In the late 1990s, “cloud” was not a word most people associated with technology. It was certainly not recognized as the future of software. But a few visionaries saw the benefits and tremendous potential of delivering software over the internet. One of them, Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison, convinced entrepreneur Evan Goldberg of the promise of web-based software, leading Goldberg to launch NetLedger, the company that would become NetSuite in 1998. Today, NetSuite’s cloud enterprise resource planning (ERP) system gives companies all the applications they need to run their businesses efficiently while nurturing growth. Organizations of all sizes and across dozens of industries run on NetSuite, harnessing the vast capabilities of its applications for finance, supply chain, customer relationship management (CRM), human resources, professional services, ecommerce and more.

What Is NetSuite?

NetSuite is a software company that has developed a cloud-based business management platform used by more than 32,000 fast-growing organizations across the globe. That platform consists of a suite of applications that help companies run their business, understand the performance of their businesses and drive major efficiency gains and cost savings. The company’s ERP system manages core functions, including finance and accounting, inventory, orders and procurement. Customers can add options including CRM for sales, service and marketing automation, human resources (HR) for personnel records, performance management and payroll, professional services automation (PSA) to plan and track projects and omnichannel commerce for both online and in-store sales. All of these modules share a common database. Thanks to that central data source, information from across the system updates in real time and is accessible to authorized users across business functions. That gives leaders a real-time, 360° view of the business so they can see which processes or departments are exceling and which need a boost. NetSuite uses the software as a service (SaaS) model: Customers pay a subscription fee to access the technology but are not responsible for any underlying infrastructure or system maintenance, including purchasing and setting up servers, installing software or testing and deploying patches and upgrades. Oracle NetSuite handles all of that for customers, with two new software updates per year. Eliminating the maintenance and upgrade costs that come with on-premises solutions not only saves money, it frees employees to focus on the company’s mission and serve customers. The SaaS model also provides scalability: Businesses can add functionality as they need it without worrying about infrastructure and staff resources. For example, a B2B manufacturer may add NetSuite’s ecommerce module after it decides to start selling online. Ultimately, NetSuite gives businesses visibility and control through a single source of real-time information and the ability to add modules on the fly. That increases their efficiency and agility.

Video: What Is NetSuite & How Does It Work?

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History of NetSuite

NetSuite is often recognized as the first cloud software company. Goldberg and a few partners launched the company, then called NetLedger — a reference to accounting ledgers — in 1998 in an office located above a hair salon in San Mateo, Calif. NetLedger accounting software was hosted on the web, forming the foundation for what Goldberg envisioned as a unified software suite that could eventually replace the disconnected systems that companies then used to run their business. Ellison, a mentor to Goldberg, was a key early supporter — his Tako Ventures invested $125 million to get the company off the ground. Other investors included venture capital firm StarVest Partners and software vendor ADP as well as PaineWebber Group, part of Swiss bank UBS. In 2002, NetLedger became NetSuite after the company added applications for inventory management and CRM. That same year, Zach Nelson took over as the company’s CEO and kicked off a period of rapid growth, as annual revenue climbed from about $1 million to nearly $1 billion over the next 14 years. At the beginning of 2007, NetSuite made waves when famed Oakland Athletics General Manager Billy Beane — the subject of the best-selling book and movie “Moneyball” — joined the board of directors. That year ended with a successful initial public offering (IPO) on the New York Stock Exchange. NetSuite issued 6.2 million shares at $26, raising more than $160 million and giving the organization a market cap of $1.55 billion. In July 2016, Oracle announced it had made an offer to acquire NetSuite for $9.3 billion to support its shift to becoming a cloud software provider. After independent committees reviewed and approved the deal, it closed that November, and NetSuite began operating as a Global Business Unit within Oracle. NetSuite has continued to grow rapidly since the acquisition and has offices and employees around the world.

5 Core Features of NetSuite

Although NetSuite may be the oldest, it is not the only provider of cloud ERP software. So what separates NetSuite from other cloud solutions? Here are five highlights:

1. Unified view of the business: NetSuite empowers any firm to run its entire business from a single platform. It brings together finance, supply chain, manufacturing, HR and ecommerce on one system, with one database, rather than using disparate software for each of those functions. Employees simply log in and, with a few clicks, monitor the status and performance of any aspect of their operations.
2. Native integrations: All NetSuite applications feed information into, and pull it from, the central database to ensure there’s only one source of knowledge. The platform’s natively integrated modules negate the need for third-party integrations that may be unreliable or unable to support real-time updates. This unified architecture delivers a common user interface across all modules; that decreases training time and gets people productive faster. This model also allows users to complete order-to-cash, procure-to-pay and other multi-step processes from a single application without re-entering or exporting information.
3. True cloud: NetSuite was born in and built for the cloud. In contrast, many “cloud” ERP systems are actually hosted or hybrid cloud — essentially, on-premises software retrofitted for access through the internet. Such solutions suffer from many of the problems that plague traditional systems, like version lock, slow upgrades and lack of scalability. NetSuite is a multi-tenant, vendor-managed cloud solution with endless room to support growth.
4. Deep reporting capabilities: The vast amount of data flowing from departments and business units into the NetSuite platform fuels its extensive reporting capabilities. Users can pull reports on everything and anything they may want to measure or understand, thanks to the system’s built-in reporting tools. NetSuite also has role-based dashboards that quickly give employees, managers and executives the information they need to make informed decisions.
5. Built-in flexibility: NetSuite can serve a broad array of industries not only because it comes with impressive functionality, but because it can adapt to meet the requirements of different businesses. The platform can be customized to accommodate your processes and corporate structure through SuiteCloud apps and tools, whether you’re a multinational brand with six subsidiaries or a startup still building its first product.

Products Overview

NetSuite can adapt to meet the needs of diverse businesses because it has a wide array of modules dedicated to critical business functions and processes.

Finance

Financial Management: NetSuite’s financial management solution handles many bookkeeping tasks by automatically updating the general ledger, tracking accounts receivable and accounts payable and submitting invoices. This module speeds up the monthly close and simplifies the creation of key financial reports for regulatory and statutory reporting. It supports complex revenue recognition standards and easily consolidates financial statements from subsidiaries — including business units in other countries — with real-time currency conversion. Global Business Management: NetSuite OneWorld allows multinational and multi-subsidiary companies to manage their entire enterprises in one system. It can handle the diverse needs of global businesses via support for diverse currencies, languages, tax laws and reporting requirements. OneWorld offers financial roll-ups at the regional, country and global level, so decision-makers can get as broad or as focused a view of the business as they desire. Planning and Budgeting: NetSuite Planning and Budgeting gives business leaders everything they need to create detailed departmental or companywide budgets and forecasts. The module also provides financial analysts with access to statistical models that allow them to run what-if scenarios that project revenue, expenses and more based on different possible outcomes. Billing: NetSuite SuiteBilling helps companies manage invoicing and billing. It supports transaction, subscription, usage-based and other billing models, reducing the complexity of managing financials for many modern businesses. SuiteBilling records revenue in compliance with current revenue recognition standards. This module helps businesses stay flexible and profitable.

