Katana Cloud Inventory

Vorteile

- It's really easy to use
- Makes it easy to track materials on hand, reorder, etc
- Calculates margin including labor cost
- Xero integration works perfectly
- Zapier integration makes it really flexible from an automation standpoint
- Really lots of other stuff ... it's truly an excellent product and an outlier in a pretty clunky space.

Nachteile

It can be a little slow, and the contact syncing could be more robust.

In Betracht gezogene Alternativen

MRPeasy, NetSuite und Zoho Inventory

Gründe für den Wechsel zu Katana Cloud Inventory

It's easier to use, it's priced right, and it gives you what you need without a bunch of stuff you don't. Perfectly tailored for SMB/SME manufacturers.

Vorteile

Katana Cloud Inventory is ideal in stock management and cost controls

Nachteile

Katana Cloud Inventory is the appropriate approach to always use

Nachteile

Katana is one of these SAAS that looks pretty and attractive on the surface only to hide the worst possible customer policy, pricing plans and billing methods i have encountered in 15 years of professionnal digital experience.

We are a small size company making ±1.5M€ in revenues. We choose Katana in 2021 as the functionalities at the time seemed to match our needs. The price was decent (199$ a month) and despite we felts like it was already quite a budget (±2400$ a year), we decided to subscribe.

For a few month, things have been relatively fine despite frequents technical issues (front end lags, data not updated, locked order status, ...). Then came reality.

Without a warning, Katana first increased the subscription to 349$. Ouch. You just lost 1800$ overnight. We really didn't appreciate that but all the manufacturing data of our company was inside Katana, our employees were trained and used to the software, so we swallowed the pill.

A few month later, the subscription was up to 899$. Yes you read that right. Again, without a warning, without getting approval, they just start to bill your payment card with 899$ every month. You just lost another 7800$ overnight (per year, 23400$ for 3 years usage).

Right there we have understood Katana trapped us. Katana's company hook you up with a sense of affordability only to charge astronomical price hikes whenever they feel like it.

Despite the fact that this is highly irregular and most certainly illegal and fraudulent at least in Europe, the break of trust and the leverage made over the customer data is disgusting.

Wait, it's not over yet ! Once you decided enough is enough and you can't give your data and your trust to a company acting like a MAFIA organisation, you migrate to another software (i really recommande MRPEasy for those wanting to leave or looking to a safe solution), and you cancel your subscription.

And surprise (or not) ! Katana tries by any mean to charge you with another 1 month subscription (899$) after your cancel it. An absolute disgraceful method to squeeze any $ left in your wallet.

The reality is that Katana is an highly unprofitable company established in Estonia that lost more than 7.5M$ for just 3.5M$ of revenues in 2022 (accounts are public, go check) and they desperately need to rebalance their accounts. They do not have that much customers, so they decided to go Kamikaze and raise prices until something breaks.

Obviously, this is exactly the kind of chaotic experience you want to avoid to your company and your staff. Any service looking remotely unsafe should be kept far away from you manufacturing process and Katana definitely is one of them. I am not the only one with that experience, check out the other reviews on Capterra.

(check how they will copy/paste a generic bullshit answer in the reply section, it will give you a sense of their level of concern ^^)

In Betracht gezogene Alternativen

MRPeasy

Warum Katana Cloud Inventory gewählt wurde

Unacceptable prices hikes and commercial policy. Unsafe company.

Zuvor genutzte Software

MRPeasy

Vorteile

Katana Cloud Inventory has friendly stock managing program.

Nachteile

Katana Cloud Inventory has excellence functionalities.

Vorteile

Its very very easy to use. Having used other systems, like inFlow, it has refreshing clean visually cued interface. Its very satisfying to use.

Nachteile

Very little - I would ask why they dont allow non-stock items to be a thing (we cant be the only ones!) - we have to make up that we have 1000s of imaginary non-stock items to keep the system happy. But its a tiny weeny gripe and has very little bearing on anything.

Vorteile

As a small business, Solid Stash, with an annual turnover of approximately 300kEUR and handling around 3000 orders monthly, we initially chose Katana for its affordability and features. However, our journey with Katana has been increasingly disheartening, marked by unexpected and steep price hikes that have put our business in a challenging position.

