Fishbowl 2026.6: read-only location groups, more REST API, and a QuickBooks export fix we've waited for

Fishbowl shipped version 2026.6 (26.6). Here’s a quick rundown of what’s new and the fixes worth knowing about, from the perspective of teams that run Fishbowl every day.

What’s new

• Read-only location groups. Assign a location group to a user as view-only, so they can see a warehouse or branch they don’t manage without being able to change anything. It applies across Inventory, Sales Orders, Purchase Orders, Transfer Orders, and Manufacture Orders, with a lock icon on view-only records. Our honest take: it’s a start, and we’ll take it, but it doesn’t go far enough. Fishbowl has role-based control over what you can do, but not where you can do it. Rights live on the user group; location-group access is a separate, all-or-nothing grant. Quality-managed environments like medical device and pharma routinely need “this role can move inventory into the QC location, but only that other role can move it out,” and Fishbowl still can’t express that. Read-only groups are the first sign of thinking about the where; we hope it goes deeper.
• Control the next customer number. Customer numbers now come from a stored “next number” counter, like order numbers, and a module option lets you set the next value directly.
• Configurable read-only database user. Administrators can set a custom password for the built-in read-only database user, or disable it entirely, from the Database Settings dialog. The history here explains a lot. Around 2009 to 2012, shipping software talked to Fishbowl over ODBC: UPS WorldShip, FedEx Ship Manager, Endicia. Walking a ten-user shop through creating a MySQL user was a support call nobody enjoyed, so Fishbowl shipped a documented, preconfigured read-only login and pointed the instructions at it. Sensible then; a liability now that deployments are bigger, cloud-hosted, and audited. We’ve had enterprise IT contacts ask us point-blank why a preconfigured database login is sitting there in 2026, and they’re right to ask. If you don’t use it, you can simply delete the user; Fishbowl itself doesn’t need it. As of 26.6 you can manage or disable it properly from the product, and we want to encourage exactly this direction.
• Custom shipping email from the mobile app. The Advanced Mobile Plugin’s Shipping Options now include Email Subject and Email Body fields.
• REST API: create a sales order. POST /api/sales-orders creates an order and applies customer defaults automatically. Kit and drop ship items are not supported in this first version.
• REST API: issue a transfer order. POST /api/transfer-orders/{id}/issue moves a transfer order to Issued, with access and status rules enforced.
• REST API: kit components nested in responses. Retrieving a sales order now returns kit components under their parent kit item. Note this changes the response shape, so check any integration that reads kit lines.
• REST API: machine-readable docs. GET /apidocs.json returns the full API documentation as structured data, which is handy for developers and AI coding assistants.
• Legacy API: save a signature at receiving. The legacy API can now store a signature or image against a receipt at receive time.

Fixes worth noting

The one we’re happy to see: the QuickBooks Online “Business Validation” export error is finally diagnosable. When QuickBooks rejected an export with that error, Fishbowl used to drop the detail, which made recurring failures painful to track down. We’ve run into this with clients more than a few times. In 26.6, Fishbowl records the full QuickBooks error detail and Intuit’s transaction reference in the server log, so the actual cause is right there. This one was always a tough nut: the failure lives between Fishbowl’s export logic and what the QuickBooks Online API actually received, and at the scale of thousands of companies posting thousands of transactions, a once-in-a-while error surfaces somewhere every single day.

A few other fixes we’ll call out:

• Drop ship partial receipts to QuickBooks Online. A second partial receipt no longer reuses the same document number and fails with a “Duplicate Document” error. Each receipt now exports with its own number.
• Auto PO and transfer order demand. When reorder levels are set by location group, Auto PO now recognizes demand from out-of-stock items on transfer orders, not just sales orders.
• Receiving screen performance. The Receiving screen opens much faster for sites with a large number of locations, and no longer slows down with each receipt.
• Asset Valuation by Account. Historical FIFO cost now calculates correctly when the report is run for a past date.

If any of these touch how you run Fishbowl and you want a hand, get in touch.