Operations

Inventory Management: NetSuite Inventory Management provides a single view of inventory across all channels and locations, automatically updating levels in real time. The inventory management module can use sales data to set reorder points and alert purchasing managers when it’s time to place replenishment orders. It also manages cycle counts. All of this functionality helps businesses keep the ideal amount of stock on hand and avoid both out-of-stocks and excess inventory, boosting cash flow and profitability. Order Management: NetSuite Order Management handles the complete order lifecycle, from receipt through delivery, at each stage — as they’re placed, released, shipped and settled with the customer. This module can automate order processing and manage fulfillment across channels based on predefined rules. All of this leads to faster, more accurate fulfillment that reduces shipping costs while increasing on-time delivery rates and customer satisfaction. Procurement: NetSuite Procurement can improve the complete procure-to-pay process to save businesses time and money. Customers can keep a list of approved vendors, collect quotes and automate purchase orders while granularly monitoring performance and spend and enabling vendor self-service and expediting payments. Warehouse Management System (WMS): NetSuite WMS builds on the system’s inventory management capabilities, adding functionality for putaway, order picking, barcode scanning and returns authorization. The WMS module can run on mobile devices to direct warehouse employees through receiving, picking and cycle counting. The application, which also reports on warehouse activity, boosts warehouse efficiency and helps companies fulfill and ship orders faster. Manufacturing: NetSuite Manufacturing is built for companies that make or assemble products. The module helps with production planning and scheduling, shop-floor management and monitoring production to reveal insights and improvement opportunities. It ensures you have all the right supplies and parts in the right place at the right time and allows managers to build, release and track work orders. That visibility into the entire production process can ensure quality, reduce costs and increase on-time delivery. Demand Planning: NetSuite Demand Planning can help plan future demand for the products and services you offer based on historical data, existing opportunities or imported sales forecasts. The module can plan using the moving average, linear regression or seasonal average methods. Demand planning also helps with supply planning, automatically creating purchase and work orders based on the demand plan.

Customers

Customer Relationship Management: NetSuite CRM presents a 360-degree view of customers. Sales force automation features help manage leads, quotes and sales to speed up the lead-to-cash process. Forecasting tools review sales data to more accurately predict future sales. The CRM application also improves customer service by combining all important data, like sales history and active support cases, in one place. Marketing automation tools in the CRM help companies manage campaigns and segment customers so they can be targeted with more relevant messaging. Commerce: NetSuite SuiteCommerce allows retailers, distributors and manufacturers to create outstanding omnichannel shopping experiences. The application allows companies to launch and manage mobile-friendly ecommerce sites with user-friendly tools. Multi-channel, multi-location businesses can connect all transactions and visits by unifying SuiteCommerce with the SuiteCommerce InStore point-of-sale application. The result is better customer experiences on the front end and a seamless order flow on the back end, with all payment and customer information automatically flowing into the ERP.

Additional Capabilities

SuiteApps: SuiteApps are a vast catalog of applications developed by Oracle NetSuite and partners that extend the capabilities of your NetSuite instance, whether through additional functionality or integrations with other SaaS solutions. There are SuiteApps for all types of industries and business needs, and most of them run within NetSuite. Payroll: NetSuite Payroll automates calculations of earnings, deductions, taxes, bonuses and paid time off, accounting for variations in taxes across the United States. With the module, businesses can pay employees via direct deposit or print checks, file payroll taxes and create tax forms (like W-2s and 1099s) for employees. The payroll solution reduces the time spent processing payroll and ensures compliance with oft-changing employment laws and regulations. Human Resources: As NetSuite’s HR system, SuitePeople weaves human resources data throughout the suite. This solution stores personnel information, guides new hires through onboarding and tracks promotions and compensation changes. It gives employees self-service tools to request time off, view directories and org charts and publicly congratulate colleagues, while allowing managers to conduct and track performance reviews. SuitePeople lets employees handle more tasks on their own and helps organizations retain top performers. Professional Services Automation: NetSuite PSA solutions are designed for services companies or services divisions within product companies. This system provides project and resource management, billing, time and expense management and project accounting capabilities. OpenAir can track time and expenses in detail, then automate customer billing based on project milestones or a set schedule. The module delivers better resource utilization, a higher rate of on-time projects and increased profitability. Analytics: SuiteAnalytics harnesses all the data in the NetSuite platform to provide deeper insights, from summary to transaction levels. The SuiteAnalytics workbook enables users to build on saved searches and reports with custom filters and visualizations. Employees can get answers to pressing questions with simple drag-and-drop tools — there’s no need for coding or complex queries.

How Does NetSuite Work?

All NetSuite solutions are delivered through the cloud in a subscription model. NetSuite was a cloud pioneer and remains fully committed to that deployment model — it does not offer any on-premises options. It’s a multi-tenant cloud solution, meaning all customers run on the same version of the software and its back-end infrastructure and regularly receive updated versions, automatically. Each customers’ data is stored and secured separately. This creates economies of scale because everything runs on the same code. Users access the platform securely through a browser from any device, whether a laptop, smartphone or tablet. This flexibility empowers decision-makers to track the performance of their business and be alerted to any problems regardless of where they are, so long as they have an internet connection. Role-based access gives authorized employees the information they need to excel in their roles without viewing data not relevant to their jobs. NetSuite users access all ERP modules, and the functionality within them, through a single sign-on portal — all the key information and tools needed to run your business are in one place. Customers can use simple drag-and-drop tools to personalize their home dashboard with the metrics, charts, graphs, reminders and shortcuts that are most critical to their roles. The same is true for all real-time dashboards throughout the suite.

How NetSuite Can Be Customized to Meet Your Exact Requirements

NetSuite’s SuiteCloud platform allows customers and partners to extend the system’s capabilities and tailor it to their exact business needs. This gives customers the flexibility to meet the shifting business challenges of today and tomorrow. There’s no threat of version lock, as all customizations automatically carry over with platform upgrades. Here’s a quick breakdown of SuiteCloud applications and developer tools: Customizations: This tool makes it easier for developers to create custom fields, forms, records and roles. With SuiteBuilder, companies can tweak the system to reflect their organizational structure and terminology. Process Automation: Developers can build custom workflows for different business processes with SuiteFlow. They can use an intuitive user interface to automate processes like lead nurturing and approvals for purchase orders and sales discounts. Platform Development: Developers and NetSuite administrators can build almost any new application or process they can dream up with this tool. They do this through JavaScript application scripting, and SuiteScript can debug their code. Integration: SuiteTalk enables developers to build custom integrations so data flows smoothly from NetSuite to outside software applications. It does this through a few different integration tools. Application Distribution: This tool helps both customers and partners bundle customizations and applications they develop for faster, easier deployment. SuiteBundler makes it easier for partners to send out new versions of these applications and for customers to apply customizations to different accounts. Internationalization: Create an environment for end-users and administrators that feels completely natural no matter which local language, currency, or tax and accounting rules apply to your global company or offshore subsidiary. Performance Monitoring: Performance health dashboards provide visibility into systems health to maintain optimal performance and stability of your NetSuite account to ensure business continuity and keep users productive, and include integrated tools to rapidly identify root cause issues affecting product experience.

What Type of Businesses Use NetSuite?

NetSuite has become the industry leader in cloud ERP because it can address the needs of businesses of all shapes and sizes. That includes early-stage startups up to household-name enterprises, products- and services-based organizations and companies that sell to other businesses, consumers or both. The more than 32,000 customers that use NetSuite operate in a variety of industries, including:

• Advertising and Digital Marketing
• Apparel, Footwear and Accessories
• Campus Stores
• Consulting
• Education
• Energy
• Financial Services
• Food and Beverage
• Health and Beauty
• IT Services
• Manufacturing
• Media and Publishing
• Nonprofit
• Professional Services
• Restaurants and Hospitality
• Retail
• Software and Technology
• Transportation and Logistics
• Wholesale Distribution

NetSuite supports employees across various departments and roles within these companies, from the C-suite down to sales reps and HR professionals. In addition, the software supports more than 190 currencies, 27 languages and automated tax compliance in 100-plus countries.

How Is NetSuite Implemented?

