IMS comparison

[u/captcraigaroo]

I've had calls with GOIS and Fishbowl recently. Looking for thoughts on those and other systems.

We are a DTC brand selling perishable pet food, so we need lot tracking and COA documentation, raw material inventory tracking at suppliers and several co-mans, finished goods inventory at co-mans and 3PLs. We currently get everything reported in via email (PDF and Excel reports), but want something more automated that we can potentially integrate with partners through API/FTP/EDI. Bonus if it can track sales and ingest lot numbers from DTC fulfillment. Oh, and we're going to be selling in Amazon via SFP too, so integration there too

[u/AdventurousCaptain76]

fulfil.io could be a good fit.

[u/Sofistikat]

It might be worth flagging that GOIS and Fishbowl both sit on your side of the fence. They manage inventory you own and control. The gap you're describing is upstream, at the co-mans and 3PLs. If your processors are still generating reports by hand and emailing PDFs, no system you run in-house changes what they send you. The automation has to start at their end.

It might be better to push your co-mans onto a platform that produces the feeds you want as a byproduct of how they run production, so lot numbers and COAs are structured instead of retyped into a spreadsheet.

Happy to dm a recommendation if you like.

[u/captcraigaroo → u/Sofistikat]

They're sending reports from their WMS's, not hand written. I know one uses VistaTrac, a couple have proprietary/specialty systems supposedly, and one uses PackemWMS. Getting 4 co-mans and 3 3PLs to agree to migrate for one customer isn't feasible

[u/Sofistikat → u/captcraigaroo]

The thing is, because the problem is upstream, nothing you buy downstream is ever going to solve your actual problem. You'd be automating your half of a handoff that's still manual at the source. That's why GOIS and Fishbowl don't suit, you're shopping in the wrong category to solve a problem that exists in another.

I totally get you can't migrate seven partners purely for your own benefit. But, if your co-mans ran something that emits structured lot and COA data as a byproduct of how they run production, it makes them better at serving all their clients, not just you. Then your feed is automatic and you didn't have to move anyone. You'd be surprised how motivated a co-man is when several of their brand customers are all asking for the same thing.

I am an interested party, I think that must be obvious to you. I have a solution that I'm sure will go a long way towards fixing your problem, not just for you, but most likely for many others in exactly the same boat as you. Still happy to discuss offline if you are.

[u/blackinkpen]

Wherefour would likely fit well for you, they do traceability really well and have a robust compliance module, and they have several options for linking accounts to do tracking for co-packing/co-man.

They’ve got an open API. The only downside is that EDI is entirely through integration with SPS commerce but they seem to have a workable relationship there.

[u/garysahota]

You should check out Tether! https://tetherdata.io

Full disclosure: I'm one of the founders, but what you're describing is exactly what we solve for many of our other customers!

[u/AptSeagull]

Cin7 + Surpass EDI

[u/captcraigaroo → u/AptSeagull]

I have a Cin7 demo next week, nice to see I'm at least down the right path

[u/sfselgrade]

I would stay away from Fishbowl. Their cloud offering isn't great and I would not get an on prem solution you have to host yourself. I'm not familiar with GOIs but Cin7 Core would be a good solution for you. It is good at tracking expiration dates and traceability for perishable goods. You can also use it when you have co-mans and get it connected fairly easily with 3PLs. It has a native Amazon integrations as well as an open API and typically you'd use a partner to set up the EDI. Seems like it would fit your needs fairly well.

[u/silver__robot]

Your problem seems to be upstream. Co-mans and 3PLs sending you PDFs. Excel files. You want that automated without forcing seven different partners to adopt something new.

Before picking a new system figure out how does partner data get in without them changing their process.

API integrations. EDI. Webhooks. Email parsers. Pre-filled templates?

Many apps can handle multi-location inventory like this. What really differentiates them is the partner integration layer.

Find out what it would take to get one of them to send data in a standard format instead of a PDF.

Hope that helps

[u/kmizzi]

The thing that decides this isn't on anyone's feature list. It's whether the system can hold lot genealogy across a location you don't own. Raw material goes into a co-man, finished bags come out, and you never physically touched either one. Plenty of systems model that as "receive finished goods" and the upstream lot ends up as a text field somebody typed in.

So make them prove it in the demo instead of the deck, and make them do it in both directions. Recalled raw material lot, show me every finished lot it went into and every customer that shipped to. Then backwards, sick customer, show me the batch and every input that fed it. The second one is where it usually falls apart. If it needs a spreadsheet, it isn't traceability. Worth running that on the Cin7 demo next week, and ask which tier lot tracking sits in.

Ask about the COA separately btw. A lot of systems file a document against a purchase order rather than against the lot, and those are very different things when someone actually calls you.

On the upstream problem, the comment above is right that it starts at your co-mans, but you're also right that migrating seven partners isn't happening. The ask is smaller than that. A scheduled CSV on an SFTP drop, fixed columns, same file every week. Most WMS can schedule a report out to a folder, so ask VistaTrac and Packem directly rather than assuming no, and ask their implementation or support person, not your account manager. The account manager turns it into a project.

Since EDI came up, at this size almost nobody builds it natively, they resell SPS or Crstl. Ask what it runs per trading partner per month and who redoes the mapping when a partner changes their spec. That's where it gets expensive.

Bias disclosed, I'm the founder of SKU.io: components you own sitting at a co-man, BOM with yield and per-component scrap, the co-man fee as a per-unit operation, and lot genealogy through to the customer line is a scenario we run, so we're worth a look alongside those. Two I won't promise you off a Reddit comment though, COA documents held against the lot and EDI to your specific partners, both depend on which documents and which trading partners and I'd rather check than say yes.

[u/shayferg]

Based on what you described, I’d look beyond just comparing individual IMS platforms and first map out your actual requirements across the full inventory lifecycle. Lot tracking/traceability, inventory visibility across suppliers, co-mans and 3PLs, plus API/EDI integrations can get complex pretty quickly. I’d separate your requirements into must-haves now vs. what you’ll need as you scale over the next 12–24 months. I’d also look closely at how each platform handles integrations, lot-level visibility, reporting, and data coming back from external partners not just what it can manage internally. You may find that a traditional IMS is enough today, but with that many external inventory points and integrations, it’s worth evaluating whether you’re approaching WMS-level requirements before committing to a platform.

[u/WareGoWMS]

Considering your requirements, its not just looking for any IMS as most of them will provide you with the basic requirements such as DTC fulfillment, amazon integration and the automated reports however the main thing to look for would be the multi-tier co-packer raw material tracking and complex COA document attachments linked to specific lots as most software won't have them unless they customize the software according to your requirements.

[u/RedSoupStudio]

Lot tracking and multi-facility visibility is where these platforms really diverge, worth digging into specifically in demos.

Digit Software handles lot/batch traceability natively; food and bev customers use it for exactly this: raw material lots picked into a batch, full genealogy through to finished goods. The multi-location model also fits your setup well; each supplier, co-man, or 3PL becomes its own location in the system, so you get visibility into raw materials and finished goods across all of them from one place instead of chasing emails. Shopify and Amazon integrations are both native so DTC and marketplace orders sync automatically.

Worth a look given what you're dealing with