Katana Cloud Inventory

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.

Great choice for small manufacturer

Comments: 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.

Pros:

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

Cons:

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.

Scrappy startup quality at enterprise rates

Comments: Now at the money grabbing stage before they implode, would be my guess. Clunky at the best of times. We put up with quirks, bugs that were never going to get fixed and general major omissions (like lack of back up and undo) This company is being run like it's an open source "best effort" outfit, but charging premium monthly rates for a software that feels barely out of beta. Given how central MRP/ERP/etc is to our business, we will be looking for a different provider asap, as none of this inspires trust in what should be a long term partner

Pros:

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

Cons:

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

A critical piece of our business that we can't live without

Comments: I love it. I've had great interactions with everyone on the team, and I can tell they want to help me succeed. Thanks Katana!

Pros:

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

Cons:

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.

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.

Katana is great!

Pros:

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.

Cons:

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.

Exactly What Our Growing Business Needed.

Comments: So far, we are really liking hoe easy it was to setup and get running. The inventory management has improved the flow and processes in our company for the better.

Pros:

Ease of use, support, inventory management features, able to create builds/recipes for products (BOM), ability to upload data using Excel, integration with Quickbooks Online

Cons:

Cost, certain features do not make sense in the implementation.

Highly Recommend!

Comments: We love it. We use this app to help with our growing business. It has made it so easy to keep up with reordering and be able to manage inventory between two stores! The Katana team makes it so easy to use and offer a lot of help! Highly recommend!

Pros:

Ease of Use Easy Implementation Customer Service Reorder Options

Cons:

I wouldn't say this is a con- but we are really excited for the bar code scanning option they plan to roll out in 2021!

Working with Katana

Comments: 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.

Pros:

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

Cons:

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.

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.

Promised so much delivered far short of what we hoped

Comments: Disappointed. They are pretending this software is the best thing since sliced bread and its more like a stale baguette.

Pros:

It works on a basic level for stock management and also bills of materials.

Cons:

It fails to have any sort of calender or gantt chart. It also fails terribly with time planning/recording of how long a task can take. For example you can't even put into the system that you start your working day at half past the hour only full hours are allowed. Further to the time planning side you can not block out time for holidays or meetings. Making this software useless to plan your time and give acreate lead times to customers.

Intuitive Software

Comments: Overall very positive experience so far. Software is intuitive and simple to look at which is good. Customer service is outstanding, had a session with [SENSITIVE CONTENT] which he suggested and he was very good - and has even followed up with us since.

Pros:

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.

Cons:

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

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.

Katana boosted our confidence as new business owners!

Comments: 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!

Pros:

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.

Cons:

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.

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.

Overpriced and insecure

Comments: Too expensive, cheaper to purchase some of the Tier One options out there. Insecure as your users have wide open access to all features - including the dreaded "delete all" function.

Pros:

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

Cons:

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.

Helped Us Take Our Business to the Next Level

Pros:

Clean interface, well organized and thought out and modern in its features. Integrates well with lots of other software I use, including Quickbooks and Shopify. Customer service is absolutely top notch, and the tutorials are very helpful.

Cons:

If you have zero experience with MRPs like I did, it may take you a little while to figure everything out. But the customer service team really goes above and beyond to answer any questions and walk you through anything you're having issues with. If there was one feature I wish was available that is not currently, it's barcode scanner integration. That would make updating my inventory and adding new knives to inventory much easier.

New user but very happy with software quality and functionality.

Comments: Reason to use Katana was mainly to organise production and stock levels. There is long learning curve, but in longer run I believe this will help us to clean process up.

Pros:

Cloud integration and nice User Interface.

Cons:

- 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.

A nessecary tool

Comments: Mainly we have had a good experience, the system is updated to try and make it fit every company model.
It has helped me monitor our business and stock levels closely, you just have to make sure it is kept up to date so that it accurately reflects your current stock levels.

Pros:

Helps keep track of work stock if used correctly. Updated regulary. We had an issue where there was not enough decimal places for us to input our formulas, we raised this issue and within a month it was fixed. Allows me to quickly find out a customers purchasing history and the percentage profit made per product

Cons:

My only issue is that it is slightly expensive for a small company.

Katana for manufacturing

Comments: 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.

Pros:

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.

Cons:

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

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.

Katana has made my life easier

Comments: 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.

Pros:

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

Cons:

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.

Easy to use and helpful

Pros:

It takes some time to set up and deploy, but once it's running, its super helpful! Its very easy to generate POs, update stock levels, and track sales and make orders. All the function without the bloated junk that expensive and advanced MRP systems have.

Cons:

I wish there was a way to have a negative stock variant (a single product that represents a product subtraction rather than having to make a full copy of a product recipe minus that one single item). I wish there was a way to group materials without having to create a separate product for them. Each product will generate a separate make order, but sometimes Its not actually something that can be made individually, it just represents all the parts that make up an assembly. There is currently no way to make a group of materials that does not become its own product that the system thinks needs to be made as its own inventory item.

Amazing Software!

Pros:

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!

Cons:

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