replenishment report are drawn from one consistent data layer rather than assembled across separate modules.
Integration reliability and the cost of keeping connections working
Fishbowl supports ecommerce channel connectivity through individual plugins and through its Commerce component, and accounting integration through QuickBooks and Xero. The evidence from independent reviews is mixed in a specific way: successful implementations report genuine value from the Xero connection (Fengling Ye and Nella Adamo, Xero App Store), while other users describe integration problems that required repeated support contact and, in some cases, manual workarounds. Joseph E., reviewing on G2 in September 2025, describes the system’s rigidity creating manual integration work, while valuing its production and inventory discipline. Rhys J., on G2 in January 2025, reports a difficult GST setup that was ultimately resolved. The release notes for Fishbowl Advanced 26.9, published September 2026, record fixes for accounting exports stopping after a failed order and for post-shipment cost-reconciliation entries being dated incorrectly for QuickBooks Online and Xero — confirming that these were real, documented defects, subsequently remediated. For operations where a channel or accounting integration going wrong stops fulfilment or closes the books late, the reliability of the connection matters as much as its existence. Stok.ly’s integrations are pre-built and maintained by Stok.ly, with no middleware to license or integration partner to commission, so the maintenance burden sits with the platform rather than the customer.
Technical escalation can be slow when a problem reaches a level above first-line support
Front-line Fishbowl support receives genuine praise in independent reviews — Zamin B. on G2 and Nella Adamo on the Xero App Store both describe helpful, knowledgeable support. The complaint pattern that appears in a separate group of reviews concerns what happens when a problem cannot be resolved at first contact and requires escalation to a developer or product team. Timothy H., reviewing on Capterra in April 2026, describes programmer-level issues taking over a year to resolve despite generally positive interactions with support staff. Anne-Marie Rosselli, on the Xero App Store in August 2026, reports repeated calls and slow troubleshooting. These are not evidence that Fishbowl support is uniformly poor — the positive reviews are real — but they do indicate that the path from a reported defect to a confirmed fix can be lengthy for problems that cannot be resolved through configuration or user training. For operations where a warehouse or integration problem directly stops revenue, the time-to-resolution at escalation level is a meaningful operational risk.
A note on what these triggers represent: every account above comes from an operator who reached out because something in their operation was not working well enough. That is a self-selecting group. Fishbowl has a substantially larger installed base whose implementations are not represented here — including customers who report genuine operational value from its manufacturing, replenishment, accounting and warehouse capabilities. The triggers above describe the boundary conditions where a specific workflow need outgrew a specific configuration, not the central experience of the platform.
What does Stok.ly do differently from Fishbowl for cost and profitability visibility?
Fishbowl documents inventory costing, landed-cost reconciliation and a Sales Dashboard. Where buyers consistently report friction is not the absence of a feature name, but whether the analysis they need — margin per SKU, stockout cost, reorder timing — is ready at the moment a purchasing or fulfilment decision actually needs to be made. Stok.ly is built around that decision moment. The four structural differences below are where the gap is real and measurable.
AI inventory management: which stock is worth reordering
Stok.ly is AI-native. Demand forecasting, stockout risk scoring and margin analysis are computed inside the platform for every SKU at every location, every day, and fed directly into purchasing. The Stok.ly daily snapshot carries the inventory position and valuation alongside the commercial layer: gross margin recognised at fulfilment, GMROII over 30, 60 and 90-day windows, demand statistics and variability, days since last demand, and recorded stockout days. Forward-looking figures sit alongside those: a demand trend ratio, a trend-adjusted forecast, statistical safety stock at a 95% service level, a lead-time-aware reorder point, days of cover, and a 0–1 stockout risk score per SKU. Because Stok.ly pre-computes the analysis rather than querying it on demand, the answer exists at the moment of the decision — not after a report is run and a spreadsheet is opened.
Fishbowl’s AI Insights is documented as a ConverSight-powered integration with a default daily refresh cycle. That is not the same as pre-computed, per-SKU commercial analysis embedded in the purchasing workflow. For buyers comparing inventory management software on the depth of cost and profitability intelligence, the structural difference is where the computation lives and when the output is available.