SaaS ERP systems typically are implemented quickly when compared with on-premises systems because there are no servers to set up or devices to configure. NetSuite builds on that advantage with its SuiteSuccess implementation methodology, an approach that no other software vendor offers. SuiteSuccess, launched in 2017, tailors the implementation to the business based on its industry and size. NetSuite offers SuiteSuccess editions for 12 verticals: agency, apparel and footwear, food and beverage, IT value-added reseller, manufacturing, media and entertainment, nonprofit, publishing, retail, software, solution provider and wholesale distribution. In addition, there are product-specific editions for financials, planning and budgeting, SuiteCommerce, SuitePeople and a starter edition for small, fast-growing companies. The SuiteSuccess approach leverages industry-leading practices NetSuite has developed more than two decades of experience to deliver faster deployments and rapid time-to value, resulting in increased employee adoption — and more success for customers. The system comes with preconfigured KPIs, reports, dashboards and reminders. Many companies have gone live on NetSuite in 100 days or less thanks to the SuiteSuccess methodology. While SuiteSuccess is designed with established best practices, the platform can be configured and customized to meet a company’s exact requirements. NetSuite was built with flexibility in mind and has a team of consultants ready to help customers get the most out of the solution.

How Much Does NetSuite Cost?

Companies subscribe to NetSuite for an annual license fee. That license is made up of three main components: core platform, optional modules and number of users. That annual license fee stands in contrast to the large, one-time payment businesses are charged for a perpetual license to use on-premises systems as well as ongoing maintenance and support. Accounting, inventory management, order management and tax management capabilities are included with the core NetSuite platform. NetSuite’s modular pricing design means customers pay only for what they need, when they need it. As a business grows, it can easily activate new modules and add users — that’s a key upside of cloud software. Because every module is different and delivers unique capabilities, license costs vary. There is also a one-time implementation fee for initial set up. To receive a more detailed quote specific to your business needs or to simply learn more about NetSuite, schedule a free consultation. There’s a reason so many business owners and leaders trust NetSuite to manage their most critical processes and information. It’s a proven, reliable platform that helps organizations of all kinds grow and reach their goals. Having all key business information in a single system leads to more informed decision-making and allows leaders to resolve problems before they cause major disruptions. Simply put, there is no replacement for drawing insights into your operations and running your entire company from one source of data, in one interface. Posted by Ian McCue Source: https://www.netsuite.com/portal/resource/articles/erp/what-is-netsuite.shtml?cid=Online_NPSoc_LI_SEOG2ForAReason  

Novupack Intercompany Solutions

Background

To facilitate the entry of intercompany invoices and bills, Novutech has set up a package called "Intercompany Package" which allows you to save precious time. This package is composed of two solutions: - Auto-bill intercompany creation. - Intercompany recharging suitelet. This package answers a NetSuite limitation. Indeed, the only transaction that can be created automatically is a sales order (from a purchase order). Thanks to these two solutions, the automation of the creation of intercompany bills and invoices is now possible and easier.

NetSuite standard solution

The standard NetSuite system allows you to create a sale order from a purchase order. To do this, simply create an intercompany purchase order. Of course, the user must choose an intercompany item (an item for resale) then go to “Manage Intercompany Sales Orders” On this record, you can select the following information: Intercompany customer, the currency, the transaction date, department, location. The intercompany Purchase Order appear on the list: After selecting all the purchase orders that you want to create sales orders from. You click on Generate Sales Order. The record is then processed: The sales order is generated.

Intercompany Bills & Invoices – Automated Flow

A custom solution has been developed for the intercompany process in order to start from the bill directly and to avoid using the standard process of starting from the sales order and purchase order. When creating an invoice, after filling the record and clicking on save, a bill transaction is automatically created. You can find the link to the bill in the field “Paired Intercompany transaction” and the “Intercompany status” passing to “Paired’ as below: The Intercompany Vendor is linked to the Intercompany Customer on the entity record so the bill can be created with the appropriate vendor: The bill is then created using this information and linked to the invoice:  The intercompany recharging solution: The intercompany recharging solution is a Novutech creation that automates the creation of intercompany bills and invoices. The goal of this solution is to optimise the time spent on the creation of intercompany transactions. It's very quick and easy to use. To use the recharging solution, you go the page “Intercompany Transactions”: From subsidiary: In this field you can put the intercompany vendor. Memo: In this field, you can put the main memo. Date: Date of the transaction. After clicking on next, you arrive on this page: Here, you must determine the customer subsidiary, the segments you want to populate like the department or the location (Other segments can be added), the intercompany item, the line memo, the currency and the exchange rate. After validating these informations the status passes to “In progress”. That means that the transactions are being created. The status changes to completed and the links to the transaction appear. The two transactions are created with the appropriate segmentation. You can also integrate these transactions using a CSV import.

Conclusion

The Intercompany Novupack offers solutions that facilitate the entry of intercompany invoices and thus exceed the limits set by the NetSuite standard. The intercompany solution offers the ability to : 

• Easily create an intercompany bill automatically after creating the invoice.
• Link between the intercompany transactions (Invoice vs Bill).
• Automate the creation of the bills and the invoices using the recharging solution.
• Use CSV imports to integrate the intercompany transactions in mass.

We are of course at your disposal to answer all your questions or to organize a meeting to discuss your needs. Do not hesitate to contact us !

Online Forms

Background

NetSuite offers its users to create and publish online forms available via an external URL. This feature is mostly used in the context of a marketing/CRM follow-up for example customer satisfaction survey. The information received from the online forms will automatically create or update records in your NetSuite account. This feature is therefore only available for the case, client record or custom record created in NetSuite.

Online Custom Record Forms

We are going to present to you a design that we made. The need was to follow the customer satisfaction, but that at the order level. And not just at the customer level as NetSuite offers for example. Therefore we have created a custom record with the appropriate questions for this satisfaction survey, and the field sales order as record is parent to link the custom record and the SO. We have also added a subtab only to show a sublist concerning this custom record. After that we created our online forms linked to our custom record. We have two possibilities either to create a standard online form or to create an online html form. The standard form allows you to quickly create a NetSuite designed form while the online form allows you to create an HTML form template and a linked form. The HTML form means you can develop your own design with a specific CSS for example. Once the template is created and designed, it is necessary to create the online custom form record linked to this template. It is necessary to add all the fields specified on your template design. It is possible to add a return URL once the form is submitted. When the online form is created the external part of this record will show you some info like the number of times it has been viewed and submitted. And very important in our case the url for the external publication. If we come back to our need expressed above, the solution is to send this URL with the SO id to the customer via email during a satisfaction survey campaign. So that when the customer submits the form, the information submitted is directly linked to the SO concerned. ex : https://”id of NetSuite account”.extforms.NetSuite.com/app/site/crm/externalcustrecordpage.nl?compid=”id of your NetSuite account”&formid=3&h=AAFdikaIeK4ck_TKXYS1Xp4rc-CaoITxrrDs-xVBlyk5MJZBgyg&custrecord_nov_so=”id of your SO” And so we will have all the information submitted on the SO concerned in NetSuite.

Conclusion

The solution offered by NetSuite as standard allows you to quickly develop online forms, however the design is a bit simplistic and not very friendly. On the other hand, the possibility to develop your own html template allows you to assign your own graphic style, but it is necessary to have technical knowledge in order to be able to realize this. All this to show you an example of using this online forms feature offered by NetSuite. So that you can come up with a different design yourself.  

Novutech and Oracle training programs

Background

This article outlines the valuable partnership that exists between Novutech and Oracle, and the opportunities for Alliance Partner members to undertake training programs offered by Oracle. I also describe how Novutech uses this alliance to invest in their employees by ensuring all members grow with the company to better serve their clients. Finally, I conclude this article by sharing my personal experiences of Novutech’s investment in me, and the opportunity I was given when I undertook one of the training programs.

