inFlow Inventory Review
For small businesses looking for inventory management software, inFlow Inventory is easy to use and affordable, but lacks important integrations.
-
Expert Analyst & Reviewer
UPDATED
Advertiser Disclosure: Our unbiased reviews and content are supported in part by affiliate partnerships, and we adhere to strict guidelines to preserve editorial integrity.
- Date Established
- 2005
- Location
- Canada
Table of Contents
inFlow At A Glance
- Cloud-based inventory management software
- Order management and fulfillment
- Desktop and mobile applications
- Online showroom portal for B2B businesses to purchase products
- Great for wholesalers, eCommerce business owners, and manufacturers
- Best for small and mid-size businesses
Pros
- Easy to learn
- Competitive pricing
- Highly customizable solution
- Good customer service
- Shoppable B2B portals
Cons
- Expensive for larger businesses
- Limited integrations
- Some software glitches
What Is inFlow?
inFlow is an inventory management software program made for small and medium-sized businesses to track inventory, fill customer orders, reorder stock, generate purchase orders and invoices, and create customized reports.
Note: inFlow does offer locally installed software for a one-time fee. However, inFlow On-Premise stopped receiving updates in 2018, so we do not recommend using it.
inFlow Pricing
inFlow is available on a monthly or yearly subscription basis (you get a 10% discount for annual subscriptions). The main differences between each pricing plan are sales order limits, team member accounts, the amount of user access you give sales reps, and whether you want to remove inFlow’s branding on your documentation.
If you’re not sure which inFlow Inventory plan is right for you, sign up for a free 14-day trial (no credit card required).
You can cancel your inFlow account at any time, and your account will be active until your subscription period ends. If you cancel your subscription within the first 30 days after signup, contact an inFlow support technician for a full refund.
inFlow Entrepreneur
inFlow’s Entrepreneur plan costs $99/month and includes:
- Two team member accounts
- One location (no sublocations)
- 100 sales orders/month, with an additional batch of 50 orders automatically added after you reach your sales limit for an extra $21 fee; additional batch orders are added automatically as needed
- Unlimited support via live chat, email, and phone
- Two-hour setup assistance
inFlow Small Business
inFlow’s Small Business plan costs $279/month and includes:
- Five team member accounts
- Unlimited inventory locations
- 2,000 sales orders/month, with an additional batch of 50 orders automatically added after you reach your sales limit for an extra $21 fee; additional batch orders are added automatically as needed
- User access rights
- Showroom, which helps you quickly create B2B sales portals
- Unlimited support via live chat, email, and phone
- Two-hour setup assistance
inFlow Mid-Size
inFlow’s Mid-Size plan costs $549/month and includes:
- 10 team members
- Unlimited inventory locations
- 10,000 sales orders/month, with an additional batch of 50 orders automatically added after you reach your sales limit for an extra $19 fee; additional batch orders are added automatically as needed
- Unlimited integrations
- User access rights
- Showroom
- Restrict access by location
- Restrict sales reps
- Purchase order approvals
- Remove inFlow branding
- Unlimited support via live chat, email, and phone
- Two-hour setup assistance
inFlow Enterprise
inFlow’s Enterprise plan costs $1649/month and includes:
- 25 team members
- Unlimited inventory locations
- 30,000 sales orders/month, with an additional batch of 50 orders automatically added after you reach your sales limit for an extra $16 fee; additional batch orders are added automatically as needed
- Unlimited integrations
- User access rights
- Showroom
- Restrict access by location
- Restrict sales reps in inFlow to their own orders and customers
- API access
- Serial numbers
- Purchase order approvals
- Dedicated account manager
- Premium database to optimize the performance of inFlow accounts with many orders and products
- Remove inFlow branding
- Unlimited support via live chat, email, and phone
- 10-hour setup assistance
Extra inFlow Costs & Fees
Most inFlow pricing plans don’t come with free API access. You must pay an additional fee of $29 to $69 per month if you want to integrate inFlow with an app that is not on inFlow’s integration list.
To add extra team members, you must pay between $29 and $49 per month. To generate and track serial numbers for individual products, you have to pay a monthly fee of $29 to $69 per month.
The most irritating extra cost is the automatic additional charges after you hit your monthly sales limit. You are continually charged $16 to $21 for every 50 additional orders you get.
