Fishbowl API
Fishbowl is an inventory and manufacturing management platform for small to mid-sized businesses, with cloud and self-hosted editions that sync to QuickBooks and Xero. Its REST API lets you programmatically pull parts, products, inventory levels, sales orders, purchase orders, and manufacture/work orders—and push updates like new orders, inventory adjustments, and shipments back into Fishbowl—though access typically runs against a self-hosted server with token-based sessions and app approval.
What is Fishbowl?
Fishbowl is an inventory and manufacturing management platform built for small to mid-sized businesses that run their accounting on QuickBooks or Xero. Companies use Fishbowl to track multi-location inventory in real time, manage bills of materials and work orders, run material requirements planning, automate purchase-order replenishment, and handle pick-pack-ship fulfillment—across editions spanning Fishbowl Manufacturing, Fishbowl Inventory, and the Fishbowl Commerce suite.
Core product families:
- Fishbowl Manufacturing (cloud-hosted inventory, warehousing, and manufacturing)
- Fishbowl Inventory (cloud-native inventory and warehousing)
- Fishbowl Commerce Suite (inventory management with ecommerce capabilities)
- Fishbowl AI Insights (Athena AI assistant) and AI Manufacturing for production planning
- Fishbowl Payments (integrated payment processing) and Fishbowl GO mobile barcode scanning
Common data entities:
- Parts, Products, Inventory levels, Warehouse transfers, Locations
- Sales Orders, Picks, Packs, Shipments, Customers
- Purchase Orders, Receipts, Vendors
- Manufacture Orders, Work Orders, Bills of Materials (BOM)
- Labor/time tracking, Asset tracking, and landed-cost records
The Fishbowl Integration Challenge
Fishbowl runs core inventory and manufacturing workloads daily, but turning those workflows into reliable API-driven automation is non-trivial:
- Self-hosted server access: Many deployments run Fishbowl on a local or self-hosted server, so the REST API is reachable at a per-customer http://{server}:{port}/api base rather than a single public cloud endpoint
- App approval gate: On first use, the integrating application must be approved inside Fishbowl before it can authenticate, complicating headless setup
- Session token lifecycle: Sessions are created via credentials and return a Bearer token that must be attached to every request and refreshed as it expires
- MFA handling: When multi-factor auth is enabled, login returns HTTP 401 with an MFA-required header and the request must be replayed with an mfaCode—awkward for automation
- Edition and version variability: Endpoint coverage and object shapes differ across Fishbowl Manufacturing, Inventory, and Commerce editions and across server versions
- Manufacturing complexity: BOMs, work orders, and MRP carry nested stages, components, and labor that require careful sequencing on writes
- Accounting sync coupling: Inventory and order changes are tightly tied to QuickBooks/Xero landed-cost posting, so writes must respect costing and accounting state
How Supergood Creates Fishbowl APIs
Supergood reverse-engineers Fishbowl's authenticated session flows and REST surface to deliver a resilient API layer for your Fishbowl instance—whether it runs cloud-hosted or on a self-hosted server—across inventory, orders, and manufacturing objects.
- Handles app approval, credential login, and MFA replay securely, managing the Bearer-token session for you
- Maintains session continuity with automated token refresh and change detection across server versions
- Normalizes responses across Parts, Products, Inventory, Sales/Purchase Orders, and Manufacture/Work Orders so you integrate once and rely on consistent objects
- Respects costing, BOM sequencing, and accounting-sync state so writes stay consistent with QuickBooks and Xero
Use Fishbowl with AI agents: Fishbowl MCP Server →
Getting Started
- Schedule Integration Assessment
Book a 30-minute session to confirm your Fishbowl edition, hosting model, and authentication setup.
- Supergood Generates and Validates Your API
We deliver a production-ready Fishbowl adapter tailored to your instance, objects, and approved app credentials.
- Deploy with Monitoring
Go live with continuous monitoring and automatic adjustments as Fishbowl evolves.