Novutech and Oracle

Novutech’s partnership with Oracle can be linked to the established values adopted by our company, and the importance in investing in our employees with “Team First and Talent Development”, and “Excellence” in providing strong professional customer service to our clients. These values are built upon the foundations of internal growth, and as such, we have been recognised as an Official NetSuite Partner and an Alliance Partner with Oracle. By strengthening internal growth, Novutech gives both new and established employees the opportunity to become equipped with the latest tools, knowledge, and methodologies for the efficient administration and implementation of NetSuite. For new employees, the alliance with Oracle allows them to discover NetSuite’s capabilities through a range of different training programs offered to alliance partners, and equally for established employees to build upon their already obtained NetSuite knowledge by undertaking other training programs. One of the major advantages of this alliance includes Novutech employees given the chance to earn NetSuite certifications, and thus provide certified expert advice in implementing efficient NetSuite solutions, and bring added-value to our clients. Investment in Novutechos and SuiteLife Campus Being privy to this alliance, my personal experience in recognising the partnership that exists between the two companies was when I joined the team as a Business Analyst at the end of August 2022. Now an official Novutechos, Novutech recommended that I undertake one of the Oracle NetSuite partner enablement training programs called EMEA SuiteLife Campus, knowing how valuable it would become for new joiners like myself, in gaining an understanding of the core competences of NetSuite and obtaining the basics in Administration and ERP fundamentals. I would be registered for the SuiteLife Campus training program on behalf of Novutech, and the sole member of the Novutech team to have participated in this program. The EMEA SuiteLife program was a six-week virtual training program, facilitated by the team at Oracle, and covered fundamental topics for the implementation and foundational understanding of NetSuite’s core processes. From the beginning of the training program, I would discover how dynamic and powerful NetSuite was at implementing effective business process management, but also the alignment between the methodologies used by Novutech and their alliance partner in Oracle. Whilst I had previous experience in ERP management, I would soon realise the professionalism in NetSuite’s processes, in particular the importance in following guidelines for accounting and tax purposes, and how Novutech consults with clients in making clients aware of their obligations on a financial basis. However, even if Novutech does not offer financial advice, we do have an understanding in efficiently implementing NetSuite to manage our client’s business processes more effectively. The alliance that exists between Novutech and Oracle is greatly strengthened by the active collaboration and constant communication between the assigned Oracle member and the Novutech alliance partner. I would soon become aware that Novutech would do everything they can to ensure that I obtained a successful learning experience from the SuiteLife Campus training program, by communicating with the Oracle member pre-training, during training, and post-training. Continuous Alliance The alliance would not end at the conclusion of the training program, with Novutech employees presented with the opportunity to undertake other training programs offered by Oracle. These opportunities, such as undertaking the training program to become a certified ERP Consultant, is made possible thanks to Novutech’s access to the Oracle NetSuite training programs, offered exclusively to alliance partner members. As such, opportunities in implementing NetSuite are made available to new joiners and current Novutechos, and go as far as providing a sound level of expertise in efficient business processes. A word of thanks Thanks to Novutech for giving me the opportunity to undertake the SuiteLife Campus and for the team at Oracle for facilitating the training program in a virtual environment. As a result, I gained a good understanding of NetSuite’s processes and obtained the knowledge for the Administration and ERP functionalities that would become valuable in implementing the NetSuite application for Novutech’s clients. In short

• Values, Investment, Alliance, Growth, Learning, Collaboration, Communication
• Certified training programs to grow the team’s knowledge

My internship at Novutech

Background

Last January, I had the opportunity to join Novutech as a Business Analyst intern. A new and exciting adventure for me that ended last April. But it wasn’t the end of my journey as a Novutechos. I joined the team back in September, this time as a full-time Business Analyst. In this article, I will explain to you my journey at Novutech and why I wanted to come back to this company, to this team.

My internship

It all started on January 31st. It was the first day of my Master’s internship, and I was excited but also a bit anxious. But this anxiety didn't last for long. From the start, everyone welcomed me as a member of the team and helped me feel comfortable. I found a place where I could work and learn to improve myself everyday. I worked on multiple projects early in my internship, which allowed me to display but also improve my skills. People at Novutech really trusted me to make an impact even if I was still an intern. I had the chance to be responsible for my own projects and to work autonomously on them, which allowed me to grow as a person and as a worker, scheduling the tasks on my own and delivering quality results on time. I also realised during these different projects that Novutech offered me a challenging work environment. Indeed, I discovered that working in the ERP sector means I have to carry out projects for multiple customers in various sectors, which allowed me to work on various aspects of a company’s daily operations. This creates a stimulating work environment where you never stop learning. Despite all that, it can happen to feel a little lost, and it is normal as an intern. That is why each intern and each new joiner has a buddy. My buddy was my reference, the person I could contact when I had a question or if I encountered a problem. Weekly meetings were planned with him to discuss my work, how I was feeling, points of improvement, … but I could contact him at any time. At the end of my internship, I realised that I found a great place to work. I had wonderful colleagues, a challenging and stimulating work environment, autonomy and responsibilities. Of course I wanted to continue the adventure!

From intern to employee

A little over a month ago, I came back to Novutech, this time as a Business Analyst. Thanks to my internship, I was ready to work on customer projects from day one. As I was already autonomous and responsible for my work during my internship, the transition is very smooth. I still have a lot to learn, but I feel comfortable working in this environment. The pathway from intern to employee here at Novutech is a great one, allowing a more comfortable adaptation when leaving university for the working world. Being able to start your first job knowing the people you will be working with and the work you will perform is a great luxury to have!

Conclusion

To summarise, Novutech offers a great pathway from intern to employee. As an intern, I had the autonomy and the responsibilities to grow within a challenging working environment. I also had the time to learn and a great buddy to help me on all aspects of my life as a Novutechos. Therefore, as an employee, I came in a more comfortable way with a smoother adaptation.

In short

• As an intern, I had the opportunity to grow with autonomy and responsibilities, with help from my buddy
• This pathway allows a smooth transition from intern to employee
• Join us!

We are already in the middle of October, and shortly all NetSuite customers will be upgraded to the 2022.2 version and will be enjoying some fresh enhancements and new functionalities within their NetSuite environment.

Background

As part of their goal to consistently optimise their customers’ business operations and further automate their financial processes, NetSuite left nothing to chance and carried out a wide variety of improvements ranging from core accounting activities to banking, inventory management or within SuiteAnalytics.  Whether you have already familiarised yourselves with the enhanced functionalities in a Release Preview account or not, the following features selection will give you some insight into NetSuite’s upgraded possibilities and how they will help your company grow.

Functionalities

We tested NetSuite’s 2022.2 new or enhanced features and picked a couple of them that we found interesting for you to discover: 1. Multi-Subsidiary Customer Now Compatible With Consolidated Payments Are you currently using multi-subsidiary customers in your NetSuite account? This feature is made for you. NetSuite 2022.2 provides compatibility between the Multi Subsidiary Customer and Consolidated Payments features. To use these features together, all parent customers must have all subsidiaries of their sub customers.  If you sell to customers who have subcustomers, the Consolidated Payments feature gives you the flexibility to accept payment for sub customer invoices from either the top-level customer or from the individual sub customer. 2. New 360 Dashboards NetSuite has promised us some exciting new dashboards on SuiteWorld 2021. It looks like we will be seeing the Cash 360 Dashboard and Project 360 Dashboard in this 2022.2 New Release, as they were postponed in the 2022.1. Those dashboards are really nice-looking and providing some nice insights on your business. Nevertheless, we have spotted the following limitations: 

• It only shows data for the subsidiary of the currently logged in user.
• Those dashboards are not customizable.