Is inFlow Easy To Use?
inFlow is very easy to use. Small business users will receive between two and ten hours of setup assistance depending on your pricing plan. The cloud-based app, which is available on desktop and mobile, has an easy-to-navigate interface so you can start creating orders fast.
There are a few functions that require you to download inFlow Cloud on your desktop, which is currently only available on Windows. However, inFlow is working to make all features available online soon.
inFlow Features
inFlow’s cloud-based software comes with a variety of features that you can configure right out of the box. While there are not as many integrations for inFlow as there are for inventory management software like Zoho Inventory, the feature set of inFlow itself should (almost) make up for it.
Inventory Management
inFlow’s inventory management system makes it incredibly easy to organize your products, track stock levels, reorder products/materials, and manage any manufacturing costs.
With inFlow, you can:
- Import a CSV file listing your current products
- Create item listings and SKUs
- Customize product dimensions and units of measurement
- Add multiple product photos to each listing
- Adjust stock levels by location
- Create automated reordering rules for individual products
- Generate and scan barcodes with the free inFlow companion app (Android/iOS)
- Print item labels
- Generate individual serial numbers (for an added monthly fee)
- Track assembly costs
- Create work orders so you can sell items as a kit or manufacture something out of multiple components (currently only available on installed Windows app)
- Push inventory information to Quickbooks or Xero
- Designate pricing and costing methods
Order Management & Fulfillment
The browser version of the inFlow app, along with the accompanying mobile app, helps you create a streamlined order management process.
inFlow’s order management features include:
- Quick pick, pack, and ship on browser and mobile
- Barcode scanning via mobile device
- Warnings/updates on inventory levels, along with partial picking options
- Default picking locations and sublocations (if you have more than one warehouse)
- Stock picking and transfer rules, if you have more than one picking location
- Fulfillment status history and updates
- Order payment statuses
- Easy return and restock options
- Shipping carrier comparisons and shipment tracking through EasyPost, a shipping software made for small to medium-size businesses
- The ability to assign specific orders to different sales reps
Purchase Orders
One of the best things about inFlow is its cohesive, simplistic interface, and that’s apparent when you see the similarity between your purchase ordering dashboard, order fulfillment dashboard, and sales order dashboard.
With inFlow’s purchase ordering features, you can:
- Quickly create purchase quotes
- Convert quotes into purchasing orders
- Save and reuse vendor information
- Create purchase order approval limits
- Designate sales representatives who have approval access
- Create multiple ship-to addresses
- Push purchases to Quickbooks
- View purchase order histories
- Track balances and credits
- Add custom fields
- Include discounted rates, preferred vendor payments methods, and custom payment terms
- Set default restock vendors
Sales Orders
inFlow shines when it comes to making sales and receiving payments, especially with their new Showroom feature.
When using inFlow for sales orders, you can:
- Set up your own public/private online shoppable showrooms (starting at the Small Business plan) with a free inFlow subdomain name or paid custom domain name
- Take Visa, Mastercard, and American Express card payments using inFlow Pay (powered by Bambora, a payment processing provider)
- Create sales quotes, orders, and invoices
- Designate custom discounts for certain customers
- Convert a quote to a sales order with the click of a button
- Email invoices and receipts
- Push invoices to Quickbooks
- Enter tax and customs information
- Track freight costs
- Take partial payments and record payment history
- Take backorders
Reports
inFlow allows you to generate and save several kinds of reports with the click of a button. inFlow’s reporting system can generate:
- 13 different kinds of sales reports, including reports on operations, customers, and sales representatives
- Six different purchasing reports, including reports on vendors, purchase order status, and purchasing tax
- Stock reordering and forecasting reports
- Payment and accounting reports based on customers, vendors, taxes, and profits
- Work order materials and finished order reports
inFlow Customer Service
All inFlow customers get unlimited support via phone, email, and live chat for no extra cost. inFlow customers rave about the responsiveness, attentiveness, and transparency of the company’s customer service technicians.
Live support hours are a little odd.
On Monday, support is available from 3:30 AM-8:30 AM EST, and then from 1:00 PM-5:00 PM EST.
