We do a very in-depth financial analysis before we let our customers look at software. We had a smallish client-company — a $14 million company. They were looking at NetSuite and a couple of other products. We put together what we call our cost revenue model that shows how they can cut costs and how they can increase revenue using the new software. They were very amazed to learn that we projected that over three years, they'd save or make $7 million. This opened their eyes to the possibility of ERP and things of that sort. They took a look at our findings in our spreadsheets and our models and everything like that and took it all in.

I circled back three years later to find out if they followed the model. Did they follow our recommendations? Did they achieve the projected savings and see their revenue increase? As a matter of fact, they had not, they did not follow the model. They said, however, that this really opened their eyes regarding how they could use this software and how they could make it pay for itself. In fact, they had doubled the size of the company in three years. They'd gone from a $14 million company to a $30 million company. They were also in negotiations to do a couple of acquisitions in Japan and Australia that would make them a $60 million company the following year. In doubling the size of the company, they had added one new person to the finance office to help with that. Two weeks later, I was in another company that was using QuickBooks and they were about the same complexity and they were a $30 million company.

They had 13 people in their finance office. I said, "Why are you doing this?". It was because they needed that many people to manage the spreadsheets, to manage and understand where their inventory was, and to understand the operations that were going on out in the field — that type of thing. So, they implemented and they were able to, by attrition, cut down to 10 people in the finance office, and they converted three of them to outside analysts or department managers to go work in other functions like that. That was a big deal.

We had a charter school that was running off a Sage 300 system. The way they handled purchasing at all of their schools, was the school principal would maintain a spreadsheet and he would fill out purchase orders for things that they needed. Then they would upload the purchase order file to a SharePoint server and at headquarters, an alert would say a new file has been uploaded to SharePoint. One of the accounting clerks would download the file and type it into the Sage 300 system. 

This created a dual purchasing system, where there was a purchase order number at the school. There was a purchase order number in the Sage system. They had to work around that and they had to reconcile that. We put them into cloud-based software. As we were going through the NetSuite implementation, I said, "Why are you maintaining two purchasing systems?" They said, "Well, we can't afford for every principal to become a user". So, I said, "There is a limited edition user license that allows you to do purchasing and you can buy them in blocks of five, for $99". So, they put all the principals on the system — many of them. They would later become full users because they were able to access data on their school's performance, etc. 

Within 90 days into implementation, they were rolling out. They had two areas: some international schools and some US schools. As they were rolling out the international schools, 90 days into the implementation, I asked, "How's it going? What's happening?" They said everything was fantastic. They said, "What we used to do, was every time we added a new school, we added a new person in the accounting office". They said, "Now, with the principals putting in all their purchasing information, we have more accountants than we need". They acquired three schools just before going live, and they didn't have to hire three people. I said, "What are you paying those people?". They say, "Well, roughly $60,000 to $65,000 a year". That was $180,000 in savings within the first 90 days of using the product.

My company is working with Anchor Group to make some developments in the base of our NetSuite ERP to ensure that we can handle all the information and the process that we use. The other part is that we are integrating SMART ERP Solutions for external devices.

I specialize in NetSuite, which caters to the needs of small, medium, and large-scale enterprises. NetSuite is significantly more affordable than Oracle EBS and offers a wider range of features than other OEMs. The solution is highly regarded and has been gaining traction in the market.

NetSuite ERP has dramatically improved our organization. We went from QuickBooks to NetSuite. You can compare this transition to changing from tennis shoes to a flying car. You really have much more functionality over foreign operations with NetSuite. I would say in capability, report-wise, data querying, is much better to use than QuickBooks. QuickBooks is only for small companies.

NetSuite helps us simplify business processes. 

As a consultant/implementer, we track all projects and financial tasks.

We use NetSuite tools to handle a multi channel, high volume order environment providing insight and profitability by channel and product velocity and profitability.

The client saw a lot of elimination of manual steps that they were doing in their old system. The acceptance of a lot of best practices made even just basic monthly closing a lot simpler and a lot quicker. They went from taking almost three and a half weeks to do a monthly close to five to seven business days.

That time savings alone, there's cost value there from a human resource standpoint.

NetSuite allows quick modifications of entry forms, standard processes, and end result data. The ability to make modifications to the core system allows us to offer our clients more meaningful operational processes and reporting abilities.

I really like the CRM module of NetSuite that gives a 360-degree customer view. Its CRM module is very much customized out-of-the-box as per most of the companies.

As a NetSuite functional consultant, I can see how this product is getting evolved with each version release. When we implement NetSuite to the organization, it automates the business to a large extent with minimum human interference. For example, the approval becomes easy due to live entry transactions or the sale functions are improved due to better use of Salesforce automation or there is better utilization of resources due to project management or there is better planning due to NetSuite demand planning.

Companies where I implemented the solution commented as follows:

Found it easier to plan

Viewing the current status of the business in real time with the dashboard facility

Generally speeds up the accounting function with less errors

It provides support for consolidated reporting from multiple subsidiaries in different countries.

It is an integrated system that helps us streamline the business processes.

We are an implementation partner of NetSuite and we don’t use the product ourselves.