Fishbowl Inventory
Encyclopedia
Fishbowl Inventory is an Orem, Utah
-based software company that develops and publishes inventory management software
and related solutions. Fishbowl was created in 2001 by a group of software developers. The company was originally called ExpressTech Holdings, but its name was changed to Fishbowl a few years later to reflect its focus on allowing small businesses and mid-size businesses to see how much inventory
they have on hand by using electronic devices, such as desktop computers and wireless
scanners.
Shortly after it was created, Fishbowl focused on integrating its inventory management software with QuickBooks
. It soon became one of the first third-party software developers to receive Intuit’s Gold Developer status. It continues to hold that status through 2011. In 2003, Fishbowl became the #1 inventory management add-on to QuickBooks, based on sales to QuickBooks users.
In addition to inventory management software, the company’s product line grew to include a Manufacturing Option in 2009 and a mobile warehouse solution in 2010. The Mississippi State Department of Health, Santa Barbara County, CA IT
Network Division, and several other government bodies use Fishbowl Inventory as an asset tracking
system.
, purchasing
, manufacturing
, shipping
, pricing
, and ordering. The program provides multi-location inventory tracking, LIFO/FIFO
and average costing standards, bar coding
, and order creation and recording.
Fishbowl Inventory’s feature set was designed to provide distributors, wholesalers, manufactures and retail businesses
the additional inventory features and functionality that QuickBooks lacks. These include inventory control, purchase order
and sales order
generation, manufacturing, and cycle counting.) As part of the QuickBooks integration, Fishbowl Inventory records transactions, invoices, and bills directly to customers' QuickBooks file.
The software runs on a centralized server
, allowing multiple clients to connect simultaneously. This structure also allows integration with barcode inventory tracking hardware devices, multiple location tracking, and other mobile communicators. The server side uses a SQL database and can run on Windows
or Linux
.
, Orem and other local communities at least once a year. In 2009, Fishbowl donated its inventory management software to CherryCreek Elementary School in Orem to track its supplies, and Fishbowl employees helped catalog the school’s equipment, books and other resources. In 2010, Fishbowl employees landscaped the playground and other areas surrounding Provo’s House of Hope, a facility where women suffering from substance abuse
come to receive assistance for themselves and their children. Fishbowl has also partnered with several Utah groups and companies – which include Utah Valley University, Certiport, Think Atomic and Voonami – to create the Courage Above Mountains Center. The CAM Center provides job education and additional services to low-income mothers and other people in need. It also helps entrepreneurs find local resources to help them develop their startups.
Orem, Utah
Orem is a city in Utah County, Utah, United States, in the north-central part of the state. It is adjacent to Provo, Lindon, and Vineyard and is about south of Salt Lake City. Orem is one of the principal cities of the Provo-Orem, Utah Metropolitan Statistical Area, which includes all of Utah and...
-based software company that develops and publishes inventory management software
Inventory management software
Inventory management software is a computer-based system for tracking product levels, orders, sales and deliveries. It can also be used in the manufacturing industry to create a work order, bill of materials and other production-related documents. Companies use inventory management software to...
and related solutions. Fishbowl was created in 2001 by a group of software developers. The company was originally called ExpressTech Holdings, but its name was changed to Fishbowl a few years later to reflect its focus on allowing small businesses and mid-size businesses to see how much inventory
Inventory
Inventory means a list compiled for some formal purpose, such as the details of an estate going to probate, or the contents of a house let furnished. This remains the prime meaning in British English...
they have on hand by using electronic devices, such as desktop computers and wireless
Wireless
Wireless telecommunications is the transfer of information between two or more points that are not physically connected. Distances can be short, such as a few meters for television remote control, or as far as thousands or even millions of kilometers for deep-space radio communications...
scanners.
Shortly after it was created, Fishbowl focused on integrating its inventory management software with QuickBooks
QuickBooks
QuickBooks is a line of business accounting software developed and marketed by Intuit.-History:Intuit was founded in 1983 by Scott Cook and Tom Proulx in Mountain View, California, USA...
