Best Inventory Management Software

Zoho can manage and track your inventory across multiple warehouse and retail locations from a single database. Even for an inexpensive product, Zoho delivers a wide range of inventory tracking features. A SKU generator, real-time shipping rates, multi-channel tracking and order management are just a few of its handy features. These are a godsend for subscription box fulfilment businesses, though online retailers of all kinds can capitalise on Zoho's stock streamlining services.

Customers across the board say it's easy to use – a bonus for any techphobic manufacturing managers who need to keep their inventory under control.

Zoho Inventory's main USP is value for money: it's the cheapest by far and even its enterprise plan costs less than CIN7's cheapest plan. We rated it higher for having a useful free plan, though the limitation is you can only put through 50 orders per month on it.

On the negative side, users with a long customisable product process struggled to automate using Zoho. For that reason, we recommend that only  manufacturing inventory managers with more simple product workflows use it.

Fishbowl has a couple of products for different types of inventory management, and we recommend Fishbowl Warehouse for managers of small or medium-sized warehouses, particularly those in ecommerce (online selling).

Fishbowl Warehouse is designed to integrate with Quickbooks, Salesforce, Amazon and more, so you won't struggle with repetitive data entry. It's easy to connect to a wide range of ecommerce platforms such as Shopify too, that's why Fishbowl is our pick for best ecommerce inventory management software.

You can also set-up dropshipping and generate real-time shipping labels from a wide range of couriers ready to print as you pack orders. By contrast, Katana Manufacturing ERP is much more limited in these areas.

Fishbowl Go is their warehouse app (on Android or Apple) with order fulfilment and barcode scanning capability. Although it's not unique – all the best inventory management software is mobile-ready – it's convenient for picking and cycle count.

One drawback is customer service which is not 24-7, unlike Cin7. Fishbowl's live chat support is closed on weekends, so be aware you'll need to solve your own issues outside of 8am-5pm MST – which is six hours behind GMT.

inFlow offers excellent inventory optimisation and detailed reporting for stock managers. We recommend it to warehouse managers with multiple varieties of stock in similar categories, such as clothing and shoe retailers or pet food companies.

inFlow is particularly suited to products with multiple variables as the software includes product photos as well as serial numbers (at additional cost), units of measure and product categories.

There's a free version of their software available, and you won't even have to hand over credit card details to make use of the 14-day free trial, either. It's also the second cheapest product on this list overall.

inFlow had the highest average customer rating (4.5/5) out of all the inventory management software suppliers we reviewed.

Curiously, inFlow only allows users to accept online payments in the US or Canada – a significant inconvenience to businesses with customers in the UK and elsewhere. Additionally, customer support (email, chat or callback request) is all based in Lisbon, yet luckily they share a time zone with Great Britain.

A robust and multi-faceted inventory management system, Cin7 is best suited to business managers with an eye on marketing. Its features are focused on distribution rather than manufacturing, so ecommerce retailers in supplements, cosmetics and homeware would benefit the most.

Marketing features include email marketing, SEO management, and promotions management – all helpful for increasing customer delight and retention.

Cin7 actually offers a B2B ecommerce platform with inventory management built in, so you can connect 3PL, sales and marketing all on the same platform.

You'll get the expected integrations: Shopify, Amazon, Quickbooks, and Xero. So you can unite your sales streams with your fulfilment processes. Handy FBA (Fulfilment by Amazon) features, such as shipping plans and status updates plus a built in EDI, will improve stock visibility and fulfilment oversight.

Cin7 actually had the lowest average customer rating of 4/5 stars which drops to just 3.4 if we only look at Trustpilot. It seems their customer support is lacking, with some users waiting too long for any response at all.

There's a fair amount of work you'll need to do to get up and running with Cin7 which is a bit of a drawback if you're hoping to get scaling quickly.

Last but not least is Katana, our pick for inventory management software for small manufacturing business leaders.

Katana has a decent range of features that make it particularly suited to small manufacturing business leaders. For example, it has dedicated tools for manufacturing planning, material requirements planning and quality management.

However, lots of Katana's functionality comes in the form of APIs (for example purchase order creation, reporting, automation), which can be a bit tricky to get up and running. Nonetheless, this style of software means entrepreneurs are unlikely to feel overwhelmed with a surplus of unnecessary features.

You won't get any particular value for money with Katana: it's the third most expensive of the suppliers in this list. Pricing is based on usage, so you should carefully consider your sales projections for the sake of your budget planning.

It's got no free version, though you can use the 14-day free trial without giving your credit card details, which is excellent for your data privacy and saves you paying for premium by mistake.

As far as user reviews go, it's a 4.3/5, with feedback highlighting Katana's excellent customer service. This robust business support means you can run your burgeoning enterprise with better efficiency.