3. Warehouse Management Enhancements - Smart Count Suite app If you are an inventory-based company using the WMS, this feature is for you. Embedded within NetSuite, NetSuite Smart Count is fully integrated with NetSuite Inventory Management. Smart Count gives organizations added efficiencies, greater control over their stock, and more flexibility when making financial and business decisions. Please note that this new Suite app is a paid bundle. We have identified the limitation that it does not support Lot or Serialized items.   4. Few User Interface Enhancements

• Inline Editor Sublist Tooltip When you hover over a cell of a sublist, a tooltip will show the name of the column. In the example below, we hovered over the Units cell and the Units tooltip appeared.

Even if this feature is a great add-on, we would have been looking for the header to be moving while scrolling down.  Menu Search Enhancement The Menu Search feature is enabled by default. To disable the menu search, go to Home > Set Preferences. On the Analytics subtab, clear the Page Search box. This feature is a quite useful one, and allows you to get the following view: 5. Fresh new interface of SuiteAnswers As of September 6, 2022, you have all noticed that a new version of SuiteAnswers is available to all NetSuite customers. The new version includes the following key features: Updated user interface

• The title bar on the home page contains a menu button on the left with links to the main resources of SuiteAnswers. On the right side there is the NetSuite status logo which displays the current status of available services. Additionally, there are the Contact Support and global Feedback buttons.
• The homepage contains announcements, featured videos, newly uploaded videos and staff picked videos, and content categories.
• The article view includes an estimated reading time, a list of content that other users found useful, and reworked code samples. The Share button allows you to share an article through a link or by sending an email. The email option supports multiple recipients.

Improved search – You can search by using natural language as well as keywords and article ID. Filters based on content type, product categories and target audience enable you to narrow down your search results. The search bar features suggested search matches as you type and search history. New support options – also included is a new support case form which introduces a case quality indicator. Chat-based support is now provided through the NetSuite Virtual Support Assistant. You can access both by clicking the Contact Support button. Expanded video content – a revised video page includes clickable previews of videos which are now categorized by product area and use case. You can access the videos page by clicking the menu button and clicking on Videos.

Did you know this?

• Each NetSuite Release actually occurs in four phases from Mid-July until the Mid-October for the .2 Release. You typically would also get an email notification sent to the address(es) configured in your administrative notification settings
• Your Release Preview environment is typically made available about one month before your scheduled upgrade. However, from our experience, you can get it earlier in the release cycle by simply requesting (via Setup >> Company >> Release Preview).
• In addition to requesting a Release Preview (RP) account for your Production account, it is also possible to request a separate Release Preview account for each of your Sandbox accounts.
• Similar to the Sandbox refresh, you can request for a fresh snapshot of your Production data to be pushed to your Release Preview environment. 
• The Sandbox environment also gets upgraded but typically not on the same day as Production.
• If your account has already been moved to the Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI), you can actually reschedule the Upgrade if required:

Novutech is there to assist you during every new release cycle

If these features tickled your interest, have a look at the more detailed release notes to learn more about the exciting new updates offered in the new release.

The onboarding @Novutech

At Novutech, our common mission is to help our customers leverage their business processes to sustain their growth thanks to NetSuite, a flexible, scalable and robust cloud ERP. To achieve this mission, we keep on welcoming new Novutechos, would they be functional consultants, developers or project managers. Today, we are more than 25 Novutechos, all driven by the same passion: to make our customers and users' lives easier. We strive to deliver professionalism and excellence in an organization where everyone is respected and can express its unique skills. Building a strong and efficient team is the key to our success and is a continuous journey that starts during the first days of our new joiners. At Novutech, we have put in place an onboarding program to welcome our new recruits and establish the foundation of a positive and long-term relationship with our organization. We want to make sure that, from the very beginning of their career at Novutech, every single talent is motivated and feels involved in the development of the company. What better feeling for a new joiner than having an incredible experience during his first days that made him think “Yes! I totally made the right decision by joining Novutech and this is going to be so amazing!” Effective onboarding is more important than ever! At Novutech, we are convinced that the successful onboarding of each new joiner is the basis for increasing our team’s cohesion and our customers’ satisfaction, thereby also benefiting Novutech’s business.

The Onboarding program at Novutech

Pre-Onboarding - Preparation for onboarding: The onboarding of new Novutechos starts weeks before their arrival. It is one of the key elements for a successful integration. Indeed, one week before the arrival of a new joiner, we inform the team about the new joiner, his roles and responsibilities.  Our onboarding approach aims at better preparing the new joiner for a smoother jump into our world, team and company. It consists of the following: First of all, a buddy is assigned to each new joiner. The role of the buddy fulfills some aspects of the onboarding process: deliver organizational knowledge, welcome and integrate new joiners into the company’s culture, provide guidance & assistance for any inquiry type during the new joiner’s first months. Secondly, every team member will have the opportunity to book a 1-to-1 meeting with the new joiner in the course of his first week. The goal is to present one topic around what we do at Novutech to introduce the company and to get to know each other.   Orientation - New Employee Welcome We pay particular attention to the first day which might be stressful and a bit overwhelming for the new joiner. For this first day we provide a special welcome and take the time needed to successfully integrate our new talent. For example, by sharing breakfast or organizing a lunch with all the team to celebrate our new joiner’s arrival. One of the co-founders of Novutech will invest time to immerse the new employee into our culture. He will present the company (customers, structure, team,..), its vision, mission and values. Afterwards, the new employee will meet his buddy and receive his IT devices and material  but also some nice goodies. The idea is that, at the end of this first day, the new Novutechos should be able to understand the way of working of the company.   1st Week - Introduction to company, people & role The first week is a crucial time to help our new joiner make his start as an employee. This is where we empower our new employee with the ability to think independently and offer the best way to make decisions autonomously.  At Novutech, when an employee first starts, their direct manager will organize a meeting to define the roadmap for the next few weeks. This gives the employee a clear idea of their objectives and what we are expecting from him.   3rd Month - Training & Feedback This process can overload a new employee with information that’s why we therefore decided to divide this process into different sessions:

• HR Overview
• Company update
• Knowledge & Expertise (Netsuite Knowledge, Business Processes, Industry knowledge, Accounting & Finance,..)
• Consulting training (Communication & Presentation, Productivity, Time Management, It & Tools,..
• Leadership training (Project Management, Customer Management,..)

We want to provide our employees with the  fundamental skills required for their roles and support their continuous learning. To that end, we have created an academy to upskill our people, through modules that include functional and technical training, certifications, mentoring, coaching programs and more. Finally, a daily review can be organized with the buddy to verify that the training is going at the right pace, to answer any training/HR-related questions or any other requests and to fine-tune the use of the tools.   6th Month - Check-in & Feedback This is a great time to look back and assess the performance of the Novutechos as well as to look to the future and discuss the new objectives and expectations.   Conclusion When the integration is well done, it builds the foundation for both the employee and the employer’s long-term success. It can improve productivity, strengthen loyalty and commitment, and help employees succeed early in their careers at Novutech.

Background

Advanced Project Budgets enable you to stay on track with cost and revenue for each project. A work breakdown structure (WBS) separates the work on a project into parts, called work items. You can assign cost and revenue budget values to every work item, save the work breakdown structure and convert it to a budget. The budget version you have saved as the baseline budget can then be compared to actuals in the Budget vs. Actual Report.

Prerequisite

You need to provision and enable the following feature (Setup>Company>Enable Features>Company>Projects): When enabling “Advanced Project Budgets”, the features “Advanced Project Profitability” and “Activity Codes” are also automatically enabled.

