What's Not to Like About NetSuite?
December 21, 2018

What's Not to Like About NetSuite?

Chris Snelling, CFA | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User

Software Version

NetSuite Financials

Overall Satisfaction with NetSuite

Our organization uses NetSuite to manage all of the general ledger journal entries for several entities. We also use it for invoicing and commission calculations (with an addon from Callidus). NetSuite is primarily used by the Finance and Accounting teams but is also used in the business processing and administration departments.

NetSuite addresses the major business problem of organization and trust. By having all of the financials in one location NetSuite has become the "truth" behind our financials. The easy to use interface and search capabilities make it easy to use even for beginners. For example, new employees, with just a few minutes of training, can log in and look up customer invoices.
  • Integrates. NetSuite is particularly good at integrating with other products. For example, we integrate NetSuite with Adaptive Planning in order to bring actual financials together with forecast and budget data, which is then used for analysis and reporting. We also integrate NetSuite with other administration platforms so invoicing and commissions can be done rather seamlessly.
  • Intuitive. NetSuite is extremely intuitive. I started using it without any training and was easy to learn. It takes a little practice to learn the reporting system, but if you are just looking for client or vendor information it is as easy as typing the name or ID into the search box at the top.
  • Easy to Support. While setup is important and takes a lot of hours, the ongoing support is outstanding when compared to some of the other big enterprise systems. The previous enterprise system I used needed 4 full time programmers on staff just to keep it running, and it still kept getting outdated. The cloud application and seamless upgrades make this product superior.
  • Commissions. Our company's commissions are very complex and while NetSuite can handle most of them, there is still lots of manual adjustments and work that we need to do before paying. With that said, some of these issues may be with our setup or to the fact that we keep changing our incentive plans.
  • Reporting. While you can design P&L and other reports in NetSuite, I've found it less intuitive and more difficult than it seems like it should be. Some of this is because of how the data is stored in the background. For example, sometimes the data you want in the same report comes from two different modules and in order to pull the data into one report, we need to run separate reports and then do lookups in Excel. This is a common theme in relational databases and not specific to NetSuite.
  • While I can't quantify the ROI it has definitely made an impact on productivity when compared to older, outdated systems. Monthly closes can be coordinated across the company and completed in a much quicker time.
  • Another positive impact from NetSuite is much easier access to data. Doing searches and getting data from NetSuite is easy. It doesn't require programmers to do and you don't have to memorize T codes and wait long periods for your information to update.
I have used simple accounting systems like QuickBooks, and I have used huge outdated systems like SAP. NetSuite is far superior to both of them. I wouldn't say its better than QuickBooks but maybe just for a different audience. QuickBooks is really for small companies. SAP, however, at least the implementation I used, was barely usable and effectively hid the data we needed from us because it was nearly impossible to pull from the system even with dedicated staff to help.
While NetSuite can be used at any sized company, it seems most appropriate for medium-sized companies that have enough resources to invest in technology but that don't want to keep full-time staff to support it. It is also well suited for companies that have multiple locations or remote workers. Our company has remote employees all over the country that use NetSuite and it is as easy to use outside the office as from the office. It is also well suited for those looking to integrate into other reporting or analytical tools without much effort.

A scenario where NetSuite would be less suited is if you wanted to quickly install a basic accounting system without putting much thought into it. NetSuite requires a lot of thought during the initial design and setup in order to get the right setup for your company needs.

NetSuite ERP Feature Ratings

Accounts payable
9
Accounts receivable
9
Global Financial Support
Not Rated
Primary and Secondary Ledgers
10
Journals and Reconciliations
9
Configurable Accounting
Not Rated
Standardized Processes
Not Rated
Billing Management
Not Rated
Travel & Expense Management
Not Rated
Budgetary Control & Encumbrance Accounting
Not Rated
Period Close
10
Inventory tracking
Not Rated
Automatic reordering
Not Rated
Location management
Not Rated
Pricing
9
Order entry
9
Credit card processing
Not Rated
Cost of goods sold
Not Rated
Order Orchestration
Not Rated
Pay calculation
Not Rated
Benefit plan administration
Not Rated
Direct deposit files
Not Rated
Dashboards
8
Standard reports
8
Custom reports
8
API for custom integration
10
Plug-ins
Not Rated
Role-based user permissions
10
Single sign-on capability
Not Rated
Award Lifecycle Management
Not Rated
Budgeting and Forecasting
Not Rated
Project Costing
Not Rated
Cost Capture
Not Rated
Capital Project Management
Not Rated
Customer Contract Compliance
Not Rated
Project Revenue Recognition
Not Rated
Project Planning and Scheduling
Not Rated
Task Insight for Project Managers
Not Rated
Project Mobile Functionality
Not Rated
Definable Resource Pools
Not Rated
Not Rated
Bids Analyzed and Compared
Not Rated
Contract Authoring
Not Rated
Contract Repository
Not Rated
Requisitions-to-Purchase Orders Integrated
Not Rated
Supplier Management
Not Rated
Risk Repository
Not Rated
Control Management
Not Rated
Control Efficiency Assessments
Not Rated
Issue Detection
Not Rated
Remediation and Certification
Not Rated
Not Rated
Transportation Planning and Optimization
Not Rated
Transportation Execution Management
Not Rated
Trade and Customs Management
Not Rated
Fulfillment Management
Not Rated
Warehouse Workforce Management
Not Rated
Not Rated
Production Process Design
Not Rated
Production Management
Not Rated
Configuration Management
Not Rated
Work Execution
Not Rated
Manufacturing Costs
Not Rated
Not Rated
Forecasting
Not Rated
Inventory Planning
Not Rated
Performance Monitoring
Not Rated
Proposal Management
Not Rated
Product Master Data Management
Not Rated