Katana Cloud Inventory

The simplest mrp system.

Comments: We can easy to get COGS, quickly in make decision for make or buy.
Implement is simple and quickly .

Pros:

Clear process: Order fulfillment, Purchasing, Manufacturing and Inventory Control.

Cons:

Don't have kitting BOM (Combo product). Format of Currency is bad, it's difficult to read.

Alternatives Considered: ERPNext

Reasons for Choosing Katana Cloud Inventory: Easy, simple and focus on MRP.

Switched From: Odoo

Reasons for Switching to Katana Cloud Inventory: Simple and Very focus, easy to connect with Shopify and Quickbook.

Bait and Switch

Comments: Horrible. MRP systems are time consuming to implement. For them to take away functionality and SIGNIFICANTLY increase the price after the first year was ridiculous. Now we will be implementing a different MRP system. We feel cheated.

Pros:

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

Cons:

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

Small Manufacturing MRP

Pros:

Great inventory management software for the price.

Cons:

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.

Alternatives Considered: Fulcrumapp.com and Fishbowl

Reasons for Choosing Katana Cloud Inventory: Ease of use, cost, integrations, support staff, etc.

Great for sales and quotes, not so much for inventory.

Pros:

Great user interface, very easily operable.

Cons:

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

Not for Small Manufacturers

Comments: I tried using Katana twice for my small laboratory which manufacture skincare

Pros:

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

Cons:

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

First time Katana user

Comments: Overall, we have been very happy with the product. There are some features we would like to see implemented, and those have been passed onto to their support team. But the value has far exceeded the cost and we are excited to get completely rolled out soon!

Pros:

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.

Cons:

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.

Katana for a small manufacturer

Comments: 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.

Pros:

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.

Cons:

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.

A Thoughtful New Take on MRPs

Comments: This has been a very easy product to use - we came from a Netsuite operational backend but having a system that easily links to other products we use (Quickbooks, Shipping Platforms) was much easier to deploy.

Pros:

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

Cons:

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

Alternatives Considered: MRPeasy

Switched From: NetSuite

Reasons for Switching to Katana Cloud Inventory: Ease of use, API integration

Best if you are still doing your POs manually

Comments: Beautiful. Support is great, too, always helpful and fast to reply

Pros:

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:))

Cons:

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

Very Useful

Comments: The overall experience has been excellent so far. Katana has helped us transition away from using spreadsheets to track our manufacturing operations and really professionalise our processes. It's an integral part of our everyday operations.

Pros:

Katana has multiple features which have very useful in improving our manufacturing processes. The ability to create recipes for each product has been a huge help for us as we have quite a lot of raw materials in each finished product. The Shop Floor app has been brilliant for us to track production/assembly time more accurately. This has been a great help in pinpointing an accurate cost per unit.

Cons:

The only aspect that hasn't met our expectations so far has been the batch tracking feature. This is an excellent feature and one that would be so helpful for us. However, we need it to work automatically with our Shopify orders and at the moment sales orders can only be attributed to particular batches if you fulfil them on the Katana dashboard. We need this to happen automatically when our Shopify orders are fulfilled.

Alternatives Considered: Cin7 Core

Reasons for Switching to Katana Cloud Inventory: Katana was much more suited to our needs in terms of the receipt creation features for each product. The interface was also much simpler than the alternative products we considered.

Great alternative MRP to its expensive competitors

Comments: Katana has completely solved our supply line issues and it is an amazing tool that enables you to visualize production issues and bottlenecks.

Pros:

I love graphical representation and its ease of use. It took less than a week to get my company up and running. Katana has been a fantastic MRP that has been able to grow with us. They have added some important updates that have made its daily operation even easier. All things considered Katana was a great choice for my company!

Cons:

Sometimes it slows in operation which is mildly annoying. This could probably be fixed with some more servers in our geographic region.

Kina Group and the Katana Experience.

Pros:

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.

Cons:

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

KAtana manufacturing Erp

Comments: KAtana manufacturing Erp is a solid choice for small and medium sized business looking for a user-fried and Integrated solutions for their manufacturing process

Pros:

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

Cons:

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

Met our needs at beginning, as needs grew Katana team listened and added features

Comments: We maintain about 1500-2000 SKUS and all assemblers work at home. Some do different steps, returning work weekly and then having it distributed to the next person. Giving every MO an actual number has kept every bag of parts and supplies organized. We can track who has it, where it's at in the manufacturing process, etc. Even though we have used Katana since January, it's the last 3 months that it's really proven it's value to us. We do not use it for order fulfillment, just in-house manufacturing. But it's allowed us to prep for holiday season from July forward and stay completely organized and efficient. No more "where-did-it-go" or "how-many-have-we-prepped" frantic moments. We began the year knowing we needed a software that "fit" our company's size and our needs. Katana has proven invaluable for our company this year. We are currently doing our first complete inventory and we hope to add these numbers to Katana in 2020 and continue to improve our efficiency.

