NetSuite Financial Management refers to the end-to-end financial processes and capabilities provided by NetSuite’s industry-leading cloud ERP platform. As one unified system, NetSuite Financials delivers automation and real-time visibility across key accounting and finance operations in a company.
This comprehensive guide covers the breadth of financial management functionality in NetSuite. We’ll explore the system’s core modules, supporting features that enhance financial control and insight, and the key benefits this complete solution delivers for managing finances.
Core Financial Modules
General Ledger
The general ledger forms the backbone of financial management, enabling organizations to properly record and categorize transactions as well as produce financial statements. Key capabilities include:
- Chart of Accounts: NetSuite comes pre-configured with industry-specific COA templates to accelerate set up. The COA seamlessly integrates with all modules.
- Journal Entries: Daily transactions can be automatically or manually posted to the GL in batches. Easy workflows improve accuracy.
- Reconciliations: Bank statement reconciliation and intercompany reconciliation ensure entries match across systems, entities, and accounting books.
- Real-Time Reporting: Custom reports and financial statements offer real-time visibility into latest balances, movements, performance and more.
- Audit Trail: Detailed audit logs capture all GL transactions – including approvals, changes, and reporting activity – promoting compliance.
Accounts Receivable
NetSuite’s Accounts Receivable module enables automation, efficiency, and flexibility across order-to-cash processes – from billing to payment collection. Key features include:
- Invoicing: Flexibly customize invoices, manage complex billing rules, support one-time and recurring billing, allow online payments, and enable automated reminders.
- Collections: Improve cash flow by setting credit limits, terms, and risk-based collection workflows including integrated dunning letters.
- Revenue Recognition: Automatically calculate, schedule, record, and adjust revenue transactions per multiple accounting standards.
- Credit & Refunds: Easily issue credits, refunds, and credit memos while maintaining an audit trail. Allow customers to directly request RMAs.
- Reporting & Metrics: Pre-built reports include AR aging, collections, revenue forecasting, billing, customer analysis, and more.
Accounts Payable
NetSuite AP automation streamlines procurement and payment processes for superior visibility, control, and efficiency. Benefits include:
- Invoice Processing: Easily capture, match, approve, schedule, and reconcile supplier invoices. Leverage Optical Character Recognition and 3-way matching.
- Payment Management: Support global bank formats, currencies, and payment options. Easily void, edit, customize, and reprint checks.
- Vendor Management: Maintain supplier information, contacts, tax requirements, payment terms, and purchase histories in one location.
- Procurement Workflows: Automate approval routing. Flexibly create and approve purchase requisitions tied directly to POs.
- AP Reporting: Out-of-the-box reports include AP aging, supplier analysis, cash requirements forecasting, purchasing analysis, and more.
Billing Management
For businesses that bill customers based on time, materials, subscriptions, or usage, NetSuite Billing provides the advanced functionality required for success. Customizations available include:
- Pricing Rules: Create flexible pricing models including volume discounts, customer specific pricing, currency support, and frequency billing.
- Billing Schedule: Trigger invoices based on key dates, milestones, deliverables, timeframes, usage metrics, and more. Schedule automatically or manually.
- Billing Formats: Tailor billing formats including summarize/detail views, customize line items, apply different templates per customer, show/hide columns, and configure headers/footers.
- Billing Audit Trail: Complete visibility into every bill including adjustments provides compliance support. Easily track approvals, disputes, statuses, and versions.
- Revenue Analysis: Flexible reporting provides insight into revenue run rates, cycles, trends, true-ups, and more to inform business planning.
As NetSuite is a cloud platform built on a single database, the financial modules connect in real-time for seamless processes and accurate reporting across Procure-to-Pay and Order-to-Cash workflows.
Supporting Capabilities
In addition to those fundamental financial processes, NetSuite also delivers expanded functionality – from planning and analysis to compliance – to meet enterprise business needs.
Financial Planning & Analysis
Sophisticated FP&A capabilities facilitate data-driven planning, budgeting and forecasting. Features include:
- Budgeting: Streamline creation, monitoring, reporting and control of budgets integrated to GL.
- Forecasting: Dynamic forecasts factor trends, seasonality, predictions, annual/quarterly budgets, and KPIs.
- Modeling: Easily build “what-if” modeling scenarios – factoring risks, opportunities, market conditions – to guide decisions.
- Dashboards: Visualize budgets vs. actuals, monitor variances, and spot trends in key metrics.
- Reporting: Analyze past performance and model future outcomes to calibrate strategic plans. Gain insights from pre-built reports and custom views.
Audit & Compliance
Comprehensive auditing, compliance and access tools promote financial integrity and security. Capabilities include:
- Audit Logs: Auto-generated system audit logs capture all GL transactions plus reporting, access, modifications, customizations, and integrations.
- Access Controls: Advanced permissions control data access and actions at granular levels per role. Define read/write/edit ability per user.