Functional Specification

With Advanced Project Budgets, you can:

• Create a work breakdown structure (work items) on your project and assign estimated amounts to cost and revenue. The initial work breakdown structure and its future updates will give birth to different types of budgets: Baseline and Estimate to Complete (EAC).
• See actual amounts from real transactions, which are useful for budget evaluation.
• Compare Baseline VS EAC budgets using native NetSuite reporting.
• Report across multiple projects or customers using activity codes or any other custom segment.

Process

1. First step is to create an initial work breakdown structure. To do so, on the project record, go to the “Work Breakdown Structure” tab and click the “New WBS” button:

Note that the “Budget” tab is empty waiting for a work breakdown structure to be created:

     2. When accessing the Work Breakdown Structure record, there are a few fields on main level that you can populate:

• Description (1): free form text to describe your budget version
• Margin Target (2): insert the intended margin percentage
• Timeline Type (3): you can select:
  • Global: Global timeline type is the default option. There is no date restrictions.
  • Monthly: Monthly timeline type lets you select a start and end date of the WBS. You are then able to define a cost and revenue budget for each month.

Online level you need to populate the following information:

• Name (4): enter a name for each work item of your work breakdown structure
• Project Task (5): link your work item with a project task from your project’s schedule (1 to 1 relationship)
• ETC Cost (6): enter the estimated cost for this work item on the entire project lifetime. Let’s imagine in this example I have been assigned on the project for an estimated duration of 5 hours at a unit cost of 50€, so my total cost budget is 250€
• ETC Cost: (7): enter the estimated revenue for this work item on the entire project lifetime. Let’s imagine in this example I have been assigned on the project for an estimated duration of 5 hours at a unit price of 100€, so my total revenue budget is 500€

Note that the EAC Cost and Revenue (8) are automatically populated with the same values and this is all logical since it is an initial budget. After you have entered all the work items of your WBS, you can hit “Save”.

3. Once you have saved your work breakdown structure, it is now appearing on the Work Breakdown Structure tab of the project’s record:

4. Next step is to set the work breakdown structure as a Baseline Budget:

After you have set the work breakdown structure as Baseline Budget, the Budget tab of the project’s record is now populated:

Note that there 3 different subtabs available:

• EAC Budget: it is currently equal to the baseline budget
• Baseline Budget: this is the budget you have set in the previous step
• Budget History: this gives you all the different budget versions created for the project. You can see that for the moment there is only one budget version and it’s set as both EAC and Baseline budgets:

5. After you have set your baseline budget, work can start on the project. You’ll be able to follow up on those actuals and compare them with the budget. Let’s imagine that out of the 5 hours I have been assigned on the project, I have already performed and timesheeted for 3 of them:

Actual Cost: 3*50€ = 150€ Actual Revenue: 3*100 = 300€

6. If you foresee deviations from your initial (= baseline) budget (e.g. your customer is asking a change request that will increase your workload) you will need to review and update it to align the figures with the project reality. Let’s imagine the change request is 3 hours of work, so that means my total assignment will be 8 hours instead of 5 hours initially planned and I need to reflect that in the budget the following way:

Cost Budget: 8 hours * 50€  = 400€ Revenue Budget: 8 hours * 100€ = 800€   To do so, you’ll need to create a new budget version and set it as EAC budget. On the Budget tab and Baseline Budget subtab, click “View Budget”:

Then under Actions you need to click on “Create New Budget Version”:

There you can update the Cost and Revenue Budget and set that new version as EAC Budget: Note that under Actions you can also set it as Baseline Budget. You would do that when you realize the initial baseline budget was wrongly set-up and you want to use a new baseline budget as reporting basis. Otherwise all amendments made to the baseline budget due to project’s changes (e.g. change request) should be set up as EAC budgets. After I have hit the button “Set as EAC Budget”, I can go back to the project record to have an overview of budgets history:

I have now 2 budget versions: one which is my baseline budget and another one which is my EAC budget. Be aware that NetSuite will keep history of each new budget version that you create, whether it’s marked as Baseline / EAC budget or not. So for example if you want to create one more budget version to reflect extra changes to the project (1 hour extra work), you can do that starting from the existing EAC budget:

Again I have the possibility to set that new version either as a new EAC budget, either as a new Baseline budget. After I have hit the button “Set as EAC Budget”, I can go back once more to the project’s Budget tab to have the overview of all budget versions: You can create as many budget versions as you wish and set them up as Baseline or EAC budgets. 

7. Standard Project Profitability Reports have also been updated to include Baseline vs. Actual vs. EAC reports:

Identified Pain Points

• Initial budget has to be created from the “Work Breakdown Structure” tab. All updates after that can be done either through the:
  • “Budget” tab: in that case a new project budget record is created for each new update but the work breakdown structure is not updated automatically and is thus not aligned with your latest project budget version.
  • “Work Breakdown Structure” tab: you can create new baseline or EAC project budgets through the work breakdown structure record. This guarantees that your work baseline structure is in line with your latest project budget version.
• There is no native Baseline VS EAC budget comparison within the project record. There are 2 distinct subtabs (EAC Budget and Baseline Budget) but no one single view that allows to quickly compare them. Project profitability reports exist (see above) but are outside the project record.
• Project Schedule and Budgets / WBS have to be maintained separately. So all changes that you do on one record need to be manually reflected on the other record, which is obviously time consuming.

Background

I started my studies of Business Engineering at UMons 2014. In 2017, I moved to the Louvain-La-Neuve in the Louvain School of Management in order to realize a Master degree with as Major option “Corporate Social Responsibility”. Nevertheless, I have always felt interested in new technologies. I realized some projects and also my thesis in this area. Actually, it is during my Master degree that I met the wonderful ERP world. It is in January 2020 that I’ve been graduated as Business Engineer at the Louvain School of Management.  One month later, I was recruited by Novutech to become a Business Analyst for (at that time) this very small company. But beginning 2020 means also the beginning of the COVID pandemic. Because of this, my arrival in Novutech has been delayed for one month. Indeed, instead of beginning in March, I entered inside Novutech’s family in April. So, it is in April 2020 that I start my journey in Novutech.

Why Novutech

Let me make a small parenthesis about “Why I chose Novutech ?”. I was directly attracted by the atmosphere in Novutech. Novutech was indeed composed of dynamic people which were ready to be part of a big project and dedicated to it. I always wanted to be part of this kind of project.  As a first job, I wanted to join a project where I was directly involved into and not entering in a big company. I wanted to find a company where I feel as a real member of the team. It means not entering in a too big structure. Novutech was a perfect match with this objective. 

Novutech’s Journey

Starting working in the business world during a pandemic was not an easy job for me. Not having the opportunity to meet all my new colleagues except behind a screen was a and also to learn a part of the job on my own. This new way of living was not an easy stuff but fortunately, I was well supported by the other team members and I didn’t feel alone during my beginning. At that time, we were only 6 at Novutech, thanks to this, it helps to rapidly be implicated and also adapt myself to the job. Indeed, it allows me to directly deep dive in concrete projects by doing tasks that get me out of my comfort zone. I had been directly put in contact with client, it was a big challenge for me but it helps me to grow up fast on my way of working and being independent in the job.  During my first month, I was put on a complete NetSuite implementation for Medi-Market. This project allows me to discover NetSuite especially Finance flow as it was a project which was mainly finance/accounting based. Thus, this project was a good start to jump into the NetSuite water.  After that, I have the opportunity to also be part of a big implementation for our client, Solar Screen. This implementation had a broader scope than Medi-Market. Indeed, in addition to integrate all the finance part of the company, we also should implement the Warehouse Management. In this case, I had been confronted to all the Inventory part of the system. As it was a quite new topics for me, I’d made some trainings to discover those topics.  Since those two implementations, I had the opportunity to participate in different projects, implementation and support, in various companies (UnifiedPost, Akkermansia Company, OTA Insight, etc.). Those experiences allow me to take more and more on myself and start leading some projects.  More than 2 years after my beginning at Novutech, a long journey has been achieved. I am now a Business Consultant and I had the opportunity to work for big projects but also to take the lead of some of them. During those projects, I was mainly driven by the opportunity learning more about various topics, to have responsibilities, to be totally autonomous on the way of managing my work, etc.  Thanks to this dynamic and way of working, I was able to grow up very fast and learn a lot from the Business World.

