A Simple Fishbowl Alternative for Small Manufacturers on QuickBooks Online

If you run a small manufacturing shop on QuickBooks Online and you are searching for a Fishbowl alternative, you probably want the essentials covered - lot tracking, bills of materials, and a clean sync with your books - at a price you can predict. This guide walks through what to check before you switch, what Evenbatch actually does, how the CSV migration works, and where Evenbatch honestly is not the right fit.

What to check before you switch

Shops go looking for a new inventory tool for all kinds of reasons: the price changed, the team changed, the workflow changed, or the software was chosen for a bigger operation than the one being run today. Heavyweight manufacturing software exists because some manufacturers genuinely need it. The question worth answering first is whether you are one of them, or whether you are a five-person shop that mainly needs lot tracking, working bills of materials, and books that stay clean without manual re-entry.

Before you commit to any replacement - ours included - put every candidate through the same due-diligence checklist. These questions apply to any inventory tool, and the answers separate software you will still be happy with in two years from software you will be migrating off again:

• Does the price scale per user or per feature, or is it one flat number you can budget for?
• Is lot tracking included on every plan, or is it a paid add-on or a higher tier?
• Can you export every record - items, BOMs, lots, stock levels - as CSV at any time, so leaving is always possible?
• Does the tool show you exactly what it will write to QuickBooks before it writes anything, and does it keep a log of what it sent and when?
• Can it overwrite your existing QuickBooks records, or is item sync create-only?
• Does it require a credit card just to start a trial?

Write the answers down for each tool you evaluate. A vendor that dodges any of these questions is telling you something.

What you get in Evenbatch

Evenbatch is web-based inventory software built for small manufacturers - one to ten people - who run their books on QuickBooks Online. It connects through Intuit's official API using OAuth 2.0, which means Evenbatch never sees your QuickBooks password. It pushes invoices, bills, and production journal entries to QuickBooks, and imports your items, customers, and vendors from it.

The sync is designed to be boring in the best way. A preview mode (we call it shadow mode) shows you every change before anything is written to QuickBooks. A full sync log records what was sent and when. Held changes wait for your explicit approval. Nothing is written silently, and item sync is create-only, so Evenbatch never overwrites a record that already exists in your QuickBooks file.

Lot tracking is included on every plan, not sold as an add-on. You get per-lot remaining quantities, expiry dates, FEFO (first-expired-first-out) picking, expiry alerts, and a one-click recall trace that follows a lot through production runs to shipments, with CSV export of the trace.

The bill of materials supports one to two levels, scrap percentage, and per-unit cost roll-up. BOMs are versioned: edits after transactions create a new version, so history is preserved. Production orders explode the BOM, consume components FEFO, and produce output lots with rolled-up cost. Units-of-measure conversions let you buy in one unit and sell in another - cases in, eaches out - with per-item conversions used across purchasing, BOMs, and sales.

Purchase orders capture lot numbers and expiry dates at receiving. Sales orders allocate stock FEFO and handle shipping. Reports cover inventory value, lots (remaining, expiry, cost), and the recall trace.

Here is what that adds up to next to QuickBooks Online on its own:

Pricing is one number: $49.99 per month flat. Unlimited users, every feature included, no add-ons, no per-user fees. The 14-day free trial requires no credit card to start.

How to migrate from Fishbowl with CSV files

Migration runs on CSV files. Your Fishbowl export - or a spreadsheet, or a CSV from any other tool - is all you need, and the import is free. The steps:

1. Export your data from your current system. Get your items, BOMs, lot records, and stock levels out as CSV files. If some of it lives in spreadsheets instead, that works too.
2. Import into Evenbatch. Our CSV import covers items, BOMs, lots, and stock levels, and accepts spreadsheets or CSV exports of other tools.
3. Connect QuickBooks Online. The connection runs through Intuit's official OAuth flow. You authorize it on Intuit's side; Evenbatch never sees your QuickBooks password.
4. Run the preview sync. Shadow mode shows every proposed change before anything is written. Review the list line by line. Item sync is create-only, so your existing QuickBooks records stay untouched no matter what your import contained.
5. Check the log, then approve. Held changes wait for your explicit approval, and the sync log records exactly what was sent and when. Once you approve, you are live.

The door stays open in both directions: a full CSV export of your own data - items, BOMs, lots, stock - is available anytime. You are never locked in.

Two side notes. If you are also moving your accounting off QuickBooks Desktop, note that Intuit has stopped selling most Desktop products to new US customers and retires older versions on an annual schedule; our guide to moving Desktop inventory workflows to QuickBooks Online covers that path. And if recalls are the reason you track lots at all, the recall traceability guide walks through the lot-to-shipment trace step by step.

What Evenbatch does not do

We would rather you find this out here than three weeks into a trial. Evenbatch does not do production scheduling or capacity planning. It does not do warehouse bin locations or pick-pack workflows - it is not a WMS. It does not do EDI, POS, or multi-currency.

Those are real gaps for some operations, and a bigger system genuinely fits better if any of these describe you: you run multiple warehouses and need bin-level picking; your retail customers mandate EDI compliance; or you schedule work across machines, shifts, and crews and need the software to sequence it. In those cases, buy the heavier tool and accept the setup cost, because you will use what you are paying for.

Evenbatch is for the other group: small manufacturers of one to ten people on QuickBooks Online who mainly need lot tracking, working bills of materials, and books that stay clean without manual re-entry. If that is your shop, the trial is 14 days, needs no credit card, and your data exports freely if it turns out we are wrong for you.

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.