A Simple Cin7 Alternative for Small Manufacturers on QuickBooks Online

If you run a small manufacturing shop and you are searching for a Cin7 alternative, start with one honest question: what do you actually use every day? For a lot of 1-10 person manufacturers, the daily work is production runs, lot numbers, expiry dates, and keeping QuickBooks Online accurate. Evenbatch is a simple Cin7 alternative built for exactly that job: lot tracking, bills of materials, and a QuickBooks Online sync you can read and approve, at a flat $49.99 per month with unlimited users. This guide covers what to check before switching, what you get, and how to migrate in an afternoon.

What to check before you switch

Before you move to any inventory tool, including ours, run it through the same due-diligence questions. These apply to every product in the category, and the answers matter more than any feature list:

• Does the price scale per user or per feature tier? If it does, model what you will pay when your team grows from three people to eight, and when you need the next tier to unlock one feature.
• Is lot tracking included, or is it an add-on or a higher-tier feature? If a recall would hurt your business, lot tracking is not optional, so it should not be priced like an extra.
• Can you export all of your data as CSV whenever you want? Items, BOMs, lots, stock levels, everything. If the answer is vague, assume the door only swings one way.
• Does it write to QuickBooks silently, or does it show you every change before posting? Ask to see the sync log. If there is no log, you will find out what the tool did from your accountant.
• Are you paying for features you do not use? Count the modules you would actually open in a normal week, then look at what share of the price they represent.
• Is there a free trial that does not require a credit card, and can you cancel yourself without a phone call?

Write your answers down for your current tool and for anything you evaluate next. The comparison will usually make the decision for you.

What you get in Evenbatch

Evenbatch is web-based inventory software for small manufacturers who use QuickBooks Online. The scope is deliberately narrow, and everything in it is included on every plan.

Lot tracking on every plan. Every lot carries its remaining quantity, expiry date, and cost. Picking follows FEFO (first-expired-first-out), so the stock closest to expiry ships first. Expiry alerts warn you before product goes bad on the shelf. When a supplier calls about a bad batch, a one-click recall trace follows the lot through production runs to shipments, and you can export the trace as CSV for your records or your auditor. See lot tracking for QuickBooks and recall traceability for the full walkthrough.

Bills of materials that actually build things. BOMs support 1-2 levels, scrap percentage, and per-unit cost roll-up. Production orders explode the BOM, consume components FEFO, and produce output lots with the rolled-up cost attached. If you edit a BOM after it has been used in transactions, Evenbatch creates a new version and preserves the history, so old production runs still show what they were built from. Details are in our bill of materials guide.

Units of measure. Buy in cases, sell in eaches. Per-item conversions apply across purchasing, BOMs, and sales, so you stop converting in your head or in a side spreadsheet. See units of measure for QuickBooks.

Purchasing and sales. Purchase orders capture lot numbers and expiry dates at receiving, which is the moment that data is easiest to get right. Sales orders allocate stock FEFO and handle shipping.

An honest QuickBooks Online sync. Evenbatch connects through Intuit's official API with OAuth 2.0, so we never see your QuickBooks password. It pushes invoices, bills, and production journal entries, and imports items, customers, and vendors from QuickBooks. A preview/shadow mode shows every proposed change before anything is written. A full sync log records what was sent and when. Held changes wait for your explicit approval, and nothing is written silently. Item sync is create-only, so Evenbatch never overwrites an existing QuickBooks record.

This matters because of what QuickBooks Online leaves out on its own. QuickBooks Online does not include lot or batch tracking on any plan; lot and serial tracking exist only in QuickBooks Desktop Enterprise with Advanced Inventory. It does not include assemblies or bills of materials; its "bundles" group items on sales forms but do not consume components, track builds, or roll up costs. It does not support units-of-measure conversion. QuickBooks Online Plus and Advanced track inventory quantities and cost using FIFO. And note that Intuit has stopped selling new subscriptions of most QuickBooks Desktop products to new US customers and retires older Desktop versions on an annual schedule, so many Desktop users are moving to QuickBooks Online; if that is you, see our guide to moving inventory from Desktop to Online.

Pricing is one number: $49.99 per month flat, unlimited users, every feature included, no add-ons, no per-user fees. Full details are on the pricing section.

How to migrate from Cin7 in an afternoon

Migration is usually the scariest part of switching, so we made it boring. Here is the whole process:

1. Export your data. Pull your items, BOMs, stock levels, and lot data as CSV from your current system, or gather them from the spreadsheets you already keep. Your Cin7 export, or whatever files you have, is the starting point.
2. Start the free trial. The 14-day trial requires no credit card. Use the free CSV import to load items, BOMs, lots, and stock levels.
3. Connect QuickBooks Online. The connection uses OAuth 2.0 through Intuit's official API, so Evenbatch never sees your QuickBooks password. Let it import your items, customers, and vendors from QuickBooks so you are not retyping anything.
4. Run the sync in preview mode. Shadow mode shows every proposed change before anything is written to QuickBooks. Review the list, and remember that held changes wait for your explicit approval. Nothing posts until you say so.
5. Run both systems in parallel for a few days. Receive a PO, run a production order, ship a sales order, and compare the results. When the numbers match and the workflow feels right, switch over.

Two things keep this low-risk. First, the create-only item sync means your existing QuickBooks records are never overwritten during setup. Second, a full CSV export of your own data is available anytime, so the door swings both ways: if Evenbatch is not the right fit, you leave with everything you brought plus everything you built. For a broader look at how the pieces fit together, see our guide to QuickBooks inventory for manufacturers.

What Evenbatch does not do

Being a smaller tool is only honest if we are clear about the edges. Evenbatch does not do production scheduling or capacity planning. It does not do warehouse bin locations or pick-pack workflows (WMS). It does not do EDI, POS, or multi-currency.

If your operation depends on those, say you run multiple warehouses with bin-level picking, trade EDI documents with large retailers, or sell in several currencies, then a bigger platform is a better fit, and that is fine. We would rather you pick the right tool than outgrow ours in six months.

Who Evenbatch is for: 1-10 person manufacturers who need lot tracking, BOMs, and unit conversions on top of QuickBooks Online, with a sync they can read, preview, and approve. The practical trust points are simple. Cancellation is self-serve, no phone call required. Your data is encrypted in transit with TLS and encrypted at rest. And you can export everything as CSV whenever you want, on your schedule, not ours.

See something outdated or incorrect on this page? Email support@evenbatch.com and we will correct it within 48 hours. Last updated: July 16, 2026.