Background

Cross-Subsidiary fulfillment is a NetSuite feature available on OneWorld accounts. Once the functionality is enabled, you will have the possibility to fulfill sales orders and receive returns across multiple subsidiaries. Therefore, an order made in the original subsidiary can be sent to different subsidiary at the moment of the fulfillment. It means that you will be able to fulfill sales orders not only from locations belonging to the original subsidiary but also from all the other locations present in your NetSuite environment.  If you encounter a shortage of stock for a certain item in the original transaction subsidiary locations, it will be possible to select a location from another subsidiary where some stock is still available. Moreover, this feature allows you to choose more than one location per transaction. It means that a sales order can be fulfilled from locations in multiple subsidiaries and not only one as it is the case when the Intercompany Cross Subsidiary Fulfillment functionality is not activated. Additionally, the return process is also impacted. You can indeed create a return material authorization (RMA) linked to one subsidiary and receive the transaction lines in multiple locations belonging to other subsidiaries.   

Functionalities

Cross-subsidiary fulfillment setup

Before using the cross-subsidiary fulfillment functionalities, you will need to enable a couple of features on your NetSuite environment. To do so, log in to NetSuite with an administrator role (you might be able to do it with another role, depending on its permissions). Then, go to Setup > Company > Enable Features. Under the Items & Inventory subtab, check the Multi-Location Inventory and Intercompany Cross-subsidiary Fulfillment boxes. Note: we advise you to make this setup in a Sandbox/demo environment first.  Then, specify the Global Inventory Relationships (Lists > Supply Chain > Global Inventory Relationship). Global Inventory relationships are rules that automatically select the locations items should ship from.   On the sales order, the cross-subsidiary fulfillment feature will make available two new fields on the item lines:

•  Inventory Location
•  Inventory Subsidiary

Cross-subsidiary fulfillment walkthrough

The first step is to create a Sales Order (Transactions > Sales > Enter Sales Orders). In this example, we are using a customer belonging to the United Kingdom subsidiary.  As you can notice, there is no inventory available in the location (London) for the item in question. Therefore, you need to find another location where the item is available. The cross-subsidiary fulfillment feature allows us to choose a location (Dublin) belonging to another subsidiary (Ireland). Now that you have a sales order with available inventory, you can fulfill the sales order (click on the Fulfill button). On the Item fulfillment generation page, review the relevant information and select the items you wish to fulfill. Then, click Save. Looking at the GL impact on the item fulfillment, you will notice that NetSuite debits the cost of goods sold and credits the inventory. The cost of goods sold are recognized on the subsidiary where the order ships from and not on the subsidiary where the subsidiary was originally placed. After fulfilling the order, you will be able to bill it (click on the bill remaining button on the sales order). Note that the invoice takes place on the original subsidiary and location. Review the information on the invoice and save it. Looking at the GL impact on the invoice, you will see that the trade debtors account is debited and the revenue account is credited. If any VAT was set up, the VAT account will be credited.

Cross-Subsidiary Charges

You now have revenues in the subsidiary (United Kingdom) where the sale order was placed and costs in the subsidiary where the goods were shipped from (Dublin). Therefore, intercompany cross charges take place. To use the standard intercompany cross charges functionality, go to Transactions > Financial > Manage Intercompany Cross Charges. You will then see the list of transactions ready to be cross charged. You will have the opportunity to generate those using the Generate Transactions button. Once your Cross Charge Workbench is empty, go to your journal list (Transactions > Financial > Make Journal Entries) and find the cross charge journals (Filter the Type to Cross Charge Journal). Note that one cross charge journal per subsidiary involved in the transaction is created. One the one hand, a cross charge journal will be created to recognize revenues in the subsidiary that fulfilled the sales order. One the other hand, a journal will be generated to recognize costs in the invoicing subsidiary. The Cross Charges Workbench is a standard Cross Charges NetSuite process that generates Journal entries for the recognition of intercompany costs and revenues. At Novutech, we can build customized cross charging processes (created via scripts) that generate intercompany invoices and bills. If you wish to recognize cross charges directly on invoices and bills instead of journal entries, do not hesitate to reach out to us. Note: before using the intercompany cross charges, you should set up the NetSuite intercompany features. 

Conclusion

The Cross-subsidiary fulfillment feature enables your NetSuite account to handle sales orders and returns across multiple subsidiaries. In other words, you will not be limited to fulfill your sales orders from a location belonging to the originating order subsidiary.  Regarding the recognition of your intercompany cross charges, Novutech offers the possibility to customize your process according to your needs. Do not hesitate to reach out to us and visit our website (https://www.novutech.com/) for more information. 

In short

• You will have the opportunity to fulfill sales orders and order returns across multiple subsidiaries.
• Novutech offers a custom-made process to recharge, via a set of predefined rules, the right amounts from one subsidiary to another one with intercompany bills and intercompany invoices (and not cross charge journal entries, as the standard functionalities would do).

Prerequisites: OneWorld NetSuite account & Intercompany setup (cross-subsidiary charges).

A decisive strategic decision

Implementing a new ERP is an important decision that will have a huge impact on your organisation in the long term. Whether you make that strategic decision to stimulate the growth of your business and introduce more structure into your processes or to support your already scaling company, you want to make sure to leverage all the benefits of your new ERP and get the most out of your investment. This is why you need to select an implementation partner that understands your needs, has your best interests in mind, and has the required expertise to tailor your environment according to your business processes. If you go for NetSuite, Novutech can be that trusted partner you are looking for. Why? Thanks to our team of experienced consultants and the proven implementation approach we follow for each one of our projects.

Novutech, the partner of choice for your NetSuite implementation project

The experience When choosing Novutech, you are actually choosing a diverse and experienced team which is able to understand your needs, challenge your processes, and design the best solutions to streamline your operations and boost your business. Currently, our team can rely on 17 functional consultants, with up to 10 years of NetSuite experience in almost all business areas, 5 technical consultants well versed in suitescripts, integrations, and other plug-ins, 1 expert accountant who will resolve any of your localisation issues, and a vast network of trusted partners who make it possible to optimise your NetSuite environment even further. The values Beside our functional and technical experience with NetSuite, we make a point of being fully transparent and building a strong and trusting relationship with our customers. During your project with us, here is what you can expect :

• A focus on a ready-to-go implementation, based on NetSuite’s proven and sound standard capabilities.
• Being challenged to follow NetSuite best practices, based on both NetSuite’s standard design and our own experience resulting from our 20+ implementations in the last 3 years.
• A constant and completely transparent communication throughout the whole project. We will not sugarcoat any obstacles and will always advise you the best we can in order to make sure you reach your objectives and even surpass them.
• Regular status reports and updates about timelines, risks and impacts.
• A lot of flexibility, not only in our services (consulting services, project management, training and support), but also in NetSuite (customisations, add-ons, integrations).

The approach In order to meet our common goals, we follow a structured methodology, consisting of 4 different stages.

• Engage

The engagement phase of the project is dedicated to getting acquainted with each other and getting to know your business. Thanks to detailed questionnaires, we collect the first pieces of information regarding your business and internal processes. We also kick off the project with all interested parties in order to ensure everyone is aligned and all the people involved are identified and know their role during the project.

