InFlow Inventory is an all-in-one inventory management solution that promises to deliver everything a product-based business could possibly need to take better control of its stock.
In an effort to make good on that promise, its developers have packed the software with a truly extensive list of useful features that provide enterprise-level stock management capabilities while ensuring a level of simplicity and ease of use that makes Inflow an ideal for new startups and tech novices.
The big question, then, is precisely how well does InFlow Inventory live up to its promise?
Is this really the only inventory tool growing product-based businesses will ever need to streamline and optimize their inventory?
To find out, I signed up and put the tool to work on one of my own businesses.
In the following InFlow Inventory review, I’ll share with you what I liked about it and what I didn’t, as well as outline all the information you need to know to determine whether this is the right tool for you.
Table of Contents
What is InFlow Inventory?
InFlow Inventory is an inventory management solution that can be accessed via your web browser, as software installed on your computer, or as a smartphone app. Whereas some tools begin and end with merely tracking your inventory levels and generating reports, this one goes much further.
Purchasing, sales, customer order tracking, manufacturing, and more can all be handled from a single intuitive dashboard.
InFlow doesn’t just stop with software, either.
To help make your inventory management even easier, you can also order the brand’s patented Smart Scanner, a uniquely designed Android smartphone that comes with a built-in laser scanner that lets you scan product barcodes in order to instantly add them to your InFlow system.
Who Uses InFlow Inventory?
InFlow Inventory is designed to meet the needs of any business which handles, ships, sells or otherwise manages physical products.
While online and brick-and-mortar retail stores are well taken care of here, they’re not the only type of business that the software is suitable for.
InFlow can also prove an invaluable tool for:
- Wholesalers
- Distributors
- Construction projects
- Manufacturers
- Office manager with a need to track internal inventory and supplies.
Like most stock management tools for business, InFlow is well-designed to cater to B2C (business-to-customer) businesses but also provides some helpful features specifically for those in the B2B (business-to-business) market.
Features of inFlow Inventory
Stock and order management
Considering how inexpensive inFlow Inventory is, the platform is surprisingly robust when it comes to traditional inventory management features.
For starters, inFlow makes stock management extremely easy. The software automates inventory tracking based on your day-to-day tasks—so every time you receive or fulfill customer orders, the platform will adjust your inventory levels automatically. You can also track stock movements between locations, set custom reorder points, and organize your inventory by categories and serial numbers.
Order management is also easy with inFlow. In addition to daily alerts about low-stock items, the inFlow dashboard lets you view all inventory items with low stock on a single screen. From there, you can generate new purchase orders for all your low-stock inventory items with a single click.
Sales support
inFlow makes it easy to stay on the same page company-wide.
With the inFlow mobile app, your sales agents can create sales orders on the go. With each new sales order, inFlow automatically reserves the inventory in question so it doesn’t get shipped out or sold to another customer by accident. Sales agents also get notifications anytime they try to sell more stock than you have on hand.
inFlow also offers a sleek B2B customer portal where your clients can view products and place online orders. You can even customize pricing and more by creating Special Showrooms for your customers to use. And anytime you update an item in your product inventory (or add a new item), your changes are reflected in your B2B portal automatically.
We also like inFlow’s customer and vendor tracking capabilities, which allow you to track contact details and purchase history for key customers and vendors alike. This makes it easier to customize your marketing techniques, offer exclusive pricing, and keep helpful contacts on call in case you need them.
Manufacturing
With inFlow Inventory, manufacturers can deal with the day-to-day tasks that keep their factories running smoothly.
inFlow helps you forecast the number of items you can create given your current stock of raw materials and components. Once assembly is completed, inFlow automatically adds your finished goods to your inventory, saving you a step down the line. inFlow can even help you with tracking on labor and other assembly costs, automatically building those costs into your finished products.
You can also take your inFlow manufacturing features up a notch with the BOM and work orders add-on. This feature lets you generate bills of materials (BOMs) and create new work orders directly from invoices, which saves you time and ensures your work orders are more accurate.
All in all, that makes inFlow a small but powerful inventory software for all kinds of small businesses.
Reporting
Unlike other inventory software, inFlow doesn’t hold back on its reporting—you get full access to all 38 inFlow reports regardless of which plan you sign up for.
inFlow gets you access to 13 different sales reports, 7 different purchasing reports, and 14 different inventory reports. That gives you tons of insight into your business so you can really drill down into your product inventory and find what’s working (and what isn’t).
inFlow Inventory Integrations
By far, one of the most significant advantages to using InFlow Inventory is that it’s designed to integrate seamlessly with a whole host of third-party services to help you streamline, simplify, and automate your work.
Online retailers will love how easy it is to use InFlow to manage inventory with all of the following platforms:
- Amazon
- Shopify
- Squarespace
- WooCommerce.
Elsewhere, existing QuickBooks Online users will appreciate the ability to connect the two platforms so that you can push all data relating to sales, purchases, costs, and inventory value from InFlow to QuickBooks, eliminating the need for double data entry.
It doesn’t end there either.