- Data Access: Control visibility settings at multiple system levels based on role – portlets, folders, centers, reports, documents, custom fields, etc.
- Validated Compliance: NetSuite controls comply with rigorous security certifications including SOC 1 Type 2, PCI-DSS, HIPAA, and the EU-US Privacy Shield.
SuiteAnalytics
With SuiteAnalytics, NetSuite’s native business intelligence solution, organizations get powerful analytics capabilities to transition from hindsight to insight to foresight. Features include:
- Unified BI: A single cloud BI platform spans across NetSuite ERP, POS, CRM, ecommerce, and HR systems for complete visibility.
- Data Discovery: Intuitively explore data, identify trends/outliers, manipulate views, save custom views, and augment analysis with external data sources
- Interactive Dashboards: Visually monitor KPIs with pre-built content including reminders, notifications, drill-down, and trend analysis.
- Predictive Analytics: Statistical techniques uncover performance drivers, model future outcomes, and prescribe key actions to confidently guide decisions.
- Reporting: Create customized reports and distribute on preferred channels – print, email, file, portal. Configure access, branding, translations, and conditional formatting.
Financial Management in Key Verticals
Beyond the extensive financial functionality natively provided, NetSuite also offers tailored solutions for major industries to meet their unique requirements including:
- Manufacturers: Advanced production control, BOM/routing, resource allocation, shop floor integration, and WIP tracking improves accuracy of product and period costs.
- Software Companies: Revenue recognition management aligns booking and billing, while flexible billing schedules support SaaS/subscription models.
- Nonprofits: Grant management, fund accounting, and sophisticated allocations across programs/funds meets reporting needs and restrictions.
- Ad Agencies: Sophisticated project accounting and advanced resource management improve time capture, allocation accuracy, and job costing.
- Whole Foods & Restaurants: Ingredient-level costing, food cost reporting, menu engineering, and inventory control (perishability, yields, FIFO) manages margins.
In summary, NetSuite delivers end-to-end financial process automation, enterprise-grade compliance and security controls, robust analytics for informed planning and strategy, and industry-specific customizations across the suite.
Benefits of NetSuite Financial Management
By providing an integrated financial management solution with advanced features tailored for key vertical needs, NetSuite enables businesses to realize major benefits:
- Unified System: A single cloud platform with no more integrations delivers unified data, consistent processes, and streamlined workflows.
- Real-Time Insights: With unified data available in real-time across finance modules, analytics offer the latest information to guide decisions and planning.
- Efficiency & Control: Workflow automation, process standardization, and real-time visibility improves financial team productivity while increasing compliance.
- Flexibility & Customization: Easy customizations for business models, processes, reporting requirements, and compliance needs future-proof financial management as companies scale and expand.
- Innovation: Regular product enhancements deliver the latest financial management and analytic innovations to provide a continual competitive edge.
- Cost Savings: By eliminating disparate on-premise systems and consolidating to a single cloud solution, organizations can significantly reduce IT infrastructure costs.
In closing, NetSuite Financial Management provides the most comprehensive and flexible cloud financial solution available today. The system brings together a full range of financial capabilities – from core accounting to enterprise planning, reporting and compliance – in one modern platform to meet the needs of dynamic, growing businesses.
Why Choose SuiteRep for NetSuite Implementation?
When it comes to implementing NetSuite Financials, SuiteRep stands out as the leading NetSuite partner with the proven expertise and methodology to drive project success. Below are six compelling reasons to choose SuiteRep for your NetSuite deployment:
1. Domain Expertise
With years of NetSuite experience and 850+ successful implementations, SuiteRep offers unrivaled expertise across NetSuite managed services, customization, integration and optimization.
2. Methodology & Acceleration Tools
SuiteRep follows a proven 6-stage methodology for NetSuite implementation covering planning, configuration, integration, testing, training, and support. SuiteAccelerators provide templates to speed deployments.
3. Industry Focus
Beyond technical NetSuite expertise, SuiteRep also brings deep understanding of core industries with tailored solutions for Software, Manufacturing, Distribution, Services, Nonprofits and more.
4. Solution Breadth
SuiteRep delivers full business transformations spanning financials, operations, reporting, payroll, planning, and more. The result is unified processes, insights and improved performance.
5. Change Management
SuiteRep realizes technology success requires people adoption. That’s why they focus on stakeholder buy-in, user training, updated policies, and KPIs to drive utilization.
6. Lifetime Partnership
Rather than just implement and leave, SuiteRep provides ongoing post go-live support– from enhancement implementation to continual user training and solution optimization.
In summary, SuiteRep is the ideal NetSuite implementation partner combining technical expertise, industry focus, business breadth, change management skills and commitment to customer success – both during implementation and throughout the relationship. To embark on a financial transformation journey leveraging NetSuite’s market-leading financial management platform, SuiteRep has the proven record and methodology to ensure it is a resounding success.