DEAR Reviews

We've been using the DEAR system for quite a while now and I must say I couldn't be any happier. It was a seamless transition from our old system, and I especially appreciate how well DEAR integrates with our accounting software. This makes everyone's work a whole lot easier. I have contacted support on several occasions with questions that I had, and I always received a quick, thorough, and very helpful response. We manufacture our products as well wholesale and retail them with an online store, and everything works so well together with DEAR that it really helps us focus on building our business rather than focusing our attention on trying to keep up with inventory and ordering. I would highly recommend DEAR systems to anyone looking for a new inventory management system.

-Bob Weiss

One thing that would be useful would be to be able to call for customer service. We have used customer service email on several occasions, and have always had a pretty quick response, however, if we have a pressing issue, it would be nice to have a number to call and someone to talk with.

The software can be used "out-of-the-box" after a minimal amount of setup, and can also be used in more complex installations where bespoke software development might be needed.

The simplicity of the initial setup, the simplicity of the menu navigation, and the speed with which new users are able to grasp what they need to do to accomplish their tasks caused me to take a closer look at this software and I'm glad I took the time to do so.

The multiple warehouse locations field, along with the multiple bin locations field, both available in DEAR but not available in some other offerings, is a basic requirement of a stock management system as far as I am concerned.

Whilst the software might appear complex for first-time users, those with experience of stock systems and business processes should find it a breeze to set up and use for the purpose intended, especially if they are familiar with setting up other software. It's an advantage, but not a requirement, if the person(s) setting it up also have an understanding of business accounts and are able to find their way around creating/editing MS Word mail-merge templates.

I am impressed that I have been able to use the software to accomplish pretty much every task that my clients' have asked of it so far. The ease of integration with other cloud-based applications puts another tick in the box for me.

This is a comment and not a complaint; although the reporting functionality in the 'out-of-the-box' version is adequate there is room for improvement. The limitations can be overcome by exporting the files and adapting them as needed. Those with a more specific software development skill- set (or more time to learn) would be able to achieve a great deal more from the software than is possible using the 'out-of-the-box' version.

It manages my inventory and order and is cloud based.

When Dear is upgrading its system, customers can find the software extremely slow or not working at all. This can go for weeks at a time causing massive frustration for my staff around the country as well as disruption to my business.
The lack of communication and support from DEAR mean you feel little loyalty to the product.

I love Dear, it's easy to use with plenty of options to get it match the compagny needs. The customer service is very good, the software gives us plenty of very important details for our business development .

the color of the software, nothing major , and no french option

Easy to use and get a hang of. Easy to locate the PO and SO

Few updates have glitches but they do get fixed

- Comprehensive and even has manufacturing components (unfortunately we don't require this)
- Comparable pricing to TG/QBC
- Some onboarding agents are very knowledgeable about the system
- Support staff are very responsive and queries get answered pretty quickly

- Not as user-friendly compared to the system we used before. Even things like stock availability isn't readily shown on the product page - you either need to go into a tab within the product page, or a separate 'Availability' to check the stock
- Slightly confusing configuration where you can't easily change the purchase prices as they are grouped together on a 'suppliers' tab within the product listing
- Product family is quite confusing and a little tedious to create. During the import of our products, there were a large number of single-variant products created as product families with 1 product, and there doesn't seem to be a easy way to stop classifying it as a product family
- Automation module (for things like out of stock notifications) are not provided FOC; you have to add on $50/month
- Purchase orders only show product name and not variant/option names so if you are trying to order 3 colours of the same product, the PO will show 3 line items of the same product.
- We sell on different e-commerce channels but there's no easy way to reflect that. We were informed that the only way we can only create the e-commerce channels as 'Sales Representatives' so that we can track them. Our sales from Shopify aren't differentiated between POS and online
- The sync with Shopify seems a little glitchy and sometimes after receiving stock in Dear, all our products descriptions in Shopify get erased. This is less than ideal because our product listing on our website becomes blank

Dear’s quick updates of products/prices and such has been amazing. What used to be a several day job is done in minutes. The ability to link with XERo has also enabled us to reduce staff hours of manually entering invoices and such. It’s set up to be pretty automated.

The feature of only bringing up 5 accounts is a bit annoying when you have several people with the last name.

Dear is a software that helps us to maintain a control of our Stocks by its various functionalities. It also has a very technical and great support. It really helps us in many areas!

Dear should improve their browser which is sometimes slow and the customer service must also be improved and always be available in case of problems by users

Complex solutions. All in one software.

Accounting. It will be great if in the chart of accounts there will be starting capital, deduction of capital and adding capital options.

I had a tremendous call with your customer care rep [sensitive content hidden] who was able to walk me through an issue I was trying to resolve via email with you guys for a couple of weeks. His patience and knowledge were very valuable

Some features could be optimized for ease of use, less repeatability and effeciency

The software is made up of simple to understand modules that have a clear purpose and have extremely good help videos and articles available. There is a "simple" and "advanced" version of most functions which makes carrying out most tasks extremely efficient while still having the power of the full functionality available in the background if needed. Any simple document can be changed to an advanced document with the click of a button.