Initially, we were content with a reasonable monthly fee of about 100 USD. This was manageable for a business of our scale. However, due to a change in Katana's billing rules related to sales order rows, we experienced our first major setback: an abrupt increase in our monthly fee to over 300 USD. This was a significant blow to our finances, but we reluctantly accepted it, hoping for cost stability in the future. We also anticipated the benefit of batch tracking, a feature crucial for our operations.

Our disappointment was further compounded when Katana introduced a new pricing structure. Not only did we face another hike in our monthly fee, but batch tracking, previously included, was now a separate add-on costing an additional 199 USD per month. This escalation meant our expenses on Katana's services skyrocketed from around 100 USD to over 500 USD monthly – a fivefold increase in just two years.

This pricing strategy feels like a trap. We initially invested in Katana, dedicating time and resources to set up and train our employees, only to find ourselves facing exorbitant fees that are unsustainable for a small business like ours. The lack of predictability in Katana's pricing is alarming. There's a constant fear that next year might bring another doubling of costs or a new, arbitrary billing metric.

We feel cornered and exploited. The assumption that the high switching costs will force us to accept these unreasonable increases is unfair and disrespectful to loyal customers. We are not just numbers on a spreadsheet; we are a small business striving to survive and grow.

We are making a sincere request to Katana: please reconsider your pricing strategy. We need stability and fairness in pricing. We made our initial investment based on the original pricing structure, and these drastic changes are not just a financial strain but also a breach of the trust we placed in Katana.

In conclusion, while Katana's software may offer certain operational benefits, their pricing policies are a source of major concern and disappointment. We urge potential customers to consider this aspect carefully before committing to Katana. The financial unpredictability and lack of consideration for small businesses in their pricing strategy are significant drawbacks that cannot be overlooked.

Nachteile

Their extortionate pricing policies. Costs hiked fivefold over the last two years

Vorteile

Before using Katana, I was doing everything manually. I can't express how reliant I have become on MRP software.

Nachteile

They have increased prices by 523% since we started using this service. Bugs are ever-present, and they take existing features away to put behind a behind a paywall.

Vorteile

It worked for what I was expecting, it kept track of the items I needed to produce custom embroidered items. It was able to track when I needed to re buy items from my suppliers.

Nachteile

Where do you even start. I will start with the biggest issue they have. The price.
When I started the cost was around 60aud a month. Then they bumped me up to 400aud a month without any communication, then they bumped me up to $1400 aud a month without any communication.

When confronted with the problem with the pricing, and the illegal practices that they were acting under, they told me it was my fault because I was using API pulls. Which I was not doing. They realised that they were charging me incorrectly, and would "refund me the difference" and I am yet to see the refund. They would have never bothered to address this if I didn't bring it up to them, they would have happily charged me 2333% more than my original subscription without batting an eyelid.

How can a company honestly think that it is okay to charge 2000% more and remove functionality?

Customer service will only meet you at 2am Australian time (useless)

Oh, and they have a 1 month notice cancellation fee for a month to month subscription (illegal) so if you sign up for a month, expect to pay for two. Like a gym, except you didn't sign anything so they can't do that. but they will.

This company is greedy and it will fail if they keep this way. Do not look at reviews from further than two months ago, as that katana is long gone. Read all reviews from recently and you will see very cleary how this greedy corperate company has failed their customers.

Avoid at all costs, get a better mrp software or even a spreadsheet.

Vorteile

The user interface is pretty and nice to use, mostly
The concepts of scheduling and general "idea" behind the katana system are good

Nachteile

The endless bugs and now pricing issues. No backup, no undo, and again, lots of bugs.

We regularly have to contact support with issues in their system. Most of the time the response is "oh we'll put it on our voting system, if it gets votes we'll fix it", which really is not what I expect from a system that costs several hundred dollars a month, before addons and users.

To be perfectly honest, we were making do - the pros of not having to build this kind of system ourselves outweighed the cons. That has now changed.

