Katana Cloud Inventory Erfahrungen

The MRP system I wish I'd always had

Kommentare: Katana's awesome, full stop. I've been working with manufacturing businesses for years, and for years I've lamented Xero's relatively weak inventory management system. Two years ago I tried literally every MRP app I could find to plugin to Xero; they were all pretty bad. Along comes Katana, which maybe was around earlier but was "new to me" just this year, and ... wow. Mostly, it Just Works. The Xero integration works seamlessly for bills and sales orders, which speeds AP/AR quite a bit. 90% of the tool's value is outside of Xero though, and I now have a permanently-pinned Katana tab in my browser for tracking everything in the production flow from raw materials purchasing, to production, to sale, to reconciliation of remaining materials and product stock. It's great. Is it perfect? Not quite. They need to do some performance work, as load times are often a little sluggish. Also, it would be nice to see finer-grained automation, and better contact syncing. But overall, I'm delighted.

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.

Intuitive, Fast To Implement, and Beautifully Designed

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.

Very poor MRP overrated in reviews, with good service

Kommentare: Very easy to start. Lack of a lot of important functionalities by the time of use. Overpriced by the functions provided.

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

Katana is great!

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.

Most affordable MRP system for small manufacturers

Kommentare: 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.

Perfect for where we're at right now

Kommentare: We chose Katana after trying out a couple different MRP's which were either overly complex, over-priced, or didn't fit our needs. We've stuck with Katana based on it's ease-of-use, intuitive design, and delivery of everything we need it to do.

Vorteile:

It's great to be able to log in on any computer without having to install software, and it's done an amazing job of keeping our inventory tidy and up-to-date. The Purchase Order generator has also made us look very professional to our suppliers. The integration with Shopify is also a huge plus to us as it prevents us from having to manually transfer Shopify orders and automatically removes all parts from the BOM from our inventory. Highly recommended!

Nachteile:

There aren't many, if any things we've come up against yet that Katana didn't support.

Cannot recommend this app enough

Kommentare: Honestly has changed my life for the better. I'm no longer running out of supplies and having to do emergency orders (hello, extra shipping fees!). This keeps me organized and helps me to better my time management. I can see every open order that I need to fulfill and planning out supply orders is a breeze. I've recommended this app to every other maker I know because I am that in love with it. I'll use this app for the rest of my life because it is the best thing that's happened to my business in a long time.

Vorteile:

This software legitimately changed the way my business runs. It keeps me accountable for the hundreds of supplies I use on a daily basis and keeps me organized in a way that no lists, or other apps, ever have.

Nachteile:

I can honestly say nothing, this app works so seamlessly and wonderfully. Maybe the load speeds can be a little laggy, but that's mostly because I have a lot of materials I've input. Definitely not an app downfall or issue at all.

Working with Katana

Kommentare: Ive tried lots of other systems - ugly ones, expensive ones, and completely confusing ones. Katana wins hands down. And without charging you lots of extra fees to do things like multiple locations.

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.

Great Inventory Software

Kommentare: Knowing the real numbers of what I have in stock, what I need to order, how much it will cost me, and how much profit I will accrue is essential for making it to next year. In Katana, these figures are easy to find and keep up with. If I have a question, support is quick to respond and helpful. They are a great company to deal with!

Vorteile:

The simple progression from Items to Buy, Make, and Stock to Sell makes it easy for me to maintain best practices in tracking my inventory. The flexibility in making stock adjustments made transitioning easy from confusions in my previous software into an ongoing accounting of what I have. Likewise, integrating with Shopify and Quicken was seamless.

Nachteile:

A more complete inclusion of customer information from Shopify would be useful.

New User

Kommentare: Customer service has been outstanding to help me learn features and problem solve. Very friendly and helpful!

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.

Great choice for small manufacturer

Kommentare: 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.

Smooth Operator

Kommentare: It has been great, highly recommend for small to medium business. Very user friendly!

Vorteile:

Katana has made our day to day business so much more fluid and stress free. It was easy to build out the product lines, upload product sku's and flip the switch on going live. Game changer!

Nachteile:

On the production schedule front, hoping that the software will eventually lump all the tasks together, I have multiple consumers that order the same item, each order is its own line item instead of being lumped into a group, so our production team needs to scrub the tasks before production starts as to make sure they capture each item, as to not create redunancy in work.

Katana boosted our confidence as new business owners!

Kommentare: Great! Service has been very helpful, and we’ve been able to do everything we need to do. Looking forward to seeing Katana grow and deploy more functions!

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.

Manufacturing superstar

Kommentare: We went over many manufacturing software, but Katana is the best so far.

Vorteile:

- easiness of navigation and implementation - support - the colour coding

Nachteile:

- not sure how to upload documents - not being able to add multiple sale and purchase accounts - not being able to ship partial sale orders

Katana has made a huge improvement to our business process!