The "Jobs" or project module is somewhat more difficult to use than other parts of the suite. Projects are a common part of many businesses and a simpler, more intuitive, module that allowed easy quotes and easy conversion to a Job would be a great enhancement.

While thinking, as a Distributor, we have 'out-of-the-box' requirements for managing our inventory and processes around it, the exercise of evaluating our idiosyncrasies in order to go shopping for a new IM system has taught me that there's possibly not the absolute perfect system for any business, but the Dear system is beating the rest as it ticks most of the boxes on my wish-list for an inventory management system. For a complex system it's relatively intuitive and seems to be built with real world functionality in mind. In addition to my list of specific features, I was looking for a system that could automate as much of our manual tasks and work flows as possible - reduce the amount of data entry required and minimise opportunities for human error. Compared to other systems reviewed, Dear excels in this area.

Possible just a COVID thing ...or just a modern day thing, but I remember the days when; if you were looking at making a big commitment to something as important at the system that would manage all your inventory and link to your financials, someone would sit down with you and work through your specifics, helping you evaluate their offering as the right purchase decision for you to make. These days, it's "down load a free version and have a play". I've probably reached the sames decision based on the latter, but it's definitely taken up a lot more of my time to do so. Granted, phone calls and screen sharing sessions are on offer, but I find the time-limited sessions, working with generic databases etc. less beneficially that the old fashioned way. Not a short coming of the Dear System itself and every software company may have the same M.O, but perhaps an opportunity for Dear to differentiate themselves from the masses and win more fans - and quickly?

The sales, production and purchasing modules provide an excellent integrated platform for our manufacturing operations. We stock over 300 chemicals to make hundreds of rubber compounds that we use in production of custom rubber products and Dear keeps the complexity under control. I love the continual upgrades on the cloud and the easy access from anywhere. Finally, the standard interface is good but the API lets us implement solutions to meet specific needs at various points in our production.

While the technical support is excellent I find I occasionally need to reach out to them because the online documentation is not well organized.

The reporting module is adequate but often requires off-line processing to get the results you are looking for. They make that easy with excel exporting but it is impossible to create a report that is self-explanatory. For example, you can build complex filters to get specific results but you can not re-title the generic report with a specific name, or include the filter values to explain your data.

I also wish the date fields would accept time information so that we could capture real-time production data in the system--at the moment you can only enter a start and stop date when you create finished goods.

// DEAR SYSTEMS DOES

+ Manage inventory with different sales channels
+ Send PO/Invoices/Quote/.../... with customisable template
+ Auto assemblies
+ Bundles
+ Issues to production
+ Sync to accounting software
+ Handles goods in transit, FX gain or Loss etc
+ They are working on a reseller portal
+ They are working on a POS
+ Chat support is knowledgeable and they really try to help you

They have a forum where users can chat together and upvote functionalities requests.

- They are totally absent from that forum, they say they scan it to update their roadmap but they won't engage in the conversation at all.

- Functionalities are added too fast without feedback from their users.

They really need to work on their communication with their active users.

In discovering Dear Systems we found that the program allowed us greater functionality than most ERP systems. Although it is quite intuitive to use it packs a punch when you get deeper within the program with some functionality that much more expensive programs don’t have. Xero handles the accounting in the background whilst the sync between them works seamlessly so that you don’t notice that you are actually using 2 different programs.

The program just concentrates on inventory so other modules such as CRM are not fully developed and you would need to get an additional addin. Everything else works really well

Earlier this year we implemented DEAR inventory in our manufacturing company in Indonesia. The key reason we chose DEAR was the functionality. We have been searching for an inventory management system with manufacturing functionality for a very long time and couldn't understand why it was so difficult to find a system that dealt with what we felt were really core/ basic requirements without looking at customisation. DEAR seems to cover almost everything we need and is working on developing the programme for what it doesn't currently.

The other key reason was the responsiveness of DEAR to queries. I am still waiting for replies from a competitor to my requests to ask a few questions when we were looking at different systems. We had good help getting it set up. I would definitely recommend.

There are some limitations with templates - invoices, packing slips etc. - when dealing with a currency that uses a decimal place as a thousand separator instead of a comma. It also doesnt have the ability to track batches through multiple assemblies which limits the value of the production reports we can get.

After almost two years with DEAR, we couldn't be more pleased! We needed a centralised inventory system with CRM capabilities that could seamlessly integrate and sync to SHOPIFY, XERO, as well as our offline sales channels. Being in the food industry, we also needed a system that could track the shelf-life of our products, and make sure first expired items were sold first. This is an important feature for us that we did not find in TradeGecko, which we tested out as well before we made our decision in early 2016. DEAR also helps us keep track of our items on consignment (location / expiry date / batch number) as well as create hampers and other gift bundles with ease, thanks to their Bill of Materials function. I particularly enjoy the level of detail available to us, to store relevant information such as supplier SKUs and multiple price lists. The system is sturdy and the UX is straightforward and intuitive, which has made the transition easy for the whole team!

