Katana

I tried several different MRPs before settling with Katana. Some were too clunky, others too expensive, complicated and elaborate. I felt a bit like Goldilocks. Katana was just right. Reasonably priced. Integrating with Quickbooks and Shopify was simple and efficient. The set up was fast. I no longer have to duplicate data entry onto multiple systems. This saves me times and I don't lose track of orders or inventory. I especially like the instant chat feature with their customer service reps. I can leave a quick message or screenshot of a problem and within a day or so, I have a response back and my problem resolved. No need to hire an expensive consultant, anyone could set up Katana and run it.

Vorteile

Very simple user-interface
Was able to set it up quickly and efficiently
Continual feature upgrades
Simple integration with Shopify & QuickBooks
Very responsive customer service
Detailed, but not overwhelming

Nachteile

The upload from Excel was clunky and not helpful. It was faster to just enter in the data directly.
There are features I look forward to having but that are not currently available. I know their team will be releasing them in the next year.

Katana has been extremely responsive with receiving feedback on the product and working in product improvements based on that feedback. There have already been multiple issues I had with the product early on that they have reacted to feedback on and implemented changes. Great customer service.

Vorteile

I love the value. We were stuck using excel to manage our inventory for a long time because there were no affordable options until Katana came along. I am able to maintain accurate stock levels much more easily now.

Nachteile

There are a few minor inconveniences that are small time wasters. One example is not being able to shift/ctrl click multiple items and drag them around as a group when reorganizing priority rank of manufacturing orders. Since we have multilevel subassemblies I spend more time dragging around manufacturing orders to organize the order I want them completed in and I could save some time if I could drag items around as a group.

Excellent. Everything about using Katana has been great. The team there walked me through the product and helped me set it up. They answer questions quickly and personally. The product is as-described and thoroughly game-changing for my business. There is strong value, we have much less waste and mistakes in our ordering now.

Vorteile

I love the deep inventory tracking and that it feels like a modern app. Inventory software is typically painful to use, and Katana is a breeze. I love that Shopify sales are automatically imported and function live with Shopify, so when you fulfil an order in Shopify it automatically fulfils it in Katana. The Quickbooks integration makes generating invoices simple. You only have to do things once when you use Katana, there's no need to fill in the same info in different services over and over. Tracking inventory in Katana in multiple locations, and being able to include the ingredients of each product in the tracking is also a plus.

Nachteile

When creating purchase orders, it can generate a Bill in Quickbooks. This is helpful, however I'd love to be able to create a Purchase Order in QB so that I can simply track them all.

The customer service is honestly the best customer service I have ever experienced. They are quick to respond, clear at explaining, very knowledgeable of the software, and great to work with. Rep even made me videos walking me through the parts of the process that were hanging me up.

Vorteile

The ability to streamline production, inventory and invoicing is a huge time saver and really helps with organization. I feel it is a great value for the money that you are spending and it

Nachteile

There is quite a bit of setup to get everything up and running and everything really functions together. This is not Katana's fault and they really have made it easy. Once everything (materials, products, production recipes) are set up, it runs like a charm.

Lots of potential Katana, it a emerging system sure it doesn't have the xero integration in play atm but like my own business Katana is also growing so I like that I have partner with a operating system that going through similar growing pains as we are.

if you have a manufacturing process you wish to have better control of I recommend exploring this system.

Vorteile

I have been operating my business using excel, xero, monday.com and email. After searching for a system that could centralise my focus I came across Katana which in essence consolidates all the previous mentioned systems into one interface which saves me a tonne of time.

secondly the customer support, I have had a lengthy skype call with Hannes who is a founder of Katana where by he provided a demo session of how the software will be suitable for my business needs. I really valued to the bespoke service which ensured I got off to the right start.

Nachteile

The intergration to Xero is in development but this has been the most noteable con to date, that said Katana is working on this and it should be available shortly