How Fishbowl helped a strainer bucket company

It seems like managing inventory in your business should be a fairly straightforward process right? Count the items in your warehouse, track their movements, and reorder them when they get low.

Seems straightforward enough, on paper, but the reality is anything but this simple, as Sunshine Coast founder and CEO of Strucket, Kelly Lavery found out when her business started to expand rapidly.

“In the early days of Strucket we would do everything manually. There was often a lot of scrambling and trying to work out exactly where we were at and hoping we had the numbers right,” Mrs Lavery said.

“We started with one pallet of stock in a tiny room and it just grew and grew and grew and we discovered that if you don’t have your systems in place to grow, that’s going to be your biggest problem.”

The business, originally named Buderim Bucket company, started quite small back in 2018, but as success with social media took hold, the company grew rapidly and it became obvious that the business needed a better way to take control of stock and the ordering process.

“We realised quite quickly as we were going through that something had to change…we were moving so fast and we didn’t want to slip up and make mistakes so we needed excellent systems put in place and luckily through local community we found Fishbowl and that was the problem solved,” Mrs Lavery said.

“We have a lot of clients with a very similar story to this,” said Fishbowl APAC managing director, Simon Jupe.

“Managing inventory involves numerous tasks and components that all need to work in harmony on a continuing basis to produce the desired results. Most businesses start small and with very manual processes, but to take your business to the next level, you really need to have the right tools and the right automation to help you scale appropriately,” he said.

Fishbowl is an inventory management solution that provides features and functionality for small to enterprise-sized warehousing and manufacturing businesses. Fishbowl performs inventory management tasks such as barcoding, serial number and batch tracking, advanced bill of materials and work orders and has seamless accounting integrations with Intuit QuickBooks Online, Xero, and Reckon Accounts.

“Our software solution provides our clients with granular visibility into their operations, efficiency to streamline and grow, and flexibility to customise today and in the future, all at a fraction of the cost of other ERP systems on the market,” Mr Jupe said.

There’s a lot more than just functionality to consider when deciding to take on an inventory management system to improve the way your business operates. Implementation and onboarding is a huge element too. How the system is set up and how staff perceive the need for the solution all play crucial roles in whether the system will succeed.

When speaking about the setup and service provided by Fishbowl, Mrs Lavery said, “It was great to get help from a real person. It was refreshing to be able to resolve issues in a timely and efficient manner and at the same time be heard and respected as a customer. It’s hard to get that kind of service these days.”

“Getting set up right from the outset is crucial. Our clients are everything to us and our entire awesome team does everything they can to deliver the best setup, service and business solutions around!” Mr Jupe said.

Mrs Lavery added, “Whilst there were quite a few things to figure out when we first implemented Fishbowl, I just love it now because it allows me to have the operational side of the business taken care of.

“I can access reports and I know where my stock is at all times. And what that does is it gives me the ability to focus on what I’m good at and that is the product development for Strucket and also the sales and marketing so that we can continue to sell Strucket worldwide.”