FFL Boss Review: Best FFL Software?

FFL Boss is one of the more well-known compliance softwares on the market.  Having been around for years, it has constantly built more features on top of features.

However, as you will see in this FFL Boss review, there is a lot more to creating a wonderful and useful software than just adding features. It comes down to how you integrate those features, and create easy to follow user flows that matters.

As a matter of fact, it was because of this issue that I discovered with software like FFL Boss, that drove me to partner up with a firearms attorney who’s certified FFL software in the past, to create FFL Safe which not only has the necessary features that most FFLs need, but is completely free to use.

So, let’s dive in a learn about FFL Boss and whether or not it is the right choice for your needs.

FFL Boss Compliance Software

FFL Boss has all the features needed but isn’t price competitive as other options.

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• Interface B-
• Features A
• Compliance B+
• Price C+

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B

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Complete Compliance? FFL Boss

Over the past few years, I’ve used almost every FFL compliance software on the market.  When looking at discussing these companies, I figured there are four (4) general areas by which to compare them:

• Interface
• Features
• Pricing
• Compliance

So, in this FFL Boss review, I will analyze the software in each of these areas and discuss how it compares to others in the market and whether or not you should use FFL Boss as your FFL software. 

Software Interface and Usability

First, let me start by discussing what I mean by the interface.  The interface of a software is about how aesthetic it looks and how well the software is organized.  Are the buttons in the right spot?  Does it make sense where I should go to locate things, or is it a jumbled mess, and I have to study a user’s guide to use it?

With this in mind, FFL Boss isn’t very intuitive, nor is the interface well done.  Notice from the image how many things are listed on the left side as well as the general aesthetics. Furthermore, the process to enter and dispose of weapons is more complicated than it should have.

However, that being said, I found that the entire industry of FFL software does not have very good interfaces (except for FFL Safe).  So, comparing FFL Boss to the rest, I’d say it has the third-best interfaces.

A lot of it feels like when the creators planned the layout and design of the software, they started with certain features. That is speculation, but the layout feels like this was the case. 

FFL Boss’s Features

When it comes to features, most of the FFL software I checked had both electronic bound book and electronic 4473 file handling.  There were also the necessary background checks, FFL ez Check, barcodes, and more.  In many cases, they all do the same thing but with different labels.

So, instead of listing all those things, I want to take the time to discuss a couple of areas where FFL Boss is different. Unlike FastBound, FFL Boss, as far as I could find, is not backed by a legal group.  FastBound has FFL Guard, which states that if something happens to the software that causes you problems with your FF license, you will be covered by their team. As far as I could find, I didn’t see much on FFL Boss. And having that extra backup is very nice for those FFL owners without a business. 

Also, for those who have large FFL businesses, integration with POS systems is going to be incredibly important.  Again, comparing the two, FastBound has better integrations and thus gives large gun stores the ability to process payment and run compliance software simultaneously. 

How Much Does FFL Boss Cost?

With regards to pricing, FFL Boss gets my third-best grade in that department.  First off, unlike FFL Safe, FFL Boss is NOT free.

Moving it into the paid FFL software department, just like FastBound, all of their pricing levels give you just about the same capability, but their price increases as your number of FFL transactions increases.

In order to explain FFL Boss’ pricing and how it compares, we will have to bifurcate the two markets: small FFL or home-based and large FFL gun shops. 

Small FFL or home-based FFL owners usually do between 1-100 transactions annually.  Anything greater than that can be classified as large.

So, if you are a small or home-based FFL user, FFL Boss is not a good choice.  You’d need to pay $19 monthly (or $228 a year) to get all the necessary features. Whereas with FFL Safe, you pay nothing. So, in this case, save $228 and choose FFL Safe.

However, if you are a large gun shop, you’re going to probably need things like barcode scanning and such. While FFL Safe can help, you’d more likely need some of those large store features. So, if this is you, then the question is really about comparing FFL Boss to FastBound. When it comes to pricing on these, if you do over 100 transactions a year, then there are certain levels where FFL Boss is definitely a better deal price-wise over something like FastBound. However, their pricing systems have times where one is better over the other.  

So, you need to look at your transactions a year and then see which one has the better plan for you. 

How Compliant is FFL Boss?

If FFL Boss wasn’t fully compliant with the ATF, then it would get shut down.   However, in analyzing a lot of FFL Software out there, it was evident that many FFL compliance softwares cover themselves in certain compliant rules, by just telling the user they have to do something, instead of actually doing it.

So, therefore, there are many softwares that while technically compliant, they don’t perform certain functions to help you with compliance and place more responsibilities on you. 

The only FFL software that is fully compliant and does automatic backups is FFL Safe.

But after that, I’d say that both FFL Boss and FastBound come second (with each being a bit of a tie).

Final Recommendation:

As you can see, FFL Boss is an excellent software that is both compliant and sometimes competitive on pricing, depending on the number of transactions you do per year. 

However, as I discussed, it isn’t the best interface, and lacks legal backing and certain POS integrations.  And furthermore, it isn’t free. Because of this, I give FFL Boss third place and recommend FFL Safe over it.  Granted as the creator of FFL Safe, take that with a grain of salt, but I’ve shown quantifiablen differences that should help save you over $200 a year.