. It soon became one of the first third-party software developers to receive Intuit’s Gold Developer status. It continues to hold that status through 2011. In 2003, Fishbowl became the #1 inventory management add-on to QuickBooks, based on sales to QuickBooks users.
History
Fishbowl was formed in 2001 by Chuck Hale and Beverly Hale, two business owners in Salt Lake City. The pair invested $3 million into the software company and went through several CEOs with little success. In 2004, they asked a business consultant named David Williams to evaluate the company and possibly dissolve it. Instead, Williams reorganized the company and was able to keep it in business. Within three years, it was out of debt and earning awards for its growth.In addition to inventory management software, the company’s product line grew to include a Manufacturing Option in 2009 and a mobile warehouse solution in 2010. The Mississippi State Department of Health, Santa Barbara County, CA IT
Information technology
Information technology is the acquisition, processing, storage and dissemination of vocal, pictorial, textual and numerical information by a microelectronics-based combination of computing and telecommunications...
Network Division, and several other government bodies use Fishbowl Inventory as an asset tracking
Asset tracking
Asset tracking refers to tracking the movement of physical assets. Either by scanning barcode tags attached to the assets or using smart tags, like RFID tags, which broadcast their location. An asset tracking system can record the location and usage of the assets and generate various reports...
system.
Features
The primary product, Fishbowl Inventory, is an inventory control program for QuickBooks. Fishbowl Inventory was one of the first programs to integrate with QuickBooks and currently holds Gold Developer Status, Intuit’s highest award for third-party integrators. The program is divided into modules focusing on various inventory control and management tasks, including salesSales
A sale is the act of selling a product or service in return for money or other compensation. It is an act of completion of a commercial activity....
, purchasing
Purchasing
Purchasing refers to a business or organization attempting for acquiring goods or services to accomplish the goals of the enterprise. Though there are several organizations that attempt to set standards in the purchasing process, processes can vary greatly between organizations...
, manufacturing
Manufacturing
Manufacturing is the use of machines, tools and labor to produce goods for use or sale. The term may refer to a range of human activity, from handicraft to high tech, but is most commonly applied to industrial production, in which raw materials are transformed into finished goods on a large scale...
, shipping
Shipping
Shipping has multiple meanings. It can be a physical process of transporting commodities and merchandise goods and cargo, by land, air, and sea. It also can describe the movement of objects by ship.Land or "ground" shipping can be by train or by truck...
, pricing
Pricing
Pricing is the process of determining what a company will receive in exchange for its products. Pricing factors are manufacturing cost, market place, competition, market condition, and quality of product. Pricing is also a key variable in microeconomic price allocation theory. Pricing is a...
, and ordering. The program provides multi-location inventory tracking, LIFO/FIFO
FIFO and LIFO accounting
FIFO and LIFO Methods are accounting techniques used in managing inventory and financial matters involving the amount of money a company has tied up within inventory of produced goods, raw materials, parts, components, or feed stocks....
and average costing standards, bar coding
Barcode
A barcode is an optical machine-readable representation of data, which shows data about the object to which it attaches. Originally barcodes represented data by varying the widths and spacings of parallel lines, and may be referred to as linear or 1 dimensional . Later they evolved into rectangles,...
, and order creation and recording.
Fishbowl Inventory’s feature set was designed to provide distributors, wholesalers, manufactures and retail businesses
Retail
Retail consists of the sale of physical goods or merchandise from a fixed location, such as a department store, boutique or kiosk, or by mail, in small or individual lots for direct consumption by the purchaser. Retailing may include subordinated services, such as delivery. Purchasers may be...
the additional inventory features and functionality that QuickBooks lacks. These include inventory control, purchase order
Purchase order
A purchase order is a commercial document issued by a buyer to a seller, indicating types, quantities, and agreed prices for products or services the seller will provide to the buyer. Sending a purchase order to a supplier constitutes a legal offer to buy products or services...
and sales order
Sales Order
The sales order, sometimes abbreviated as SO, is an order issued by a business to a customer. A sales order may be for products and/or services. Given the wide variety of businesses, this means that the orders can be fulfilled in several ways...
generation, manufacturing, and cycle counting.) As part of the QuickBooks integration, Fishbowl Inventory records transactions, invoices, and bills directly to customers' QuickBooks file.
