Soap A GoGo review for Craftybase ‑ Manufacturing ERP
Sept. 5, 2023
I began with Craftybase in January 2021. I wanted an updated and more efficient web-based system to track inventory and sales. I liked that it imported sales from Shopify every morning. Previously, I had to do that manually. Once I got into using it, I started seeing several issues. As a soap and cosmetic maker, I follow GMP (Good Manufacturing Practices), so lot and batch tracking is imperative. In order to use lot tracking, I had to pay for the highest tier subscription only to learn that CB doesn't track quantities of each lot and doesn't use the "first in, first out" practice of using older materials first. When creating a batch of a product, I need to manually select the lot number I used. This wasn't worthy of the higher tier price. In addition to this, Craftybase's servers continually had issues with lagging and not syncing. Thinking I didn't commit changes, I would repeat the steps. Once the servers did catch up, I had to go back and undo all the repeat changes I made. Over the 2.5 years, I continued to use Craftybase, I asked for features and fixes for GMP and other simple requests, but none were ever addressed. The final straw happened in July when I received an email announcing a price increase. I was currently paying $34.99/mo, but come September 1st, it would increase to $79.00/mo!! There were no improvements or new features except adding sales channels for other customers, and they more than doubled my monthly subscription fee. I'm currently seeking out another system that works the way manufacturers work and looking forward to ending the relationship with Craftybase. I do NOT recommend this system.
Thank you for taking the time to write a review about your experience with Craftybase. We understand that lot and batch tracking is highly important for soap and cosmetic makers, and while we do offer extensive GMP features like batch, lot, and expiry date tracking, we do not yet offer the ability to individually track stock levels per lot. We do have this on our roadmap and hope to have it available in the near future. As our system is a perpetual inventory application, we use a rolling weighted averaging cost method of calculating stock and costings - this is a standard way of calculating inventory across a range of manufacturing businesses and is fully GAAP compliant. We understand the frustrations around having calculations be slower than expected at peak times - we are continuously upgrading and improving our systems to cope with the increasing demand. We have also released many new features and enhancements during the three years you have been with us - apologies that most of these features were not ones you personally requested. We know that any price increase is unwelcome, and we wanted to let you know that it was done with the intention of providing new features and improvements for all our customers. We tried our best to communicate the changes well in advance to ensure everyone was informed and prepared for the realignment, particularly for long-standing customers like yourself. We understand if these changes now put Craftybase out of your immediate budget, and we appreciate that you have shared your feedback about Craftybase. We do hope to see you back when we are a better fit for your needs. Thank you again for your honest review, and we wish you all the best.
Inventory MRP for small manufacturing business - Craftybase