What triggered this review is that they doubled the price of our plan, turned off a number of features we were using to run our business operations, and charged us for "add-ons" all without warning. We did get sent an email, warning us of an upcoming change in billing (note this email was sent 28 days before the change...). That email said someone would reach out to us to discuss transitioning. That did not happen, and instead they just turned things off and billed our card for add-ons we never agreed to.

Forced onboarding (billable of course) with an "expert" is a bit of a joke

In Betracht gezogene Alternativen

MRPeasy

Vorteile

I am impressed by the accuracy and reliability of Katana Cloud Inventory.
Katana Cloud Inventory has exceptional features.

Nachteile

I have zero dislikes for Katana Cloud Inventory.
Katana Cloud Inventory is excellent.

Vorteile

I love the simplicity of Katana and the ease of inventory management. This software has saved us so much time and offers way more than other products we looked into. For a small business with lots of moving parts and inventory to manage, Katana makes everything a breeze.

Nachteile

N/a, Katana meets and exceeds all our needs!

In Betracht gezogene Alternativen

Odoo und Zoho Inventory

Warum Katana Cloud Inventory gewählt wurde

Zoho was consistently inaccurate and needed to to work with other Zoho products for full functionality.

Zuvor genutzte Software

Zoho Inventory

Gründe für den Wechsel zu Katana Cloud Inventory

Gave us everything that we needed.

Vorteile

This software is very user friendly compared to some other, more detailed programs.

Nachteile

I had some issue with the conversions during the product builds, so I am not sure if you could have multiple conversions for a product.

Vorteile

The software is very intuitive, meaning everything is in a logical space. The flow between areas works well and we love the ability to be able to customise the quote templates now.

Nachteile

Haven't found anything as yet, had a few bugs but they mainly seem to be cache related.

Vorteile

Katana integrates with my Shopify Site very easily and makes bundling products on my Shopify so much easier to track.

We also make candles and kits in house. Katana makes tracking inventory so much easier allowing me to know without guess or counting my materials how much of any particular object I can produce at any given time.

Nachteile

It would be nice if there were barcodes, but I hear feature is coming soon. It would also be nice if I sell out of an object that is apart of a bundle that it would then make the bundle unavailable on my shopify site. I believe this is also in the works.

In Betracht gezogene Alternativen

MRPeasy

Gründe für den Wechsel zu Katana Cloud Inventory

The user interface was much more straight forward. It was robust and comprehensive without being overwhelming.

Vorteile

I loved the user interface and the ease of working with the system. The system is very intuitive and with the instructional videos you can pretty much pick up the basics very quickly. I love the way that you can upload information through Excel and the system is flexible with the upload. Also the seamless integration with Quickbooks online is very nice.

Nachteile

One of the features that is missing, but they are working on it, is sales forecasting by SKU. This would be a great feature to add as it will allow us to add our expected sales for each SKU and have the system forecast demand. Another issue is when you have a price rule for a client in QuickBooks Katana has no way to see this, so when the invoice is pushed to QuickBooks you have to go through each individual line to accept the price rule. Not a game changer, but a bit of a hassle.

Vorteile

it was easy to set up the team helped me a lot

Nachteile

it was a easy set up i did not have anything i did not like

Vorteile

It can be merclged with many other softwares i use

Nachteile

Only one user per acount at any time is annoying

Vorteile

We like having the ability to make manufacture orders so everyone involved can see what's been planned and when it's due. The ability to prioritize orders is very helpful for assigning inventory.

Nachteile

Identifying products that are ready to ship on each order is cumbersome. Our customer service team has to click individually into each order to see if any items are ready to ship. There's no way to easily flip to the next order. You have to close that window & click on the next order. It would be nice if you could at least toggle between orders within an order window. We'd also love to see some kind of drop down or hover-over feature that would quickly show you if partial shipments are available.

Vorteile

This software has a fantastic feel to make working in it incredibly efficient. As a person that works with software/web design/development, I can appreciate the attention paid to this incredibly complex platform.

Nachteile

There isn't much we don't like. Most of the small things are already in the development cycle and they include small things like being able to customize Katana a bit more for our specific needs. Column order, custom fields, field mapping of API connections, etc.

Vorteile

The software has the **potential** to be good.