See how Stok.ly demand forecasting, GMROII and stockout risk scoring work in practice
Product data: build it once, list it everywhere
The cost operators consistently underestimate is not stock — it is product data. When an inventory platform and each sales channel each hold their own version of a product record, every new line is created twice and every change is made twice. Stok.ly holds product information once and pushes it outward. Attributes, variants, images, barcodes, dimensions, pricing and channel-specific content all live against a single product record. Listings are created and updated from that record. Bulk listing and bulk editing apply a price change, a description update or a new attribute across every SKU and every connected channel in one action — not one channel at a time.
Fishbowl Commerce documents a Product Information Manager, variants, channel attributes and bulk catalogue workflows. Buyers should verify whether that functionality covers their specific channel mix and whether bulk updates propagate to all connected storefronts without manual reconciliation steps between Commerce and Advanced.
See how Stok.ly product information management and bulk listing work across channels
Integrations that connect without a project
Every platform publishes an integration count. What matters is what connecting one actually costs in time, money and ongoing fragility. Stok.ly’s integrations are pre-built, maintained by Stok.ly, and configured rather than developed: no middleware to licence, no connector to commission, no integration partner to pay. That covers 200-plus ecommerce channels and marketplaces syncing stock, orders, pricing and fulfilment status in real time; 150-plus couriers and freight partners with rates, labels, manifests and tracking at dispatch; and 20-plus accounting packages including Sage, Xero, QuickBooks and Microsoft Dynamics.
Fishbowl’s connection structure is genuinely varied — individual channel plugins, Commerce as an intermediary layer, ShipExpress via Shippo, ShipStation as an alternative, and API access for custom builds. Each path is a separate integration design, and Fishbowl’s own 2026 release notes contain upgrade-compatibility warnings affecting Fishbowl Anywhere and custom plugins. Buyers evaluating integration reliability as a cost and profitability concern — because broken connections create unreconciled orders and inaccurate stock valuations — should compare the total scoped configuration, not the logo count.
See Stok.ly’s pre-built ecommerce, courier and accounting integrations
Orders drive execution, and rules remove the decisions
In Stok.ly, the sales order is the operational controller: allocation, reservation, routing, fulfilment priority and exception handling including returns all run from it. An order that meets its configured conditions moves to pick without anyone deciding it should. One that does not — a credit hold, a partial-stock situation, a pre-allocated line — is held with the reason attached rather than queued silently for someone to diagnose. The rules engine converts analysis into action: allocation, routing, carrier selection, replenishment triggers, transfer top-ups, pricing tiers, credit holds and exceptions all run on rules you configure. The result is that margin and cost decisions embedded in those rules execute automatically at order volume, not one-by-one when a member of staff has capacity.
Fishbowl documents a sales/manufacturing order relationship and picking workflows, but independent reviewers describe situations where backlogged orders require manual individual release after manufacturing completion. The gap, where it exists, is not between “has orders” and “has no orders” — it is between a system where execution rules run automatically at scale and one where the operator must intervene to progress orders the system does not resolve on its own.
See how Stok.ly’s rules engine controls order execution, allocation and replenishment
When Fishbowl is genuinely the better fit for your operation
Stok.ly is an order management-led, inventory-centric ERP built for multi-channel distributors and wholesalers managing complex fulfilment. It is not the right choice for every business, and Fishbowl has real, documented strengths that make it the more logical option in specific situations.
- Manufacturing is the core of the business, not a supporting process. Fishbowl Advanced documents manufacture orders, work orders, BOM-driven production and production scheduling as established, developed capabilities. If managing a factory floor — with labour tracking via Fishbowl Time and build-to-order production workflows — is the primary operational requirement, Fishbowl’s manufacturing depth is a genuine advantage over a platform built around distribution and order fulfilment.
- QuickBooks is already embedded and working well. Fishbowl has a long, documented history with QuickBooks integration. If a business has QuickBooks deeply embedded, existing accountant workflows built around it, and no appetite to change accounting software, Fishbowl’s native QuickBooks connector is a tested, established path.