The company’s partnership with Bambora makes it easy to take online payments with no monthly fees (a per-transaction fee still applies) and automated invoices. In contrast, their link with EasyPost makes it possible to ensure you’re always getting the best shipping rates from major providers such as FedEx, DHL, USPS, and UPS.
Finally, if you currently use a DYMO, you can integrate with InFlow to create professional barcode or location labels in moments.
integrate your inFlow system with some of the most popular business platforms on the market—like Magento or Xero.
To make matters worse, inFlow Inventory software limits the number of integrations you get based on your plan tier. So while a Plus-level subscriber could use integrations for each available sales channel, a Light-level subscriber would only be able to use integrations for up to two channels.
inFlow Inventory Pros and Cons
inFlow Inventory pros
One of inFlow’s top perks is its user-friendly platform. The barrier to entry on an inFlow inventory management system is extremely low, so you can quickly figure out how to set up your software—even if you’ve never used inventory management software before.
inFlow makes standard inventory management processes even easier by integrating barcode scanners into every step of your workflow. Whether you’re processing incoming shipments, preparing a customer order for shipment, or simply looking up an item, you can use your barcode scanners to pull up item information and track inventory movement.
We also enjoyed all our interactions with inFlow’s customer service. While the platform’s support staff aren’t available at all hours of the day or night, we found that they were very responsive to our email support requests every time we reached out with a question. And all the responses we got were extremely helpful, which more than made up for the short wait for an answer.
inFlow Inventory cons
The biggest failing we found with inFlow Inventory is its lack of integrations. While the platform integrates with QuickBooks and a handful of ecommerce channels, inFlow lacks cohesion with other top integrations (like Magento or Xero Accounting).
Along the same lines, inFlow tends to focus more on the retail side of inventory, which means it offers very few supply chain management features. That gives you less control over the transportation of your products, which some business owners may not be able to stomach.
We also noted that inFlow’s newest update (inFlow v3) is a bit buggier than past iterations.
But if we’re being honest, these drawbacks are a little nitpicky. While these weak spots for inFlow might be a deal-breaker for some businesses, we found it a bit hard to find anything seriously wrong with the platform. And frankly, we think the intuitiveness of this inventory control system more than makes up for its lackluster integrations and shortage of supply chain features.
inFlow Inventory Plans and Pricing
The good news is that InFlow Inventory comes with a completely unrestricted 14-day free trial so that you can give the whole thing a comprehensive test drive before deciding whether it’s the right inventory management tool for you. The best part is that, unlike some tools out there, there’s no need to enter your credit card details to access the trial, so you don’t have to worry about being automatically charged if you forget to cancel before the trial ends.
If you decide you like the platform as much as we do and decide to keep using it, you’ll need to sign up for one of the following three plans:
Entrepreneur – $89/m
2 x team members
1 x inventory location
1 x integrations
100 x sales orders p/m
Small Business – $219/m
- 5 x team members
- Unlimited inventory locations
- 2 x integrations
- 1,000 x sales orders p/m.
Plus:
- User access rights
- Showroom for creating B2B portals.
Mid-Size – $439/m
- 10 x team members
- Unlimited inventory locations
- 3 integrations
- 5,000 x sales orders p/m.
Plus:
All of the additional features from the Small Business plan, as well as the ability to restrict access by location, restrict sales reps to their own orders and customers, and determine whether purchase order approval is required.
Monthly vs Annual Costs
The prices listed are what the software will cost you if you decide to do everything upfront on an annual basis.
I’ve included these figures as it works out the cheapest, saving you 20% compared to what it would cost to pay on an ongoing, monthly basis.
If you do decide to pay month-by-month, InFlow Inventory will cost you:
- Entrepreneur – $110/m
- Small Business – $279/m
- Mid-Size – $549/m
Customer support
As previously mentioned, we like inFlow’s customer support a lot. In today’s inventory management software market, it’s common for customer service to be . . . lackluster, to say the least. Not so with inFlow.
Every time we reached out to inFlow customer service with an emailed question, we received a response within just a few hours. And the answers we received were specific and helpful. We think that says a lot about how inFlow’s customer support team prioritizes its customers.
inFlow offers a several ways to get help if you need it:
- Support knowledge base
- Personalized trial sessions
- One-on-one demos
- Educational videos
- Email support
- Chat support
- Phone support
FAQ About inFlow Inventory
InFlow inventory comes with a free 14-day trial so that you can test out all of the features. After that, plans currently start from $89 USD/mo.
Sadly not. The software doesn’t currently offer integrations with Etsy, eBay, or several other eCommerce platforms.
Yes, but only as an optional add-on charged at $29 USD/mo.
inFlow Cloud is the cloud-based iteration of inFlow’s inventory management software. It is different from the free version of inFlow, which is an open-source, local software that you download directly to your computer.
If you’re not sure how to get started, inFlow has tons of resources to help get you out of the lurch. When you first get inFlow, you’ll get a personalized trial session and one-on-one demos to help train you on the inFlow platform. If you’re stuck on anything outside of those demos, you can try watching an online education video to see if it addresses your needs.
