NetSuite’s cloud ERP platform enables businesses to transform with a flexible system spanning ecommerce, accounting, inventory, order management, and more. While NetSuite delivers robust out-of-the-box capabilities, customizations allow you to extend functionality for your unique requirements.
The right customizations tailored to your workflows, processes, and objectives provide an exceptional user experience that drives adoption. They also yield competitive advantages by enhancing efficiency, visibility, and decision making.
In this article, we’ll explore five impactful categories of NetSuite customization:
- Tailored Roles and Permissions
- Automated Workflows
- Custom Fields and Records
- Customized Data Analysis
- Integrations and Connectors
Understanding common customization opportunities unlocks gaining greater value from your NetSuite investment. Let’s examine some top examples in each area.
Tailored Roles and Permissions
Out-of-the-box, NetSuite comes with predefined user roles like Accountant, Sales Rep, and Warehouse Clerk. But you can customize permissions and dashboards to align better with specific team member responsibilities.
For instance, create an Inventory Control role with ability to adjust stock levels and item records but not modify pricing. Or make a Customer Support role to handle returns and refunds without accessing financial data. Dynamic custom roles increase efficiency while enhancing security and separation of duties.
You can also customize form field visibility so users only see data relevant to their role. Sales could track commission percentages in the customer record while finance views credit terms and accounting sees payment method fields. Tailoring forms this way cuts through clutter.
Automated Workflows
Workflow automation reduces manual tasks by triggering actions based on configured events. Workflows extend NetSuite without complex NetSuite development.
Common examples include sending order confirmation emails, updating records upon status changes, and managing approval routings. Set up rules like automatically emailing service ticket assignment to technicians or routing purchase requests based on spending thresholds.
You can incorporate advanced workflow actions like creating tasks, sending data to external systems, updating related records, and more. Automating repetitive steps this way cuts overhead costs and errors.
Custom Fields and Records
Adding custom fields allows capturing unique data points not in standard NetSuite records like Leads, Opportunities, Items, and so on. These can track sales probability percentages, project codes, quality metrics, or other specifics you want to monitor.
Custom records are a more specialized extension when you need to manage custom entities. For instance, create a Training Course record to track session details—then tie it to contacts who attended those courses. Or build a Job Application to handle candidate info separate from standard NetSuite contacts/leads.
Saving custom data this way supports business processes that otherwise require spreadsheets or separate systems on the side—inefficient and prone to errors.
Customized Data Analysis
NetSuite delivers standard saved searches, reports, and KPI scorecards. But customizing analytics can uncover hidden insights, whether adding metrics to the KPI Portlet, modifying standard searches, or building custom reports from scratch.
Custom searches might analyze profitability by location or sales rep—or niche metrics like year-over-year revenue growth from key accounts only. Dashboards can combine operational and financial KPIs for richer insights. For ad hoc analysis needs, customize the account activity report filtered for top excessive refund customers.
The flexibility to tailor analytics this way answers unique questions that fuel smarter decisions.
Integrations and Connectors
Sometimes product life cycle, supply chain, marketing, or other systems hold essential data needing to flow bi-directionally with NetSuite. Custom integrations weave these together for a unified view and automate syncing information across systems.
For example, integrate the ecommerce engine with NetSuite order management and inventory. When items on your B2C website go out of stock, they automatically get flagged sold out. Or when a NetSuite invoice updates to paid status, automatically trigger fulfillment in the warehouse system.
Eliminating disjointed silos this way through custom application integration improves efficiency, reporting accuracy, and scalability as data exchanges hands seamlessly.
Why Choose Anchor Group?
Since 2002, Anchor has deployed nearly 300 successful NetSuite customizations at over 700 enterprises. Our exclusive focus helping customers maximize NetSuite ROI with customization, integration and overall lifecycle management delivers rapid value.
Specialized Expertise
Our proven expertise stems from unparalleled experience sculpting NetSuite to customers’ evolving needs. Staying current on the latest functionality and best practice guidance, Anchor brings skills focused purely on NetSuite unlike more generalized IT partners.
Accelerated Speed
Anchor Group deploys preconfigured industry solutions to accelerate getting started on the right foot by 30-50%. These best practice templates minimize business disruption and cost through fast time-to-value. We further expedite upgrades, integrations, and enhancements progressing your customized NetSuite landscape.
100% Guarantee
We stand behind every implementation completely, further backed by our exclusive 100% guarantee. Avoid potential cost and disruption blowbacks from incomplete or incorrect custom work as Anchor proactively validates quality end-to-end.
Strategic Guidance
Our team moves beyond execution to provide strategic guidance identifying optimization areas and weighing customization options. You gain an invaluable partner determining how to progress custom NetSuite capabilities in line with stated objectives over the long term while maximizing ROI.
Let our two decades of 5-star rated expertise advise your NetSuite customization, integration and enhancement initiatives from quick wins to long-term vision.