Kommentare: I was extremely happy to find this app after months of struggling to keep track (using a spreadsheet) of current quantity for 1.) In stock blank shirts (various colors and sizes)
2.) Ordered blanks (various colors, sizes, and suppliers)
3.) Sales of finish products (various styles, colors, sizes, and designs.) Making a Purchase Order list took way to long to complete each day. With Katana, tracking what we have and what we needed got so much easier and I was able to focus on more important business decisions. Before Katana I was over and under ordering ingredients. I would recommend this app to anyone who uses Shopify and wants to make managing inventory of raw materials, ingredients, and sales orders easier.

Vorteile:

Improved our ability to track shared ingredients for the products we sell. Easy to know what quantity of ingredients to buy and who to buy it from. Connects to Shopify and updates automatically. Amazing customer support.

Nachteile:

It took some time to learn the software and create ingredients for each product - but is worth while.

Katana for a small manufacturer

Kommentare: We're still in the implementation stage, but Katana has met the majority of our business requirements with ease. It's been easy to transfer and upload data into Katana and we're feeling very confident about go live. Customer support is outstanding and they pass all improvement suggestions up to their development team for review. They embrace continuous improvement similarly to our manufacturing floor.

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.

Inventory and Sales Simplified

Kommentare: 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.

Katana for manufacturing

Kommentare: 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

Katana - Amazing Software

Kommentare: Katana makes our manufacturing process and stock control so easy.

Vorteile:

This makes our manufacturing process so easy, our orders come in via shopify and go straight into Katana. The time it saves us is amazing.

Nachteile:

We would still like to be able to add images to products, this was something we asked for in the early days and were assured it would happen, but not happened to date.

Katana has made my life easier

Kommentare: My inventory issues are now a thing of the past. Katana has made it so easy to now sync to Woocommerce, it is so easy to see exactly where my inventory issues are.

Vorteile:

This product is so easy to us. Once it is set up, it tracks your inventory very well, and the integrations with Woocommerce and Xero are excellent add ons as well. I would recommend to anybody

Nachteile:

The pricing is a bit on the expensive side. As it is invoiced in $US, I don't have a fixed price each month, as it is subject to currency fluctuations, because I do not live in the US.

I learned this product by using it; few hints from the online help. I decided on day one to keep it

Kommentare: I can now run my business without spreadsheet hell. I can actually make more product. This is not an exaggeration. I was stressed before using this software. I actually could not work out what I needed to order to satisfy our production demands.

Vorteile:

It answers my questions easily, what purchase orders do I need to make to satisfy the orders I have coming in. What should I work on next and when will it be ready for the customer! I can see delays in deliveries and the effect on production. It manages very complex bill of materials for our vast number of products. and it does so with a user experience that is simple and easy.

Nachteile:

Where there has been anything I didn't like about the software, I chat instantly to the development team and they listen, they come back to me with an instant work around; then in the longer term they have provided updates that fix the problem. They are an adorable bunch of people and really want to make this work for our busy little workshop.

Amazing Software!

Vorteile:

I love how easy it is to keep track of our inventory, and easily order more materials. It is easy to navigate and very user-friendly. You can easily see how much material you have in stock, and Katana warns you when stock is running low. Never again will I run out of what I need! Customer service is very outstanding as well, I have asked them multiple questions and they always get back quickly with a well detailed response. Love it!

Nachteile:

Honestly cannot think of any cons about this software, I have not had any problems out of it.

Incredible product and support

Vorteile:

We tried several ERP systems for our manufacturing business without a lot of luck. Katana, without question, is one of the best and more affordable options we've come across. Coupled with their incredible support, we wouldn't recommend anything else.

Nachteile:

While they're super responsive to feature requests, Katana doesn't include an API or Hook.

Katana

Kommentare: It's been really helpful to keep track of our production and inventory. Once was very useful to check out margins considering operation, but this info got confused at some point, so we are trying to resolve it so we can once again trust what appears on the software.

Vorteile:

It's really easy to setup and use. It gives you just the right information about your products and the automatization of any changes you make in processes is very useful and convenient.

Nachteile:

I've encounter a lot of bugs that are quickly fixed, but interfere with projects and daily work. The margins and costs info is a little untrustworthy and hard to read when looking for errors. The software doesn't consider quantity of people actually making the production, only hours, so if we work with extra hands is really hard to setup time lines for our weekly throughout.

Love this platform!

Kommentare: I was having issues accounting for bundled products as well as tracking labor costs in real time. I have enjoyed that Katana has these capabilities. I no longer have to count thousands of products each week!

Vorteile:

I appreciate how much this software has helped me fix my inventory issues! I also love that when I have an issue that I do not know how to resolve, I can schedule a call and get live support. [SENSITIVE CONTENT HIDDEN] is awesome and extremely relatable!

Nachteile:

I think there could be a little more development with the integration process. It would also be nice to have an onboarding specialist because it is difficult to explain the unique quirks of your business and specific issues you need help with, to a different person each time. I also think the shop floor app could use a little more functionality but I am hopeful they will be adding more features eventually.