- A small team needs a single-location inventory system at a modest entry price. Fishbowl’s Inventory Essentials plan starts at £150 per month for two users — a lower entry point than a fully configured multi-channel order management platform. For a small operation with one location, limited channel complexity and no immediate growth pressure, that pricing tier is a reasonable fit.
How does migrating from Fishbowl to Stok.ly actually work?
Stock positions and open orders come across first. The migration begins with a current inventory snapshot: quantities on hand, allocated stock, and any open purchase orders or sales orders that are mid-lifecycle. These records are mapped into Stok.ly’s data model before a single live transaction is processed in the new system. The goal is that day one in Stok.ly opens with an accurate position, not an approximation tidied up over the following weeks.
Product records are consolidated, not simply copied. Fishbowl stores product data inside the inventory and, where Commerce is in use, separately inside Commerce. Stok.ly holds product information once — attributes, variants, barcodes, dimensions, pricing tiers and channel-specific content all live against a single product record. During migration, the two data sources are reconciled into that unified structure. Duplicates, mismatched variants and incomplete records are identified and resolved before the product record goes live, rather than inherited as ongoing data debt.
Channel integrations are configured, not developed. If you are currently connecting Fishbowl to Shopify, WooCommerce or a marketplace through a third-party connector or through Fishbowl Commerce, those connections are replaced with Stok.ly’s pre-built integrations. There is no middleware to licence and no connector to commission. Stock levels, orders, fulfilment status and pricing all sync through the same pre-built integration that Stok.ly maintains. The configuration work happens in Stok.ly’s interface; it does not require an integration partner or a development project.
Accounting integration is verified before go-live. Fishbowl’s Xero and QuickBooks connections have a published history of edge-case defects — the 4 September 2026 Fishbowl release notes record fixes for accounting exports stopping after a failed order and for post-shipment cost-reconciliation entries being dated incorrectly. In Stok.ly, the accounting integration is tested against real transaction types — receipts, fulfilments, returns and adjustments — before the cutover date, so that the financial record is clean from the first day of operation, not corrected retrospectively.
Order management rules and automation are built in parallel. One of the structural differences between Fishbowl and Stok.ly is that in Stok.ly the sales order is the operational controller: allocation, routing, fulfilment priority and exception handling all run on rules configured in the platform. Those rules are built and tested during the migration period, in parallel with the existing Fishbowl operation, so that when the cutover happens the system already knows how to handle your standard order types, credit holds, partial-stock situations and carrier selection without manual intervention.
Historical data is handled honestly. Fishbowl’s own published implementation description excludes historical data from its migration scope. Stok.ly’s migration process is specific about what moves and what does not: current stock positions, open transactions and product records transfer; full transactional history from inside Fishbowl is exported and retained in a readable format, but it is not recreated as live Stok.ly records. This is a real boundary, stated clearly at the outset, not discovered after go-live.
How is Stok.ly priced compared with Fishbowl’s model?
Fishbowl’s published pricing is per-plan and per-user, with a fixed monthly subscription tiered by user count. Beyond the base subscription, forecasting is an add-on on Growth and only included at Scale; a B2B portal is an additional purchase; advanced ecommerce capabilities carry their own cost; and implementation is a separate, required package. Independent reviewers, including Bryce W. on G2 in October 2025, note that additional modules can make the fully scoped configuration substantially more expensive than the entry price suggests. The total cost of a Fishbowl deployment is therefore the sum of edition, users, add-ons, implementation, any third-party connectors, and hardware — not the headline monthly figure.
Stok.ly is priced as an order management-led, inventory-centric ERP: the subscription reflects the operational scope of what the platform actually does in a single configured instance — inventory, order management, warehouse execution, purchasing, AI-driven replenishment, multi-channel integrations and accounting connectivity — rather than assembling that scope from a base plan plus separately purchased modules. The integrations to 200+ ecommerce channels, 150+ couriers and 20+ accounting packages are pre-built and maintained by Stok.ly, with no middleware licence or integration partner cost sitting outside the subscription.