Tamara Agusta
General Manager
Profood Ltd

Occasionally DEAR can be a little slow to load, and customer service is not always as quick as one would like it to be.

Well thought out sales workflow. Really flexible and powerful in ways others weren't to enter sales orders. Takes a little getting used to, but there is a lot in there. Love the ability to price tier for B2B sales. Integrates really well with Shopify and eBay. Need to check out the B2B portal that is available, but haven't gotten to that part yet.
Even though the support is all email based, we have been delighted with the speed of response and solutions to any issues we've had. I'd say on average the response time to new tickets has been in the 5-15 minute range with maybe one that reached 45 minutes. Often I'd wait longer on hold with a tech line with other companies than it takes to get a response from DEAR support email.
Great integration with our accounting.
Easy to implement API for extending the functionality of DEAR.

There are a few things that still need improvement we've run into.
Credit Notes/Memos are terribly hard to figure out and make work correctly if you wish to give the customer a credit to use at a future date not tied to a transaction in DEAR.
DEAR does tiered pricing for sales, but there is no way to have volume purchasing discount tiers beyond manually changing every time a PO is created.
If a small change has to take place during fulfillment DEAR requires you to revert the order back to the very beginning of the workflow process and complete every stage again. Rather than just let you go back one step.
The fulfillment QC process could be strengthened a lot. It's basically based on trust with no verification. Right now it assumes all counts/data entry keyed in are 100% accurate. I'd like to see some kind of barcode based QC verification.

The product has grown with the business, taking from when we produced one gin to with now over 30 products. It works well, however...

I was really disappointed by the 'management' who doubled the subscription charge mostly by charging for two modules, DEAR PoS and API that we had evaluated but not really used.
We were not informed about these change and when it was raised after a renewal rather than remove and refund, I was informed that the policy was 'we don't issue refunds.

Very intuitive to use.
Many detailed features.
Excellent customer support.
Responsive to suggestions.

The way they handle the serial number of unique items of an SKU can be improved. As of right now, the auto-select serial number during 'pick' is prioritized alphabetically instead of numerically (i.e. serial number 11 is higher in auto-select priority as opposed to serial number 2), which is annoying.

DEAR's extensive functionality proves to be an exceptional inventory solution for businesses with complex and established workflows. We at Business Continuum have had extensive experience working with DEAR, and the comprehensive yet easy to use solution has been a selling point for many businesses. After implementation, end users are left with role based permissions, a clean single page view for each function of the system, and an active support team that actually answers your questions and takes on potential changes. A clear road map with regular developments is constantly being updated to improve the system. We have seen businesses of all sizes and natures effectively use DEAR to streamline their processes and gain important insight into their inventory management.

DEAR's complexity requires dedicated time to learn the system - however, the reward is immense. Certain functions and settings require intimate knowledge of the system.

1. Easy to intergrate my ebay, website, payment portal.
2. Perfect syn with all platforms
3. Super fast respond from support team
4. It is very accurately in all accounting things.

RMA is not convient in my business running model. But I believe that is suitable for most of the companies.

The ability to custom make invoices is a massive pro. Using Dear has meant that automating emails, bulk downloading invoices and keeping track of what's been fulfilled and what hasn't is so much simpler than it was in our previous system. It has also made things much easier in liasing between our warehouse and sales departments. The customer service has been excellent - everything, from integration information/guidelines to quick fixes on invoice issues that we couldn't iron out, was dealt with promptly and efficiently. All round it's been a fantastic experience and would be my go to system to manage inventory, fulfillments and keeping track of the accounts.

I think the biggest issue was finding that the integrations with third party shipping providers was severely limited, although it has been assured that this currently under review and likely to improve. A small con in a plethora of pros!

DEAR has great depth, anticipates many issues and has great capabilities. Its focus is on the steak, not the sizzle. I'm confident that it will handle any need I'll discover I need in future.

Other apps I use are great at marketing but their capabilities fall far short of what's advertised. With DEAR it's the reverse.

Customer support used to be off-putting and frustrating -- condescending and cryptic, unhelpful responses that required multiple questions, and defensive, too. Plus, very slow to respond. But it has improved a lot. The staff is knowledgeable and has become friendly -- some bad apples probably left. The answers to queries are now generally excellent. The service is still only by email and still often slow to respond. I'm on my own if I need an immediate response to a problem.

We've tried many stock management apps before DEAR and none of them pushed correct data to Xero for bookkeeping. DEAR dies a stellar job on the books while doing everything else very competently. Saves us tons of time and money.

Sometimes it's a bit slow on certain actions. And the tech support used to be somewhat lacking but they stepped up their game recently. Quick and responsive now.
The learning curve is a bit steel at first. But we quickly realised that was because DEAR doesn't cut corners in organising your stock and books. So you have to learn to do things the proper way. A pain at first but saves you from horrible issues with the taxman later.