Item: NetSuite ERP
Rating: 10
Author: Christopher Bauman

Overall Satisfaction with NetSuite ERP

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

I use NS in our organization to do everything from booking journal entries, creating reports, publishing financials, maintaining fixed assets, issuing debt and recognizing revenue and lease liabilities/assets.In my opinion, NS is the most intuative and logical ERP system versus PeopleSoft, SAP and even Microsoft Dynamics. I have had the opportunity to use the system as an admin, reviewer and preparer for all finance and accounting functions.

Pros and Cons

Pros

Tracks fixed assets and debt activity for month end rollforwards.
Creates a solid audit trail and supporting documentation path for anyone to follow, internally or externally (auditor).
Maintains reporting structure and workflow processes for better implementation as training or process improvement/overhaul.

Cons

Pages feel visually dated and layout at times lacks modern spacing, grouping and design logic.
Navigation is sometimes cumbersome and takes a while to understand and navigate through. Menus are overly nested and inconsistent across certain modules.
The dashboard experience is clunky and feels limited with the flexibility and modern interactivity.
You have to click through a ton of screens to get your forms customized to your liking which is overly time consuming and can be frustrating.
Search UX is functional but in my opinion, not very intelligent.

Return on Investment

Drivers we saw included 65% reduction in monthly close, 20% savings in finance ops and about a 10% faster billing cycle over time.
Implementation costs around $115,000 were very heavy initially and still haven't been recouped but are slowly eroding. Third party tools for reporting also adds costs on top of the up front implementation.
Expected ROI best for multi-entity SaaS, High audit/compliance businesses.

Usability

Overall, best in class robustness with functionality and capability; However, user interface confusion and logic needs improvement in order to have an out of the box solution for any level of user.

Alternatives Considered

SAP CPQ, DealHub.io and Oracle PeopleSoft ERP

NetSuite by far is the most expensive; However, compared to the 3 systems notated, the overall functionality, capability and reporting advantages make it my top choice for companies experiencing exponential growth across all departments. Its a best in class solution for just about any user.

Key Insights

Do you think NetSuite ERP delivers good value for the price?

Yes

Are you happy with NetSuite ERP's feature set?

Yes

Did NetSuite ERP live up to sales and marketing promises?

Yes

Did implementation of NetSuite ERP go as expected?

Yes

Would you buy NetSuite ERP again?

Yes

Other Software Used

QuickBooks Online, Salesforce CMS, Microsoft 365, Google Analytics, Oracle PeopleSoft ERP

Likelihood to Recommend

Best suited for mid-market to lower scale enterprises (under 2,000 employees) especially if migrating from Quickbooks or another fragmented small business system. Also, multi-entity and global operational businesses are very well suited as there is robust functionality around multi-subsidiary, multi-currency and multi-tax controls. Finally, businesses with inventory & supply chain heavy businesses would find the functionality very useful as the system allows warehouse management, lot/batch tracking, fulfillment, etc.

Not well suited for startups (a lot of functionality not needed) or very small businesses (under $3mm in revenues). Overkill in complexity and cost and implementation leg-work is necessary relative to the underlying operations of the business. Also, companies with a heavy manufacturing business (shop floor execution) lacks depth with true manufacturing ERPs like Epicor, Infor, etc. and companies expecting consumer grade UX feels like the interface isn't modern or very intuitive right out of the box.

NetSuite ERP Feature Ratings

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One Of The Better Solutions Available

Software Version

Modules Used