Both platforms require honest total-cost comparison: the relevant Fishbowl edition, all required add-ons, implementation, connectors and hardware against the equivalent Stok.ly configuration. A comparison based on entry-level published prices on either side will not reflect what either system actually costs to run at the required operational scope.
Fishbowl vs Stok.ly: which platform suits which operation?
Fishbowl is typically a better fit when:
- Manufacturing is the primary operational requirement — BOMs, work orders and production scheduling are central, and the Advanced edition’s documented manufacturing depth is the purchase decision.
- The business runs a small team and values self-hosting options or a lower initial user-count price, with QuickBooks as the accounting system and limited ecommerce channel complexity.
- A Xero integration is the accounting priority and the team has the implementation resource to configure and validate it correctly from the outset — reviewers report successful implementations where this is done well.
- The operation is primarily warehouse and production-focused, with modest multi-channel selling requirements and a preference for configuring reporting through Fishbowl’s BI tools internally.
Stok.ly is typically a better fit when:
- Order management across multiple sales channels is the operational core: allocation, routing, backorder handling and fulfilment priority need to run on configurable rules without manual intervention at each decision point.
- The business sells across several ecommerce channels and marketplaces simultaneously and needs stock, pricing and fulfilment status to stay consistent across all of them without a separate integration project for each one.
- Replenishment decisions need to be driven by real commercial data — GMROII, stockout risk scores, demand trend ratios and lead-time-aware reorder points — rather than simple min/max levels or a separately licensed forecast add-on.
- Product data is managed across multiple channels and the cost of maintaining separate product records in the ERP and in each channel listing tool has become a real operational burden.
- The business needs its accounting integration — Sage, Xero, QuickBooks, Microsoft Dynamics — to work reliably across receipt, fulfilment, return and adjustment transaction types without recurring reconciliation work.
Stok.ly, as an order management-led, inventory-centric ERP, is the right fit for businesses where the following operational pressures are real and recurring:Which inventory operations is Stok.ly built for when moving off Fishbowl?
When is Stok.ly not the right fit compared with Fishbowl?
Stok.ly is not the right fit in every situation. Be straightforward about where Fishbowl’s documented strengths better match a specific operational profile:
- Manufacturing-first operations: Businesses whose primary operational complexity is production — multi-level bills of materials, work orders, shop-floor scheduling and handheld work-order completion — will find Fishbowl Advanced’s native manufacturing order management is a documented, established core capability. Stok.ly’s Sales-Order-Driven Purchase Order and Manufacturing Run Creation links a manufacturing run to its originating sales order, but if the dominant workflow is inside production rather than between sales and fulfilment, Fishbowl’s depth in that area is worth evaluating directly.
- QuickBooks-centric US operations: Fishbowl is designed to sit tightly alongside QuickBooks and has a long track record with US QuickBooks editions. Businesses whose entire finance workflow is built around QuickBooks Desktop US and who need no multi-entity, multi-channel complexity may find Fishbowl’s integration depth in that narrow configuration sufficient.
- Min/max replenishment with Auto PO only: If the sole inventory management requirement is basic min/max reorder with automatic PO creation and no channel, location or return-state complexity, Fishbowl documents this capability natively and it may be adequate for simple, single-location operations.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can Stok.ly recover return postage costs consistently without relying on staff to remember?
How does Stok.ly identify which products and suppliers are eroding margin through returns, for teams moving off Fishbowl?
Can Stok.ly prevent returned stock from re-entering available inventory before inspection?
How does Stok.ly stop one sales channel from consuming stock reserved for another, for businesses running wholesale and B2C together?
Can Stok.ly run multiple legal entities — such as a wholesale company and a retail company — on a single inventory instance with separate accounting integrations?
How does Stok.ly handle location-specific replenishment thresholds for businesses with a central warehouse, retail stores and depots?
When is Fishbowl the better choice over Stok.ly?
Can Stok.ly enforce barcode scanning discipline in the warehouse and remove manual quantity keying errors during receiving and picking?
Contact Information
All our sales, support and development team are located in Hereford and Cheltenham in the U.K. Please submit the contact form and we will contact you within the same business day.