On Tuesday through Friday, support is available from 3:30 AM-5:00 PM EST. On Friday, support is available from 3:30 AM-12:30 PM EST.
inFlow Integrations
Unfortunately, inFlow offers only seven integrations, and you need to pay an extra monthly fee for API access unless you’re on the Enterprise plan.
Luckily, one of those integrations includes Zapier, so you can connect the inFlow app to over 3,000 other apps. inFlow also has native integrations for Quickbooks Online and Xero to meet your accounting needs. You can also integrate inFlow with a Shopify, Squarespace, or WooCommerce store.
inFlow has partnered with Bambora and EasyPost, so now you can take payments online and ship products through several carriers.
inFlow Reviews
inFlow is highly regarded by most users. The software company has earned a 4.6/5 star rating on Capterra based on 434 reviews, and a 3.9/5 star rating on G2, based on 30 reviews.
It’s important to note that most recent reviews focus specifically on the cloud-based version of the software, not the locally hosted version. Recent reviews have more four and five-star ratings.
Negative inFlow Inventory Reviews & Complaints
Although inFlow’s software has been well received, there are a few issues customers found:
- Limited number of integrations, especially with eCommerce platforms
- Slightly lagging/buggy
- Some features are accessible only with Windows OS (for now)
Positive inFlow Reviews
- Good pricing for a high-quality feature set
- Easy to use
- Highly customizable to fit user needs
- Great customer support
Is inFlow Secure?
inFlow is very secure, taking the following measures to protect your company’s data:
- Data stored in Microsoft Azure cloud computing platform
- Partnered with Stripe, a PCI-compliant payment processor, to store credit card information
- 256-bit SSL encryption technology, which is also used by the world’s top banks
- GDPR compliant
- Multiple daily data backups in several physical locations
The Final Verdict: Is inFlow Worth It?
Overall, inFlow is good at what it does: helping you manage and track your products, customers, and purchasing wherever you go. The interface is intuitive, and you get at least two hours of setup assistance, so you can quickly start working with the software. You can customize your account and your reporting to suit your business’s needs. Plus, in those rare instances where you run into problems, inFlow customer support technicians are there for you.
If you have a large number of orders, use an eCommerce platform that is not readily compatible with inFlow, or want API access without any additional fees, then inFlow is probably not the right inventory management software for you. Check out NetSuite, Unleashed, and Orderhive, which are all suited for larger businesses with more expansive needs, to find the perfect inventory management software for your business.
Nicolette Kier
Expert Analyst & Reviewer
As a small business owner, contributing writer Nicolette Kier has been sharing her knowledge on all things related to freelancing and eCommerce since 2019. She earned a BS in Physics and a BA in Creative Writing from the University of Pittsburgh.
View Nicolette Kier's professional experience on LinkedIn.
Latest posts by Nicolette Kier (see all)
- 7 Best Grocery Store POS Systems To Boost Sales In 2022 - June 10, 2022
- How To Start A Trucking Company: How Much It Costs, Planning Guide, & Financing Options - May 23, 2022
- What Is A Factoring Company & How Does Factoring Work? - May 17, 2022
- 5 Best Gas Stations POS Systems To Compete In 2022 - May 13, 2022
- 8 Best POS Systems For A Convenience Store In 2022 - May 10, 2022
We've done in-depth research on each and confidently recommend them.
We've done in-depth research on each and confidently recommend them.
Organization Name: Bell Technology
Hello! Its always be a complex task to maintain stock records up to mark. We supposed to keep our inventory update whenever every transaction like sale or purchase happen. To do such a difficult task, there is numerous software available in the market . I found BTHAWK and inflow on-premises, both are good alternatives available in the market.
This comment refers to an earlier version of this review and may be outdated.
While I’ve only used the free trial and the free forever version (for testing/experimenting purposes) I’ve to say I’m pretty impressed. The only design flaw I have found is the colors in the software. They seem to be like bright headlights on a dark night. They are bright greens and yellows. I have talked with support (who have always been helpful and quick to help – yes even a free user) and they have assured me that inFlow is working on a future update with more “muted” colors. I hope this is true and I hope it’s soon because while the different colors really help with being in different areas of the software, it can hurt my eyes. I’m hoping that I can encourage the rest of my team to make an investment in this software.