Nachteile

There are only 2 user levels "Superusers" with access to all levels of creative and destructive features, and warehouse operators, with access to make to BOM instructions. The lack of "sales team" and other intemediate levels of access is a killer.

Vorteile

Inventory and order management systems were relatively new to us when we started with our company. We evaluated and tested several web-based tools and Katana was by far the most user friendly. The interface is clean and initiative, which helped us to get up and running quickly and confidently.

Nachteile

There are some features and reporting that we would like to have that haven’t been rolled out yet (particularly around customer information) and we spent time tinkering around and then ultimately asking customer support about it. They have been very helpful and we are waiting for the enhancements.

In Betracht gezogene Alternativen

QuickBooks Online Advanced, QuickBooks Desktop, QuickBooks Enterprise und QuickBooks Online

Gründe für den Wechsel zu Katana Cloud Inventory

Ease of use and interface

Vorteile

Cloud integration and nice User Interface.

Nachteile

- I am still little bit worried about lack of backup available to the user. There should be method to revert in time for example. If somebody messed up something, there is no way to go back.
- Another thing is lack of Sage integration.
- If new option is added to the existing product/material Internal Barcode is not generated and it has to be created manually. I am not sure why...
- sorting for example of PO orders is done by string, so orders are never in the correct order. Prefix PO- should be omitted for sorting table.

In Betracht gezogene Alternativen

NetSuite

Gründe für den Wechsel zu Katana Cloud Inventory

Price.

Vorteile

Just completed the free 14 day trial of Katana and have now begun a paid subscription. It took a few days and a bit of frustration to manually add all our products, ingredients, recipes, and current pending wholesale orders from outside of shopify, but having the shopify integration helped a lot. We use three different wholesale platforms (Faire, tundra & Abound), none of which offer automated third party integrations, so we knew we’d have to manually input orders and Katana serves that purpose as our centralized dashboard to see what needs to go out, when, from which platform, if we have it in stock, when we can make it, etc. In two weeks, we’ve already seen an increase in production efficiency and decrease in wholesale turnaround times now that EVERYTHING is being tracked in one place. Highly recommend Katana if you’re a maker, it’s never too early to implement automated systems in your biz!

Nachteile

Glitches with accurate purchase prices showing up in overall product list. Described it to customer service and they denied it being a problem. That’s the only problem I’ve encountered so far. Tbh on customer support quality.

Vorteile

The ease of use is the main thing that we like.

Nachteile

We have a bespoke website and some of the API was tricky to implement - but now it is up and running it is decent.

In Betracht gezogene Alternativen

Cin7 Omni, MRPeasy und monday.com

Gründe für den Wechsel zu Katana Cloud Inventory

Easy to use. User friendly. Intuitive.

Vorteile

I was looking for a solution for seasonal manufacturing workers that we don't have time to get up to speed with some complex MRP - Kanata's UI is the most intuitive interface out of any MRP I was able to find. The ease of re-prioritising jobs, and the automatic stock refactoring is awesome, and the team are really, really responsive to feature ideas and issues. Seamless integrations with WooCommerce makes supplying orders to customers super easy.

Nachteile

It doesn't quite have everything we need, some of which I though we're quite base (Bin Locations, Supplier Product Codes, Purchase Orders that email directly to suppliers), but all of those have work arounds, and I'm assured are planned for future development.

Vorteile

It seemed simple. It didn't work as originally sold, but they did improve it throughout the first year.

Nachteile

We THOUGHT it was going to be a good value. But after the first year, they took away functionality and doubled the price!

Vorteile

Katana Cloud Inventory manages all the stock, and it saves on the process of procurement.

Nachteile

Katana Cloud Inventory has all inventories recorded and results shared.

Vorteile

Great inventory management software for the price.

Nachteile

Wish it worked better with other programs. We use Extensive for almost all other plugins. Also, wish it had a way to track cutting programs.

Vorteile

Great user interface, very easily operable.

Nachteile

Pricing is getting worse. Basic functions disappear and appear later as a paid add on for hefty monthly fee.

