NetSuite is the world’s #1 cloud-based business management suite. Over 19,000 organizations trust NetSuite for their ERP, CRM and eCommerce solutions. Here are 12 reasons to use NetSuite by Oracle for your own business.

1. Robust Cloud-Based System

NetSuite built their platform for the cloud, making it accessible on any device. Every department in your business can be logged on and access the data they need to maximize productivity.

2. Built in eCommerce – SuiteCommerce Advanced

SuiteCommerce Advanced (SCA) provides a powerful eCommerce solution to fully integrate your website and customer data into one place. The web platform is complex but includes tons of wonderful features, including the customer dashboard.

3. Customer Dashboard

Customer dashboards allow your customers to easily see their purchase history, manage cases, pay invoices, and reorder products. The dashboard is as stylish as it is thorough.

4. Saved Searches for Answering Key Business Questions

Saved searches are a great way to discover answers to key questions about your business. These searches let you choose criteria to narrow down results for countless of areas. Monitor sales, cases, inventory levels, customer value, order projections, production schedules, and much more. These saved searches can be used in workflows (more on this later) and emailed based on a schedule or when changes are made.

5. Customer Relationship Management (CRM)

NetSuite stores all customer-necessary data in one place, accessible by all departments. This is crucial for sales, purchasing, production, shipping, customer service, and all other departments.

6. Complex Product Matrices

eCommerce is all about offering a wide variety of options for your customers. With NetSuite you can create matrix parts that allow for all the variations you need. We use it in manufacturing to display size, color, and hardware options. No matter your business, if you have products with multiple options, the product matrix will meet your needs.

7. Connect Other eCommerce Platforms

If you aren’t ready to use SuiteCommerce Advanced, you can integrate many other shopping sites. I’ve used Shopify and Volusion as well as connected sales from Amazon. Nearly any major platform’s eCommerce sales can be imported into NetSuite, giving you all the customer data.

8. Customize Entry and Transaction Forms

Nearly all of the forms in NetSuite are customizable. Each step of the order process can be edited to meet your company’s needs. This forms use HTML and CSS to provide a stylish and user-friendly paper trail whether digitally or printed. This includes sales orders, work orders (for manufacturing), pick tickets, packing slips, invoices, etc.

Not only can the printable forms be customized, but all entry forms can be adjusted to your needs as well. I have added dozens of custom fields to make our forms more useful. Custom fields also add flexibility to how you can use saved searches and reports.

9. Inventory Management

Keep track of your inventory with bin management and stock levels. Over time, NetSuite assists in calculating reorder points, safety stocks, and projecting inventory usage. Stock levels can be integrated with eCommerce, providing real time stock to your customers. You can control the way an item displays on your website if out of stock, allowing or disallowing backorders.

10. Sales and Marketing

Entire sales departments can use NetSuite to track sales and commission. Follow-up tasks can be recorded on the customer, letting you keep track when and where a customer is in their purchase stage. All transactions are stored in the customer profile, including estimates, sales, invoices, cases, etc.

Your marketing department can send out automated emails and create promotions. These include discounts on items or groups of items, free shipping offers and more. You can set up workflows (below) to automatically include brochures or email messages based on a customer’s behavior.

11. Workflows

Workflows are an automated process that lets NetSuite handle repetitive activities on certain business functions. I’ve used this in many ways from automatically creating invoices, sending email messages, and including promotional brochures when someone makes a certain type of purchase.

Whatever your business, you can use workflows to automate tasks and processes. The only drawback is that sometimes useful fields are unavailable. Workflows also require a bit of a learning curve to implement.

12. Track Changes Made (System Information/System Notes)

NetSuite tracks changes made in system notes. This somewhat hidden away feature is useful when you need to find out what user made a change on a customer or inventory item. Along with the user, the date and field changed are visible, making it straightforward to investigate these changes.

Other Reasons to Choose NetSuite by Oracle

NetSuite has many other features and is always adding more. Much of the system is customizable and can be organized by role. Your sales force can have their own dashboards and access different features than your customer service department. Billing, warehouse management, inventory management, and marketing can all use different forms, searches, reports, reminders, and more to best fulfill their needs.

Most importantly, all your customer data is in one place and everyone can see what they need to get the job done. NetSuite grows as your company grows. You can keep adding more employees, customers, and product offerings and count on the #1 cloud ERP system to be there with you every step of the way.

Who is NetSuite For?

Nearly all businesses could benefit from NetSuite. Much of what they offer is expandable by size. A small shop may not be ready for the relatively high cost. But growing, mid-size companies up to the large, global businesses are well suited for the system. NetSuite grows with your company, allowing you to add more features as you expand.

The system undergoes two major updates annually, adding new features and keeping everything fresh.

The only other barrier to entry is a rather sharp learning curve in using the system. Their eCommerce platform is powerful but also requires a great deal of technical knowledge. The ERP system takes awhile to get used to. Even after several months, you’ll find yourself discovering features you didn’t know existed. Or you may find yourself realigning the processes to better fit in NetSuite’s system.

For all of its power, NetSuite currently lacks a good analytics integration. You can easily use Google Analytics or similar 3rd party providers with SCA. But as for built-in web analytics in NetSuite, this you will not find.

I’ve been using NetSuite since 2017 and all my knowledge has been self taught. The company I work for decided to forego NetSuite’s costly implementation and do it 100% on our own. Thus, I was in charge of setting up the SuiteCommerce Advanced website as well as customizing the majority of the forms. I also developed a production schedule, added complex product matrices, and produced countless saved searches and reports to assist in every step of the manufacturing process.

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If you have any questions or need some help implementing your system, contact me today!