NetSuite ERP vs OpenAir PSA

• Integration. From Accounting to ERP to CRM, I don't imagine there is much NetSuite can't handle. For a small to medium sized business, and ever for many large organizations, I believe it is entirely possible to put all of the corporate system 'eggs' into one basket - that is on the NetSuite platform.
• Architecture. The back-end database and inner workings of the NetSuite platform, I would describe as 'different.' Not necessarily better and definitely not worse. However, working in the data is different and maybe not as traditional as when working with a traditional relational database. Because of this, it does take a little bit of getting used to. However, once you are 'used to' it - the ease and simplicity of the back end is a beautiful thing and makes extracting and working with data, again once you cross the learning curve, something to be desired. Took me a few months to get the hang of things, but now, I couldn't imagine a more productive system.
• Performance. While not lighting fast compared to some on-premise tools, the performance of the NetSuite platform is better that adequate and is quite useable on a day-to-day basis.
• Consultants. We have had great success working with implementation specialists and consultants directly at Oracle. They are highly knowledgeable and easy to work with. I would highly recommend the native teams for implementation success.

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• Netsuite OpenAir PSA is highly configurable and has a large ecosystem of assets to work with.
• Tasks are easily designed to automate processes in your business workflow.
• OpenAir is designed in such a way that it can communicate and receive information from external systems without having to re-engineer your systems to make them work if you are following standard business practice.

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• NetSuite does have great customization capabilities, however, this can also make it difficult to track and maintain custom workflows and scripts as business needs change, especially with different subsidiaries having different process requirements. Essentially, the more you customize the system, the more you need to maintain documentation for reference.
• NetSuite has a fantastic reporting tool called a "Saved Search." For financial and other similar reports, you must use the NetSuite "Report" feature. This reporting feature is not as flexible as the Saved Search and I have found that certain reports cannot be customized as required using the "Report" feature.
• The Project Management module still has some work to go before it is flexible enough for companies to use NetSuite for their own customized processes. The module is fairly inflexible, and at a previous company we had around 10-15 enhancement requests alone relating to this module.

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• Compared to QuickArrow, setting up reports to reflect the data accurately seemed to require a bit more consultant time and collaboration. Getting the numbers correct is essential, so budget extra time for this iniative. We also learned that certain calculations can not be displayed in the executive dashboards. Ask these questions upfront to ensure your dashboards are complete for your needs (again, working backwards in the preparation stages).
• Compared to QuickArrow, NetSuite OpenAir PSA falls short in the resource management capabilities. UI, flexibility, and scheduling options all could be improved. This is on their roadmap, timeline yet to be defined. Scheduling is vitally important to our company and this is THE area where we feel is the applications weakest. However, the application does provide everything critical to scheduling and provided the elements we needed in order to be successful. We altered our scheduling process accordingly.
• During our System Administration 3 day online training, when a question was asked about detailed functionality, sometimes the trainer would share..."Yes, OpenAir has a configuration for that. Just inquire with your consultant and they can flip that flag in your instance." The responsibility for obtaining these special application configurations was placed on the System Admin [in training] to ask and to take notes. If your company needs the application to work a certain way, speak up and ask your OA consultant. There seems to be MANY flags that can be flipped in the background to allow for the system to meet your needs. My complaint is that these are not published, rather made available if one inquires.
• OpenAir is able to generate invoices directly and we strongly encourage using this feature to keep everything housed under one application. However, this did not work for our organization and we leveraged a financial integration. A bit of a pioneer integrating with Softrax -- the integration works well, however is quite fragile. We do receive appropriate support when needed, but would prefer the integration to be a bit more stable. We recommend integrating with their stated supported financial systems, as staying the course will likely net a more stable integration.

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• Stress levels WAY down since dumping our previous Billing system and installing SuiteBilling. The ease of navigating, viewing data in sensible places, reporting and having more data in one place has made many of my users use words like "amazing" and "what a relief." Don't underestimate worker stress and enjoyment of their tool.
• Fewer vendors and products to manage and to integrate. I oversee 10+ financially-related applications and their vendors. Dealing with the nuances of the contracts, the products and the people with whom I must deal (sales, support, product management) adds a lot of time and complexity. It also reduces the challenge of my SOX-related efforts.
• Auditors and those of us supporting SOX-related efforts LOVE NetSuite, especially compared to other systems. The controls and auditing available are indispensable, whether it's to keep us accountable to ourselves or to the auditors.

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• It covers our requirements for time tracking and project/resource management better than the previous solution we used.
• Project managers are happier having this tool for their job and also because it is running on the cloud as opposed to running on-prem.
• It doesn't help in any way improving the "chasing" of the people that don't submit their time-sheets in time. This one stayed the same as before.

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