Vorteile

The setup is quick and easy and the customer service is nothing short of excellent. We love the simple interface which makes it easy to train others on,. The Excel templates allow for bulk uploads of all of the required data categories which doesn't need to be uploaded manually.

Nachteile

It could be more circular in that you sometimes have to jump back and forth within the system to complete a task. The production operation feature should allow you to set a default number of labor hours per task so that it isn't required with each manufacturing order setup.

Vorteile

The ease of building products and variants. Our products have a lot of variants, and Katana makes it very easy to manage them all simultaneously. The previous MRP system used required us to build a unique BOM for every variant, which took significant time.

Nachteile

Minimum order quantity feature. Ability to reject/second quality part of a manufacturing lot. Develop an easy way to see product list not broken down into variants. Have the ability to only show certain BOM items on the shop floor app. Consumables like glue and tape don't need to be shown.

Vorteile

The ease of use, as compared to larger MRP systems, helps keep the team on track.

Nachteile

There are some missing features - custom fields, tiered pricing, etc.

In Betracht gezogene Alternativen

MRPeasy

Zuvor genutzte Software

NetSuite

Gründe für den Wechsel zu Katana Cloud Inventory

Ease of use, API integration

Vorteile

I'm not sure what your situation is, but I was creating my POs and tracking how much of every component to order manually in Google Sheets. Yep, it was a pain. I tried a few competitor options, but they were designed in an awkward way; I needed to guess/lookup/read up. With Katana, my first day was already productive, and everything was intuitive. I even told my friend who is a UX/UI for Meta to go look at the only software that I like using (compared to the FB ads nightmare wormhole of dashboard:))

Nachteile

Direct integration with Amazon would be nice. The route they have rn is through another app and it's another subscription price

Vorteile

The set up and use of Katana is super easy and user friendly! The online resources they provide are incredibly helpful. I found the Katana Academy videos the most helpful.

Nachteile

Katana does not provide a way to "waste" products, however I know that Katana is currently working on implementing a program to do this. The only true complaint is that it doesn't support fractions. Our products are divided into 12 and when inputting the "recipes and boms" 1 is not divisible by 12 evenly. This makes us have to stock adjust to get proper inventory counts.

Vorteile

Company of any size can use it, you can in theory intergate with lot of other tool like Quickbook and Shopify

Nachteile

It's very Expansive , even more when you want to follow the lot number. it starts at 179$ per month, if you take the annual billing, which I don't recommend unless you know it very well , the monthly paiement starts at 199$
The solution I am using now cost 39$/month on a monthly paiement basis it's a big difference

Vorteile

The software is very easy to use and I like the automatic saving feature but also able to edit transactions as well.

Nachteile

I would like to be able to process payments through eCommerce in Katana, those need to be done manually.

Vorteile

What i like the most about katana is Knowledge Base. it has answers to all questions and resourceful tutorial on how to manoeuvre the system.

Nachteile

I am still very new to the system and I have currently not come across anything i least like about Katana

Vorteile

manufacturing and inventory management.integration with quick books

Nachteile

cannot move existing s.o. to quote or canceled status.

Vorteile

It's great because with this platform, I have the ability to efficiently manage my inventory, work orders, scheduling and tracking, very good all in one place.

Nachteile

I think they could improve is in the flexibility of customization. Although it offers a wide range of features, sometimes I would like to be able to further customize certain aspects according to the specific needs of my business.

Vorteile

One of the key benefits of katana manufacturing Erp is it's user-friendly interface. The platform is easy to navigate drag and drop functionality allows for a simplified production planning process.The platform offers real-time inventory tracking, allowing business to track the stock levels of their materials and profuct.Integration of platform of e-commerce

Nachteile

Some users have reported issue with the accuracy of the platform inventory management system, particularly during inventoryrreconciliation. The platform Mey not be useful for complex manufacturing process

Vorteile

Uno de los beneficios clave de katana ERP es su interfaz fácil de usar. La plataforma ofrece seguimiento de inventario en tiempo real, lo que permite a las empresas realizar un seguimiento de los niveles de existencias de sus materiales y productos. Integración de la plataforma de comercio electrónico

Nachteile

No puedo decir nada malo, esta aplicación funciona de manera perfecta y maravillosa. Tal vez las velocidades de carga pueden ser un poco lentas, pero eso se debe principalmente a que tengo muchos materiales que he ingresado.

