How to Optimize NetSuite for Faster, Accurate Financial Reporting
Born and built in the cloud as an enterprise resource planning (ERP) solution, Oracle NetSuite enables organizations to create a unified view of their business. While it generates reports on enterprise performance, the platform wasn’t built to optimize the reporting process. For accounting and finance teams especially, the challenge makes it difficult to create flexible, customized financial reports. Instead, they must rely on their IT team or power users, taking up already taxed resources and slowing down critical processes.
How can you give your accounting and finance teams control over NetSuite reporting to meet your business’s needs? You can simplify your reporting processes and take control with Spreadsheet Server from insightsoftware. In this blog post, learn how you can optimize NetSuite for accounting and finance users and expand its reporting capabilities for deeper insights.
Automate Data Collection and Imports
Building superior financial reports with your NetSuite ERP is no small feat. The manual process is both time consuming and prone to error. Often, IT teams pull specific data from the ERP and import it manually into Microsoft Excel. This process can lead to chaotic spreadsheets, making it difficult to understand and work with. When the report is finally completed, the information can be compromised by errors or omissions.
Spreadsheet Server automates data collection, integration, and importing. Finance teams can easily export data from NetSuite into Excel in a single click, skipping the need for any manual downloads or CSVs. Spreadsheet Server also prepares and formats the data, eliminating data errors from manual processes. Plus, by automating the process, your finance and accounting teams get more time to review and analyze the data.
Manually updating spreadsheets, such as for a bank covenant calculation, took me half a day or so to do. NetSuite had some reporting limitations that made automating bank covenant calculations difficult. I created the report in Spreadsheet Server in less than an hour.
– Scott Murcray, CFO, Pure Wafer
Combine Data From Multiple Platforms
NetSuite is reluctant to work with external data sources. The same can be said of many ERP systems. Each one prefers using its own data. Regardless, when you need to pull outside information into NetSuite, the process is full of challenges, complicating the reporting process and limiting what finance and accounting teams can report on.
However, Spreadsheet Server works seamlessly with NetSuite—including general ledger and non-general ledger data—so your users can report on all your data in one place. By providing a single source of truth for your reports, you gain greater visibility and consistency into your data and your financial and accounting practices.
Create Ad Hoc, Custom Reports Without IT Assistance
When your business users need in-depth or custom reports, they must rely on your IT team to build. The IT team can use the Saved Searches feature in NetSuite to shorten the time to find specific data for reports. However, beyond gathering the data, each iteration requires more time on everyone’s part until the report is finally approved. Although the report might finally have the right formatting and information, the data becomes outdated, creating inaccuracies and inconsistencies.
With Spreadsheet Server, finance teams create their own self-serve custom reports, bypassing the need for IT’s help entirely. The self-service reporting capabilities push users to think beyond standard reports and create the reports your organization demands. Using a drag-and-drop report creator, your finance team creates the precise reports they need in no time, speeding up the entire reporting process.
NetSuite is a great product. But what I was missing was the reporting aspect.… With Spreadsheet Server, we build the formulas at the bottom of the report, and all we have to do is refresh the information.
–Guillermo Pineda, Corporate Controller, Custom Goods
Gain Context, Depth, and Rich Insights in Each Report
NetSuite and Excel each serve their own purpose, neither of which is a comprehensive financial reporting solution. While they facilitate the reporting process, they aren’t purpose built for providing the context, depth, or insights that financial reporting demands.
Spreadsheet Server is built for finance and accounting teams to streamline the reporting process between NetSuite and Excel while optimizing the reports themselves. The drill-down capabilities in the Excel-based reports enable Spreadsheet Server users to dig into fine detail. They gain deeper insights into performance and trends over time and across offices or entities.
The reports are further enhanced by charts, graphs, and data maps, giving the data context so your teams can discover new insights and ideas. When users build unique reports on demand, they can apply insights to each aspect of enterprise performance management (EPM).
Spreadsheet Server took [NetSuite and our reporting process] to an automated world where I could change the date, click a button, and update the report. The ability to right-click and get to everything you need and export it out is what makes Spreadsheet Server a great tool.
–Ted Wolf, VP Global Controller, Renaissance Learning
Take Control Over Your Financial and Accounting Reports
By using Spreadsheet Server with your NetSuite ERP, your accounting and finance teams will have greater control and accuracy over their reports and reporting process.
Spreadsheet Server automates data collection and imports, saving your teams both time and frustration. Your finance and accounting teams can create their own custom reports and make last-minute changes to them while ensuring data accuracy. They can also create consolidated reports across multiple divisions and currencies. Plus, they gain more time to analyze the information in the reports, potentially making a positive impact on your organization.
See how you can get fast, flexible financial and operational reporting with Spreadsheet Server.
Spreadsheet Server for NetSuite
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