This comment refers to an earlier version of this review and may be outdated.
Hey blog post , I am thankful for the analysis – Does anyone know if I might be able to grab a template CA OCF-1 document to fill in ?
This comment refers to an earlier version of this review and may be outdated.
Hi Tamiko Averett. my business partner filled out a blank a form document at this site http://goo.gl/WxWbWe
This comment refers to an earlier version of this review and may be outdated.
I am sorry but I have to be the lone dissenter (spelling…?) here…we have had inflow for a little over a year now and have had several problems with it…to me inventory is and should be class 101…we have many parts / fittings in our inventory that are shared by multiple units that we build…most (not all) but most are stainless steel…many of these stainless steel items are shipped out to be coated in a fine layer of glass…therefore those parts have to be inventoried also…lets say we have to build 4 units…we run a temp work order just to get an idea of what we have in stock and what we have to order…the readout on the right of the work order is wonderful…tells you what you have and or what you are short of…go to print that report out…a nightmare…the treated parts will not print out because inflow does not like to print out any part with a sub-assembly…you can’t get the printout to print out in the same order as what you are seeing on the screen…it just prints out the info in any random order and it makes it very difficult to wade thru multiple records to find what you are looking for…the support staff at the company is wonderful and if it were not for them we would be dead in the water…they suggested (for the time being) that we export and print out the report (CSV) via EXCEL…this is a temporary fix tho…the problem with this is you can’t print out bin locations number one…number two…if you have a need for 12 of something and you only have 8…great…the item in question prints out twice making it obvious that you have an issue…it shows that you have 8 and are short 4…the problem arises when you have one of two scenarios…you need 4 and have 4…that prints one line stating four pieces…but here is the problem…if you need 4 and have 0…the same exact line prints…you have no idea which of the 2 scenarios you are facing because the red flags that are on the screen inventory do not transfer over to the EXCEL report…this is very annoying and the only fix for this issue is taking the EXCEL sheet that you just printed and sitting down with what is on the screen and comparing line for line all of those “single” issues.
This comment refers to an earlier version of this review and may be outdated.
We moved to InFlow from a Cloud based solution and we see this as a big Plus. Our ISP accidentally stuffed our internet connection and business stopped until we got a temporary router in place. Similarly if our branch of the internet is slow (high demand) the cloud solution is very slow. Now using InFlow if our network is slow it is completely within my control. … Perfect.
This comment refers to an earlier version of this review and may be outdated.
Hey RossThanks for taking the time to add your comment here! It’s much appreciated! Great point how local networked solutions can be a better fit than cloud-only. Glad to have you as a customer :)Cheers,-MAtt
This comment refers to an earlier version of this review and may be outdated.
Hi Matt,
Thanks for the response and explaining further about inFlow. Good to know about the support availability for all inFlow customers. I’m sure our readers will appreciate the extra information so they’re better able to evaluate the software for their business needs.
– Ted
This comment refers to an earlier version of this review and may be outdated.
Hey Ted
Thank you so much for taking the time to review inFlow! It’s much appreciated! Just wanted to clarify and add some points to your review if I may.
We built inFlow specifically for those that have item based businesses. You can use inFlow everyday to run your business from purchasing to sales.
When you need to do accounting, inFlow can generate all the reports you need to make your accountant happy. Or, of course, you can enter your information into your Quickbooks too.
As you mentioned, we don’t have direct integration or an API just yet but it would be nice to give our customers that option.
Although we say there’s only forum support for free users, everyone is welcomed to get in touch with us via [email protected]. We also have live chat and phone support available here: http://www.inflowinventory.com/software-contact-info.aspx
We definitely don’t turn anyone down for support 🙂
Licensing works per concurrent user. So, to have two people using inFlow at the same time, you would need two licenses. You can also install one license on two different computers (say a laptop and desktop) – you just would only be able to access one at a time.
You can also have inFlow installed on every single computer in your office and give everyone unlimited READ only access. No one will ask “is it in stock?” again since everyone can check!
If you’re curious to find out if inFlow is a good fit for your business, feel free to get in touch with me direct via [email protected] or call 1·866·923·4974 x 711.
Thanks again for taking the time to do the review!
-Matt
This comment refers to an earlier version of this review and may be outdated.