This guide is designed for individuals who wish to understand how to adapt their business processes to fit within the NetSuite framework. It will be particularly useful for those engaged in conversations with a NetSuite implementation partner or those preparing for such discussions. This resource focuses on defining key terms and providing examples to illustrate NetSuite’s record-keeping features.
By the time you finish this NetSuite implementation guide, you’ll have a clearer grasp of NetSuite’s structure and terminology, as well as its adaptability. This understanding will empower you to identify what essential elements require customization in your version of NetSuite, and importantly, what aspects can remain unchanged. Equipped with this knowledge, you’ll be able to communicate more effectively with your NetSuite implementation consultant about how they can assist you in configuring NetSuite for your organization.
Start with Your Existing Processes
In embarking on an ERP implementation, it’s often more effective to contemplate your everyday business requirements before diving into what NetSuite offers out of the box. Understanding your needs can significantly aid your NetSuite implementation team in grasping what you truly want from the system. Here are some prompts to help you:
General inquiries
What products or services does your business provide?
Are your offerings simple or intricate? Do you sell generic flowers or specific types, like petite red roses and sizable white roses?
Who are your target customers? Are they individual consumers or businesses? In other words, do you operate B-to-B or B-to-C?
CRM / Sales
What essential data about leads and customers do you monitor?
How do you acquire leads? Are there any unique pathways?
Are your leads perceived primarily as individuals or as companies?
What steps do you follow to convert a lead into a customer? What specific milestones do you track along the way?
Can your sales team adapt to slightly new CRM terminology, or would you prefer to customize NetSuite labels to align with your established terminology?
Order fulfillment
How does the ordering process start? Is each sales order created by you or initiated by the customer?
What steps do you follow to fulfill a sales order? Are there any approvals required during this process?
Should your invoicing be manual or automatic? Would you prefer it printed or emailed?
Timekeeping and project management
Do you intend to utilize NetSuite for tracking billable hours or managing employee time?
What is your project approval procedure?
How do you organize projects and tasks? How many levels exist within the hierarchy? What vital information do you need to track for each project and task? What various statuses or stages do tasks and projects go through?
Reporting
Knowing what information you wish to extract from NetSuite is vital for determining the best way to input data into it. One great advantage of using default fields and records is that NetSuite has already created reports corresponding to those entries. While you can certainly create custom reports, it is often easier to leverage existing setups.
Here, it may be beneficial to obtain insights from your executive leadership team or anyone who frequently requires reports to analyze business health or the effectiveness of specific practices.
What types of reports are necessary for accounting?
What reports do you need for marketing? How detailed should these reports be when assessing the value of marketing initiatives?
What reports are essential for inventory management, manufacturing, sales, and purchasing?
After addressing these queries, you’ll be nearly ready to sit down with a NetSuite partner to explore how to tailor your NetSuite account to meet your business's unique demands. Before these discussions, though, it would be advantageous to familiarize yourself with some of NetSuite’s terminology; having a shared understanding can clarify conversations and may prevent unnecessary customization expenses.
Let’s explore an overview of NetSuite. At its core, NetSuite functions as accounting software. While numerous additional features have been integrated, it fundamentally remains an accounting platform. Essentially, NetSuite manages records across three main types: Item, Transaction, and Relationship. We will go through each of these categories in detail.
Items and Inventory
Items refer to goods for sale, products assembled, components of what you manufacture, stock items, shippable products, and purchased goods, among others.
For instance, if I manufacture shelving, I need to monitor how many different types of shelves I have in stock. In NetSuite, it makes sense to categorize each shelf type as an item. By designating my shelf varieties as items, I can track them from assembly through inventory management, right to sales orders and customer invoices. If I offer 10 different types of shelves, I would add 10 items to NetSuite.
Relationships Among Records
Should any of my shelves offer variants - like size, color, or material - I might opt to use a unique kind of item record known as a matrix item. This allows me to group all those options under a single parent item. The parent item could be "bookshelf," while the child items might include "white bookshelf" and "red bookshelf." This illustrates what NetSuite defines as a parent-child relationship, showing that two records are distinct yet interconnected, with one record contingent upon the other. The parent-child link can either be one-to-one or one-to-many. In this example, it’s one-to-many, as there is one parent item but multiple child items.
Various kinds of relationships can exist between multiple record types. For instance, a sales order is naturally connected to an invoice. If an item is returned, a return authorization can also be associated with the sales order.
We’ve briefly reviewed how NetSuite employs the item record type to manage finished goods. This record type can similarly be utilized to track assembly components. You can create assembly items, which function just like regular inventory items but allow you to monitor the parts used in their creation. Assembly items can even have layered parent-child relationships; for example, if my shelves require separate assembly from their supports, I could create the shelf support as an assembly item (with its own components like wood, screws, and laminate, each having its own item record). This shelf support assembly item could then be part of the overall assembly item of the finished bookshelf. For more insights about manufacturing with NetSuite, consult this article.
Forms, Fields, and Labels
An item record, similar to any other record in NetSuite, will feature a collection of fields. Fields hold values such as text, numbers, dates, or binary options. These fields are presented to the NetSuite user through a form - the format in which the fields are organized and displayed. Multiple forms can exist for a specific record type, which can prove beneficial if various roles in your organization require access to the same item record but need different information. For instance, a sales representative might need access to the sale price, while a floor manager might be more concerned with the components.
Be aware that the form may contain several empty fields. This is perfectly acceptable! For now, focus on the fields you find relevant; there will be opportunities to customize the form later to hide fields that are unnecessary for your needs.