The software runs on a centralized server
Server (computing)
In the context of client-server architecture, a server is a computer program running to serve the requests of other programs, the "clients". Thus, the "server" performs some computational task on behalf of "clients"...
, allowing multiple clients to connect simultaneously. This structure also allows integration with barcode inventory tracking hardware devices, multiple location tracking, and other mobile communicators. The server side uses a SQL database and can run on Windows
Microsoft Windows
Microsoft Windows is a series of operating systems produced by Microsoft.Microsoft introduced an operating environment named Windows on November 20, 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces . Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world's personal...
or Linux
Linux
Linux is a Unix-like computer operating system assembled under the model of free and open source software development and distribution. The defining component of any Linux system is the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released October 5, 1991 by Linus Torvalds...
.
Fishbowl Inventory
- Fishbowl Inventory Client and Server Software
- Available for multiple users
- Runs on Windows, Linux, and MacsMacintoshThe Macintosh , or Mac, is a series of several lines of personal computers designed, developed, and marketed by Apple Inc. The first Macintosh was introduced by Apple's then-chairman Steve Jobs on January 24, 1984; it was the first commercially successful personal computer to feature a mouse and a...
Fishbowl Mobile Warehouse
- Wireless PDA software
- Integrates with Fishbowl Inventory
- Allows real-time inventory tracking via bar coding
Community service
Fishbowl offers community service to ProvoProvo
Provo was a Dutch counterculture movement in the mid-1960s that focused on provoking violent responses from authorities using non-violent bait. It was preceded by the nozem movement and followed by the hippie movement...
, Orem and other local communities at least once a year. In 2009, Fishbowl donated its inventory management software to CherryCreek Elementary School in Orem to track its supplies, and Fishbowl employees helped catalog the school’s equipment, books and other resources. In 2010, Fishbowl employees landscaped the playground and other areas surrounding Provo’s House of Hope, a facility where women suffering from substance abuse
Substance abuse
A substance-related disorder is an umbrella term used to describe several different conditions associated with several different substances .A substance related disorder is a condition in which an individual uses or abuses a...
come to receive assistance for themselves and their children. Fishbowl has also partnered with several Utah groups and companies – which include Utah Valley University, Certiport, Think Atomic and Voonami – to create the Courage Above Mountains Center. The CAM Center provides job education and additional services to low-income mothers and other people in need. It also helps entrepreneurs find local resources to help them develop their startups.
Awards
Since 2007, Fishbowl has earned a number of business awards for its revenue growth. These awards are listed in order by year:2011
- Inc. 5000: No. 3,283
- Utah Business 30 Women to Watch - Fishbowl President Mary Michelle Scott
- Utah ValleyUtah ValleyUtah Valley is a valley in North Central Utah located in Utah County, and is considered part of the Wasatch Front. It contains Provo, Orem, and their suburbs, including Highland, Eagle Mountain, Saratoga Springs, Mapleton, Spanish Fork, Lindon, Pleasant Grove, Springville, Lehi, Payson, and...
BusinessQ Fast 50: No. 24 - v100 - vSpring Capital Top 100 Venture Entrepreneur - Fishbowl CEO David Williams
2010
- Deloitte Technology Fast 500: No. 218
- Inc. 5000: No. 2,157
- MountainWest Capital Network Utah 100: No. 36
- Utah Business Fast 50: No. 45
- UV Fast 50: No. 16
2009
- Deloitte Fast 500Deloitte Fast 500The Deloitte Technology Fast 500 Awards are run and moderated by Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limited. They recognize the 500 fastest-growing technology companies in regions around the world...
: No. 142 - Inc. 5000: No. 799
- MWCN Utah 100: No. 22
- Utah Business Fast 50: No. 38
2008
- Deloitte Fast 500: No. 101
- Inc. 500: No. 356
- MWCN Utah 100: No. 6
- Utah Business Fast 50: No. 6
- UV Fast 50: No. 8