Vorteile

The UX and UI of app. Literaly everyone n our team is able to work with Katana how it is simply.

Nachteile

Not very often but sometimes app kick me out and I have to log in again.

Vorteile

Customer Service and easy to use at the beginning

Nachteile

It appears to be that the designers and programmers have never worked in a company. *No discounts or price difeerentiation*Lack of point of sales*Very low scanning functionality*Not differentiated user rights*No history of document changes*Buggy

In Betracht gezogene Alternativen

Odoo

Warum Katana Cloud Inventory gewählt wurde

Quickbooks Integration

Zuvor genutzte Software

Odoo

Gründe für den Wechsel zu Katana Cloud Inventory

Quickbooks Online integration, easy to use, (appear to be fake) good reviews

Vorteile

The ability to use Resources as a way to assign a specific person to each task so I can see who is working on what step of the manufacturing process and the allotted time they are provided for the task. This year we went from contract labor/paid-per-piece to employees/hourly-wage and Katana has made this a much smoother transition then it could have been. Having both "cost-per-piece" for assembly of items as well as "cost-per-minute" has given us the ability to compare former payment procedures with what to expect per hour from employees.

Nachteile

There are a variety of tasks that were unable to be done when we began using Katana in January 2019 but I am thrilled to say that most of them have been developed. The developers listen and are very attentive to requests, bug reports, and ideas and so despite the fact that some of the features were not available (exporting reports, importing recipes, bulk print MOs/pick lists, etc.) they have added these and the software continues to grow. The next feature I'd love to see is the ability to have a product photo attached to each product that prints out an image with the MO.

Also, we have some items "on hold" (not sent to distribution center yet) and we use Resources to specify ONHOLD-BIN221 etc. to know the status of any particular SKU completed. We'd prefer not to use different locations, but rather have the ability to add a couple more "status" options. Either a misc or a custom. For now, everything on hold gets marked BLOCKED status and then the Resource is used to say it's on hold in whatever bin.

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.

In Betracht gezogene Alternativen

ERPAG

Warum Katana Cloud Inventory gewählt wurde

Odoo is a beautiful all-in-one platform that seemed to be the perfect solution to tying my entire business together. However, it doesn't "play" well with Shopify and social media platforms which both are essential to my business. Any customization requires an extra fee each month plus the cost of the custom 3rd party app. Set up was complicated and when I needed help, I was pressed to pay $10k for a customer service package. For a small business, that's a lot to shell out. If I were a large company and could pay to have it all set up and administered correctly, I'm sure Odoo would be an excellent choice. But for a one-woman show, it was just too much to juggle.

Zuvor genutzte Software

Odoo

Gründe für den Wechsel zu Katana Cloud Inventory

Erpag was about the same price at the time and had a few extra features that I liked (barcode integration for example), but the user interface was just really clunky. It reminded me a lot of my days in 90's Windows. Lots of tabs and block colors. When I added a demo set of data in, it didn't seem too difficult to use, but it just wasn't intuitive to me.

Vorteile

Great value, probably the only affordable cloud solution on the market

Nachteile

It's a great piece of software for data entry. Not so great when it comes to using that data to run your business. No dashboards or views that provide insights. They've solved for this by integrating with Easy-Insight and Stocktrim. Now that those are in place, I'm completely satisfied.

Vorteile

The user interface is clean and very intuitive, requiring essentially no time to learn. Some of the other MRP solutions we tried were difficult to navigate and use, and training on them would have been labor intensive and costly. Katana is beautifully designed, and the batch-tracking and inventory management is easy to adapt to our business (MRPeasy/ERPAG were very clearly not designed with food manufacturing in mind, so making them even remotely functional for that purpose felt like a bit of a fools errand, whereas Katana just works).