• Drive

1. Architect We organise workshops with your teams in order to dive into your operations and daily activities. We gather all the necessary information in a design document which we continuously amend with you in order to scope the project precisely and sign off on a final architecture.
2. Configure and Prototype Based on the workshops and the design document, we build a series of prototypes in a test environment, which we put to the test with your teams to ensure they allow all employees to perform their daily tasks in the most optimal and accurate way. When the final prototype stands the test of process owners, we deploy it in the live environment and prepare for go-live.

• Enable

Before go-live, we ensure the users have the necessary knowledge of the system and feel confident that they can go through NetSuite’s workflows without any complications. With User Acceptance Testing, training guides and ongoing assistance, we support users throughout their learning journey, deal with their concerns and take special care of making them comfortable with the new tool they will be using on a daily basis.

• Convert

The last step of our projects is supporting our customer during the go-live phase and making ourselves available to help them resolve any issues they may have. We also assist them with the migration of the balances from their previous software and with their first closing, and encourage them to take ownership of their NetSuite environment.  

The right people for the right job

In this day and age, implementing an ERP is a necessary step for any company that wants to survive and scale. This is such an important aspect of your growth, and which can prove very costly and painful if done incorrectly, that you need to partner with people that know what they are doing and that have the drive and knowledge to meet your ambitions. Can Novutech be that partner for you? Contact us to make sure!

Background

At Novutech, we work hand-in-hand with Fast Four, now part of Zone & Co, a full service ERP Partner specialized in NetSuite. They provide many opportunities to extend some of the features of our ERP and there are two in particular that we like to work with. The first SuiteApp, Fast Four Bank Reconciliation, automatically reconciles with bank statements everything from Bills to Invoices as well as Payments, Expense Reports and many more, and relies on a download of a statement or a transaction stream directly from the bank. The second SuiteApp, Fast Four Scan & Capture, automates the entry of Vendor Bills both from PDF Invoices and E-Invoices but also the delivery of E-Invoices to Customers. Let us find out more about them.

Functionalities

At Novutech, we are mainly working with two Fast Four SuiteApps, Bank Reconciliation and Scan & Capture, which we will introduce to you in the following article. Bank Reconciliation The Fast Four Bank Reconciliation SuiteApp allows users to automatically reconcile their bank accounts in minutes and to save hours of manual processing each day. This means less hassle, manual entry and errors. In other words, instead of users wasting hours entering and matching each line of their bank statement, this SuiteApp automatically creates and reconciles all transactions in one easy step. To do this, users simply download statements or set up a transaction flow directly from their bank to automatically create and reconcile transactions across multiple companies, bank accounts, cards, currencies and electronic payment providers. As a result, Bank Reconciliation by Fast Four provides greater control, visibility and focus on using the data rather than entering it. After this short introduction, let us dive into the key highlights of this SuiteApp.

• Automate bank transaction entry and reconciliation

The Fast Four Bank Reconciliation SuiteApp imports bank statement files and performs an automatic reconciliation process in NetSuite. Cash received generates payment transactions on customer invoices, while payments made are linked to bills, journals and other expenses based on automatic matching rules. Suggested transactions for any unmatched line are visible in the bank reconciliation screen with one click. Almost any file format is supported, including CODA, Comp53, MT940, OFX, QFX, and many more, including various country-specific formats. In addition, if a format used by the customer is not supported as standard, the application can be configured as needed by importing a CSV with a Custom Field Mapping.

• Resolve complex scenarios with one click of a button

Foreign currency payments, consolidated or split payments, and payment differences can all be processed with the click of a button, greatly enhancing the standard NetSuite functionality and significantly reducing the time it takes for users to reconcile transactions. Ad hoc transactions such as card payments or bank interest earnings can also be easily created on the fly.

• Reconcile credit cards and payment gateways

Automated reconciliation is not limited to bank accounts. With out-of-the-box configuration options, it is possible to easily automate the reconciliation of all transitions in a company, including credit card providers or payment gateways.

• Cancel Direct Debit

In cases where direct debits are used to receive payments from customers, payments can sometimes be canceled. Fast Four's bank reconciliation application automatically matches direct debit cancellations and correctly posts them to the general ledger as a new transaction type called "Direct Debit Reversal". This process automatically reopens the original invoice and displays the reason for the cancellation, allowing standard NetSuite workflows to alert users, automatically request a new payment or follow up with the customer in person.

• Allow Multi-line Journal Entries

A bank payment can be easily attached to multiple GL accounts in NetSuite with only one click. In addition to all these advantages, thanks to the Bank Reconciliation SuiteApp, plenty of operations can be managed such as Customer Payment, Unapplied Customer Payment, Vendor Payment (Bill Payment), Vendor Payment without Bill Applied (Prepayment), Expense Note Payment, Other Payment (other than AP or AR), Electronic Fund Transfer Payment, and Direct Debit Payment. Scan & Capture When it comes to the Fast Four Scan & Capture SuiteApp, it is a native Purchase-To-Pay (P2P) process automation solution for NetSuite. It automates the creation of invoices and supplier credits using OCR, without having to leave the NetSuite screen. It reduces manual accounts payable processing by 83%, eliminates risk, and enhances the existing NetSuite customizations, workflows, dashboards, and reports without worrying about integrations or external software. This application is easy to use and affordable, with remote installation and training requiring less than two hours of time. Let us now move on to the most important features of this SuiteApp.

• OCR, Machine Learning and e-Invoice Capture

By using Optical Character Recognition (OCR), supplier invoices and credits received as PDF documents are automatically created at the line level in NetSuite. The application is trained to recognize factors such as vendor look and feel, transaction date, order reference and amount, which means users do not need to create transactions, fill in data or even leave their NetSuite screen. This reduces processing time by an average of 83% and eliminates manual errors. Electronic invoices are also easy to manage using XML imports, which means that this technology can be adopted immediately and in the future as its use becomes more widespread.

• Split Screen View and Transaction Dashboard

There is no need to leave the NetSuite screen or navigate to external software to view relevant transactions and documents. Users, approvers and auditors can quickly and easily view the NetSuite transaction and the actual document received from vendors on one screen with the split screen feature. The transaction dashboard also provides a simple overview of transactions by status to allow users to quickly progress and complete tasks and move on to the next task.

• Capture Additional Fields and Extend Existing Workflows and Customizations

As the application is native, everything that is captured is driven by the NetSuite configuration. Existing customizations, additional fields, or approval workflows can be used or enhanced with confidence without having to worry about external integrations or compatibility with third-party formats.

• Order Matching, Line Recognition and Automatic Vendor Processing

Three-way order matching can be automated by including multiple orders in a consolidated invoice. Line-level recognition means that costs can be correctly allocated at the line level, even across multiple pages, without the need for manual entry or allocation. For even greater efficiency, certain vendors can be flagged for "Automatic Processing", meaning their invoices are automatically forwarded for approval, without manual intervention.

• Support for Virtually any Language and Character Set

It is worth mentioning that OCR technology can recognize and process almost any language and character set as standard. Through the Scan & Capture SuiteApp, whether managing thousands of supplier invoices, or just a few, this application is a faster, more efficient and more enjoyable way to process invoices.

Conclusion

At Novutech, we mainly work with the two Fast Four SuiteApps, Bank Reconciliation and Scan & Capture, which we regularly recommend to our customers. We are therefore accustomed to dealing with these applications and are able to provide expertise on their implementation and utilization. Please feel free to reach out with any further information or query.

In Short

Sources https://www.suiteapp.com/Fast-Four-Bank-Reconciliation https://www.suiteapp.com/Fast-Four-Scan-Capture