Pros:

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.

Cons:

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.

Best MRP/inventory manager for small business

Comments: Overall, I'm very happy with Katana. Even though I run a small business and the price is relatively high for me, it's still well worth it. Adding new orders is quick and simple, but more importantly, I can instantly see if I have all the required resources at hand. Even if I have a few dozen pending orders, their coloured chart makes it so easy to quickly see if there are any issues.

Pros:

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.

Cons:

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.

Manufacturing superstar

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

Pros:

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

Cons:

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

Alternatives Considered: Fishbowl

Reasons for Choosing Katana Cloud Inventory: too hard to navigate/ implement/ support etc

Switched From: JobBOSS²

Reasons for Switching to Katana Cloud Inventory: overall feel and easiness of allocation

The best for small manufacturing

Pros:

KatanaMRP has really helped me know what to order, and when to order it, as well as plan what comes next in manufacturing. It even lets me add time to tasks in production so I can monetarily make sure employees are being efficient enough for my company to remain profitable. Definitely recommend. I wish I would have found them sooner.

Cons:

Sometimes the app logs me out and I have to put the information in twice.

Alternatives Considered: Cin7 Core and Odoo

Reasons for Choosing Katana Cloud Inventory: ease of use and training of users

Switched From: Cin7 Core

Katana has made a huge improvement to our business process!

Comments: 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.

Pros:

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.

Cons:

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

Katana is Great for small business

Comments: Its easy to use, our warehouse knows exactly what to do and when which is great. Ordering is relatively easy so from an inventory standpoint I think its great. I think there is a lot of room for improvement in basically every other facet this software says it can deliver.

Pros:

Its easy to use as both a user and an admin. Low learning curve with a high return of success.

Cons:

Its really unintuitive for me at least to communicate with my users with the shop floor app. Im better off getting up and takinf the time to talk to them directly rather than leaving them notes and vice versa. Also the reports NEVER work, ive never been able to pull a report or print a packing slip for whatever reason (the link always dies) thankfully I also keep up to date on our accounting software so I can pull the report from there otherwise Id probably rate this lower.

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

Comments: 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.

Pros:

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.

Cons:

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.

Unbelievable!

Comments: Not only does the App work perfectly, but the support is out of this world. We have quite complex requirements for the size of our business due to having products that change every month. The team at Katana helped me to design the perfect solution and then found us a brilliant agency to implement it for a very reasonable price. All for no additional cost. Friendly, helpful and fast responses. Perfect 11/10 for customer service I have used far more expensive MRP and ERP systems in the past, and I must say that Katana measures up very well. For the price and it's ability to integrate with everything we already use it is unbeatable. If you are a manufacturing business and you use Xero, use Katana!

Pros:

Ease of use Set up Customer service Ability to integrate

Cons:

No in house integrations option. Customer service was so good, I would have liked an integration option directly from Katana

Katana - Amazing Software

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

Pros:

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.

Cons:

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.

Simple but Effective Inventory Management

Comments: We've saved countless manhours on tracking inventory. It also makes purchasing decisions a lot easier, with the ability to know at a glance how much of each product you need to buy.

Pros:

PROS: - really easy to use, great interface - support is responsive, although we didn't have much need for support thanks to a very thorough and detailed knowledge base - reasonably priced compared to other inventory management systems - good integrations with Shopify, Quickbooks, etc - it made inventory tracking a lot easier for us as a manufacturer. The manhours saved on doing Excel updates to inventory would definitely cost more if you run complex operations

Cons:

CONS: - Integration with Quickbooks is a little iffy if you don't login to Quickbooks beforehand - It doesn't have a multicurrency feature for purchase orders (when you buy inventory in a currency different from your main currency) - It's not easy to account for freight costs in the costs of buying raw materials - You can't work in 2 browser tabs without paying for 2 users, this can be a little frustrating

Inventory and Sales Simplified

Comments: 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.

Pros:

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.

Cons:

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.

Stay Away from Katana

Comments: Stay away from this software. There are plenty on the market that won't try to rob you.

Cons:

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 ^^)

Alternatives Considered: MRPeasy

Reasons for Choosing Katana Cloud Inventory: Unacceptable prices hikes and commercial policy. Unsafe company.

Switched From: MRPeasy