Various tools by NetSuite ERP to prepare Financial reports and Documents

NetSuite is one of the prime software vendors for Finance and Account management solutions. NetSuite has been awarded as Worldwide Leader in Cloud Finance and Accounting Applications in  2017 by IDC which is regarded as one of the best technology assessment event in the world and which selects the best software solution from among the top software vendors in the world. NetSuite provides a variety of tools to prepare various financial reports for analysis and tracking purposes.

Key features and tools that can be used to prepare important Financial documents are as follows :

a)  Reports: NetSuite provides over 70 pre-packaged reports that can be easily customized by end users as per requirement. Most organizations produce certain reports regularly, for example, profit and loss reports monthly and also the quarterly balance sheet quarterly. These regular reports can be set up with standard criteria to run automatically and made available to relevant staff or other board members through printing or email in various formats such as .csv, .xls etc. Some of these reports include:
1)   Budget: The budget preparation tool helps in preparing estimates of income and expense for a specified period of time, which can be segmented on an account-to-account basis. With basic NetSuite, the types of accounts for which a budget can be set include income or expense accounts, balance sheet accounts etc. Budgets can be created or imported in .csv format for multiple components such as specific customers, items, projects or any combination of these criteria. Budgets can be based upon a previous budget or on a previous year’s financials.>
2)   Pre-packaged reports: The pre-packaged financial reports include all statements required by national and international accounting standards such as balance sheet, income statement, cash flow statement, Sales, Banking/Budgeting, Customer/Receivables, Revenue, Vendors/Payables, Cost Accounting and Forecast etc. New reports can be generated by customizations such as addition of new columns related to specific properties and can be made available to other users with the necessary access control.
3)    Searches: One other important tool provided by NetSuite to search and report data is Search functionality. Search functionality helps in searching for a single record by keywords or returning a set of records that match defined filters. The results can be saved for future analysis, exported to other applications, emailed to other users, or searched definitions can be saved for reuse.
The Search functionality has one limitation in it i.e the user who is searching information should have the authority to ‘see’ the fields in question.
The following methods can quickly find specific records:
a)   Global Search and Quick find link: You can enter keywords in the Search field, located at the top of every NetSuite page, to search your entire account for matching records. Quick find link icon in the header can be used to search individual records to quickly find a record of the same type.
b)   Quick Search Portlet: Here you can add a portlet to your dashboard, where you can enter keywords to return records with matching IDs or names.
c)   Advanced Search: You can shift to advanced search mode by checking the Use Advanced Search box on a search page. On this page, you can filter records by using formulas which contain SQL syntax expressions, and you can sort results and group them into summary calculations.
Your results can be stored or exported in various formats such as .csv, .xls, or .pdf file, and can be sent to others using emails or other platforms.

b)  KPI: Key Performance Indicators reports in NetSuite ERP (KPIs) synthesize raw data into critical business metrics which helps to understand the latest information on key areas of the business – which may be to do with costs, revenues or cash flow.
NetSuite includes over 70 pre-packaged KPIs (can be customized as per requirement), which provide reports on various stats such as summaries of a business case forecast, pipeline, orders, financial data etc.
Following types of dashboard portlets are offered to display KPIs:
1)  KPIs portlet: This portlet display a simple summary line of each selected KPI, with clickable links that drill down into each KPI’s underlying data source.
2)  KPI Meter portlet: This portlet displays a visual representation of KPI data, which highlights comparison, date range, and threshold values at a glance.
3)  Trend Graph portlet: This portlet displays a line graph of KPI data values over selected time intervals. Popup trend graphs are also available within the clickable icons in the KPI portlet and the KPI Scorecard portlet.
KPIs are role-based and feature-based, meaning the KPIs that you wish to display or check, depend upon the level of authority you have access to and the features that are enabled within your NetSuite account.
c)  Tools within NetSuite OneWorld account: For customers who have an international presence and have multiple subsidiaries globally, they face some differences in financial reporting and analysis. One of these differences is subtle variations on standard reporting. There is one feature that is only available with NetSuite OneWorld which is the multi-book accounting feature. The Multi-Book Accounting tool provides a feature which helps to maintain multiple sets of accounting records of different branches of the same company which is present in different countries based on a single set of real-time financial transactions. This enables businesses to prepare financial statements that support different managerial and regulatory compliance needs across multi-national organizations globally.

d)  Tools for extracting data for detailed analysis: There are options for extracting data to import into Excel or other spreadsheets or any other applications for further analysis. Results of searches can be extracted via csv to spreadsheets for further analysis.
SuiteAnalytics Connect:  This additional module is used by many SuiteApp developers including Adaptive Insights.
SuiteAnalytics Connect feature gives technical users the power to access the organization’s NetSuite data by leveraging the familiarity and flexibility of SQL. This feature allows cocktailing of NetSuite data with external data and then facilitating analysis of data using data warehousing and BI tools. To support a broader set of tools for NetSuite data access, NetSuite provides 3 different drivers which are  JDBC driver, an ADO.NET driver, and ODBC drivers which enable access to NetSuite using any mainstream database connectivity standard.
e)  Statistical accounting: The Statistical Accounts tool, part of the Advanced Financial module, enables the tracking of non-monetary data which can then be used on reports and income statements. This tool helps in analyzing the relationship of non-monetary data with the financial activities occurring across the board.
This tool is useful for maintaining accounting activities, period close activities, journal entries, cost and revenue allocation, and financial reporting using ratios such as EPS (Earnings per Share).
Users can assign any statistical account to an allocation schedule if the Dynamic allocation feature is enabled. Also, users can use a absolute value in dynamic allocation schedules.

With more than decades of experiences and a team of in-house experts, Tvarana is a one-stop NetSuite Support services provider and NetSuite ERP implementation partner of NetSuite’s all-in-one ERP Software.