API Endpoints
Authentication
/authenticateCreate a Fishbowl session with app credentials and username/password (with MFA replay when required) and obtain a Bearer token for downstream calls.
Inventory
/partsList parts and products with inventory levels filtered by warehouse, location, status, and quantity on hand.
Sales Orders
/sales_ordersRetrieve sales orders, picks, packs, and shipments with status, customer, and date filters.
Sales Orders
/create_sales_orderCreate a new sales order against a customer with line items, pricing, and fulfillment details.
Purchasing
/purchase_ordersPull purchase orders, receipts, and vendor records for replenishment and accounts-payable workflows.
Manufacturing
/manufacture_ordersRetrieve manufacture orders, work orders, and bills of materials with stage, status, and component detail.
Use Cases
Sync inventory and orders to a central warehouse
- Pull parts, products, and real-time inventory levels across warehouses and locations into a single warehouse or BI tool - Stream sales order, pick, pack, and shipment events to downstream analytics and ops dashboards - Reconcile on-hand quantities and landed costs against QuickBooks or Xero accounting records
Automate order intake and fulfillment
- Push new sales orders from your ecommerce or CRM stack into Fishbowl without portal entry - Trigger pick-pack-ship workflows and pull back tracking and shipment status - Auto-generate purchase orders from low-stock and reorder-point signals
Drive manufacturing and MRP workflows
- Sync manufacture orders, work orders, and BOMs into production-planning and scheduling tools - Push component consumption and labor/time tracking back into Fishbowl as stages complete - Surface material shortages and MRP recommendations to procurement
Keep accounting and costing reconciled
- Match inventory adjustments and landed costs to QuickBooks/Xero general-ledger postings - Pull vendor, purchase-order, and receipt data for accounts-payable automation - Detect costing or quantity drift between Fishbowl and the accounting system
Technical Specifications
Authentication
App approval plus username/password login with MFA replay, exchanged for a managed Bearer-token session
Connectivity
Authenticated REST flows against the Fishbowl server at http://{server}:{port}/api, cloud-hosted or self-hosted
Response format
Normalized JSON across Parts, Inventory, Sales/Purchase Orders, and Manufacture/Work Order objects
Rate limits
Adaptive throttling tuned to your Fishbowl server to avoid overloading on-prem or hosted instances
Session management
Automatic token refresh, MFA replay handling, and credential rotation
Data freshness
Near real-time pulls for inventory, orders, and manufacturing with optional scheduled batch syncs
Security
Encrypted credential vault, scoped access tokens, SOC 2-aligned controls, and audit logging
Webhooks
Event-style callbacks for order creation, shipment, inventory change, and manufacture-order status
Latency
Sub-second reads on cached entities; multi-second writes when posting orders and manufacture transactions
Throughput
Horizontally scaled workers sized to multi-warehouse order and manufacturing volume
Reliability
Retry, backoff, and idempotency keys for order creation, inventory adjustments, and shipments
Adaptation
Continuous monitoring of Fishbowl releases, edition differences, and server-version configuration drift
Frequently asked questions
Yes. Supergood adapts to either model. For cloud-hosted instances we work against your hosted endpoint; for self-hosted servers we operate against the same authenticated REST surface at your http://{server}:{port}/api base, with network configuration tuned to your environment.
Supergood manages the full session flow. We complete the one-time application approval inside Fishbowl, handle username/password login, and replay the MFA code automatically when an MFA-required response is returned, so your integration stays headless.
Fishbowl Manufacturing, Fishbowl Inventory, and the Fishbowl Commerce suite are all supported. Supergood profiles your specific edition and server version and normalizes object differences so you integrate against one consistent schema.
Yes. The API surfaces inventory, order, and costing data so you can reconcile against QuickBooks or Xero. Writes respect Fishbowl's landed-cost and accounting-sync state to avoid creating inconsistent ledger entries.
Yes. Manufacture orders, work orders, and bills of materials are exposed through the normalized API, with stage, component, and labor detail so production-planning and MRP workflows can read and write through the same surface.