Nachteile

While it is very user-friendly and it has the ability to track batches/lots (which is critical for us), we've had to develop workarounds to make it function the way we need it to -- it doesn't quite handle this the way I would envision it should. There are also some minor time wasters. If there's one simple feature I wish they would change, it's being able to type in the expiration dates rather than having to scroll through the calendar manually to select the correct date. This becomes so onerous when receiving multiple items on a PO and having to manually click through/scroll through the calendar to select the correct date as opposed to simply having a field that allows you to type in the date and move on.

In Betracht gezogene Alternativen

MRPeasy und ERPAG

Gründe für den Wechsel zu Katana Cloud Inventory

Katana is a great small business solution that I can easily see growing with us. Fishbowl is cost-prohibitive (and honestly at this point, I'd rather just use Katana). MRPeasy and ERPAG are not as well designed and don't work well as a food industry solution -- they made simple tasks feel like running through a maze. The developers at Katana did a beautiful job of creating something intuitively designed that works well across multiple industries while also making it as clean and aesthetic as it is functional. It's a pleasure to use. I've noticed that they also seem to be regularly implementing improvements and updates, which is awesome. Customer support is friendly and responsive. Highly recommend.

Vorteile

Handling of inventory, items, products, ingredients, sales orders - all this is handled in a very efficient, clear and easy to use way. Makes the difference compared to many alternative MRP-/ERP-systems.
Connector to QuickBooks with automatic trigger for invoices in QB once the products are marked as shipped in KATANA.
Connector to Shopify for on-line sale of spare parts.
100% helpful and open minded customer service - very helpful in helping to understand all features and finding the best workflow for specific situations.

Nachteile

There are some functions/features which need improvement, e.g. the customization of documents such as Quotations so every company can generate a set of individual template to serve different areas (machines, spare parts, service,..). 3-5 custom fields for Quotes/Sales Orders/Products would be helpful. Althoug KATANA is intended to be a MRP-system it would be helpful to integrate SERVICE-articles (not only MAKE or BUY articles). This would allow to add a possible service portion to a spare parts quote.
Dedicated Delivery Notes (with partial shipments) would be a great feature.

In Betracht gezogene Alternativen

Dynamics 365 und Sage 100

Warum Katana Cloud Inventory gewählt wurde

Due to a downsizing in manufacturing we decided to look for a faster, more flexible, less complicated MRP-system which is cloud-based and would have good and propven interfaces to a standard accounting SW and to an on-line shop (spare parts).

Zuvor genutzte Software

Dynamics 365 und Sage 100

Gründe für den Wechsel zu Katana Cloud Inventory

Simplicity with at the same time well covered basic features, ease of use, intuitive, cloud-based.

Vorteile

That may not sound very exciting, but in my experience, it's not always a given that getting the features to work is straightforward. But Katana really is both powerful and yet pretty straightforward, although just BECAUSE it has a lot of facility, I would recommend the investment of a little time in watching some of the training videos, which are excellent. Once I'd done that, it was full steam ahead and everything fell beautifully into place. The integration with Xero was completely straightforward and works like a charm. I know that as we go forward and get more and more information into the system it will provide even more, very valuable information for us.

Nachteile

I have only a couple of really minor niggles; I would prefer to be able to enter dates, rather than having to always pick them off a calendar (for someone who types fast, this slows me down). I'd also like it if when you are "making" a product, if all the components of that product's sub-assembly are available, the software would just go on down the line and automatically make right down to the lowest assembly level. But as I said, these are really minor and would not stop me from wholeheartedly recommending Katana.

Vorteile

Very easy to use without cluttered interface. This was my biggest selling point when comparing Katana to other similar products. Everything is so well organised and easy to glance over, while still offering nearly everything that I need for myself.

I also like that any changes in the inventory are immediately reflected in open orders. This is true for everything that I've used so far; as soon as I make a change in one area, it instantly reflects in all others as well.

Nachteile

I'm missing one feature, but it's more due to the specific nature of my business. It would be great if I could organize my inventory not just by total combined weight, but broken down into individual units as well.

For example, if my order requires 500g of plastic in one piece, but I have two separate pieces of 250g each, Katana will show that I have enough resources, even though I can't fill my order since I need one unbroken piece.

I've already got in touch with their support about this and they've said my request was put on their wish list, so I'm fairly confident it will eventually get implemented.