IT-Ration Consulting Blog - NetSuite Solution Provider

Using the SurveyGizmo Integration Add-On

stephanie.darwish@it-ration.com (Stephanie Darwish) — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 21:29:00 +0000

With our latest NetSuite add-on recently added to NetSuite’s SuiteApp listings we thought a quick tutorial would be apropos. Luckily one of our amazing consultants created an online video tutorial that demonstrates this nifty add-on. Thanks Mathieu!

If you are not familiar with SurveyGizmo, you can get a free trial here. SurveyGizmo is one of the best online survey tools available. I use it all the time both professionally and personally. The options available with this tool are amazing. I highly recommend it if your company ever needs to send out surveys.

The benefit of purchasing our integration add-on is that you don’t have to switch between NetSuite and SurveyGizmo anymore. You can send, organize and compile all your results right from NetSuite!

Request a demo or purchase this add-on directly from our website, or visit NetSuite's SuiteApp store for more information!

Personalizing NetSuite

olivier.gagnon@it-ration.com (Olivier Gagnon) — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 16:13:00 +0000

One of the best things about NetSuite is its flexibility. While many users have set up a personal color scheme, added shortcuts and KPIs there are a few other options that are often neglected but could definitely enhance your NetSuite experience.

On the center tabs click HOME then SET PREFERENCES. On that screen you’ll find a couple of neat preferences you can set for yourself (I repeat, for yourself. These settings will only affect YOU, no other NetSuite user).

Look under the first tab, GENERAL, and check out the Defaults header on the right side. You’ll find a handful of options, but today we will concern ourselves with "Show Internal IDs", "Only Show Last Subaccount", "Only Show Last Subentity" and "Only Show Last Subitem".

The "Show Internal IDs" is useful if you plan on doing CSV updates, or if you want to start dabbling in SuiteScripts. Internal IDs are the unique record keys in NetSuite, which allow you to uniquely identify a record. It really only comes in useful when you're doing more advanced technical stuff like I mentioned, but if you are going down that road, this option is indispensable.

The next three – "Only Show Last Subaccount/Subentity/Subitem" options are useful if you have really long parent-child hierarchies on your records, and you only care about seeing the last level. For instance, if you have Customer A - SubCustomer B - Contact Bob, and all you want displayed on your transactions are "Contact Bob", tick the "Only Show Last Subentity" field. Again, this is really just a personal preference and keep in mind this may cause you to see records in a slightly differently than your colleagues.

One other really useful option that I personally always have on is under the REPORTING/SEARCH sub tab. On the right side, there is "Show List When Only One Result". If you don’t have this ticked, when you run a search that only brings up a single result, NetSuite will bring you to the record, rather than displaying the regular search result screen. By ticking this box, you'll ensure you always stay in the search results screen rather than being brought to the record found.

There are many other options, of course, under SET PREFERNCES, so don't be shy about scrolling over the field names to see the pop-up help screen. You might find a few easy tweaks you really like!

Publishing a form that Contains a Saved Search

noreply@blogger.com (Wiktor Borowiec) — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 17:54:00 +0000

Here’s a little tip that might be helpful if you want to publish a form that contains a saved search. One of the reasons you might want to use a published form that contains a saved search is the ability to use search filters. This published form can then become available on your website or employee centre, saving search time for those users.

First of all, you need to make sure that you have the Advanced Web Search module in your NetSuite, and that the module is enabled. To enable it, go to the Web Presence section under Setup – Company – Enable Features.

It’s important to note that in order to do this, the saved search you wish to add needs to have been created using the Administrator role. If the saved search if you want to add wasn’t created using that role, then unfortunately publishing the form isn’t possible.

I hope this tip proves to be useful in your day to day business!

NetSuite Release 2010.1 Preview

stephanie.darwish@it-ration.com (Stephanie Darwish) — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 19:26:00 +0000

I just finished viewing the Developer Preview Webinar where NetSuite unveiled their 2010.1 upgrade and wanted to share a few thoughts with you.

According to NetSuite’s release schedule, a very small percentage of customers will receive their upgrade in early March, the majority will be upgraded in mid-March, and everyone should be running 2010.1 by April 23.

Among the changes in the latest version, the webinar outlines three, with a Workflow Manager being the highlight. Basically, this brand new feature allows you to define your own custom workflow utilization for records.

For example, with Sales Orders you would have the ability to create specific conditions that need to be met before it can move onto the approval process. Perhaps phone calls need to be made, or even just ensuring that the right boxes have been checked.

NetSuite did reinforce that this new feature is a beta version. They expect it to stay like that until at least 2010.2, and are hoping for tons of feedback from users. Beta or not, NetSuite really nailed the layout and user-interface on the head with this feature!

NetSuite 2010.1 has also enhanced their SuiteBundler. When installing a bundle, there will now be a column for the status that will give you the download status and percent complete. Increased security has also been added. NetSuite customers can now create a Developer Role for someone installing their bundles as opposed to granting Full Access or Administrator rights.

Finally, enhancement were made to SuiteScripts. You will now be able to add scripts that dictate behavior in the shopping cart. For instance, if you are selling cameras 2 for 1, and the client only adds one camera to the cart, the second camera will automatically be added. Same goes for discounts, or restricted shipping access for certain addresses.

Speaking of SuiteScripts, remember that if you have had any modifications done by us, it is a recommended best practice to get them tested with 2010.1 beforehand. Contact us for more information on how we can create a test action plan for you.

Kit/Assembly Costing

olivier.gagnon@it-ration.com (Olivier Gagnon) — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 13:18:00 +0000

A lot of people often ask how to display costing information derived from Members for their Kits or Assembly items.

Since a few versions ago, Netsuite exposed a join in Saved Searches that now allows you to build searches to get this information. In this post, I'm going to go through the steps to show you how to get this to work for simple cases.

First, you need to create an Item Saved Search as follows:
CRITERIA
Type any of Assembly/Bill of Materials, Kit/Package

RESULTS
Name
Member Item
Member Quantity
Member Item : Average Cost
Formula (Currency) with formla being {memberquantity}*{memberitem.averagecost}

At this point, you're going to have a search that outputs, for every one of your Kits/Assemblies, all of the member items and what those member items are worth for the parent, this worth basically being Member's Average Cost times the Quantity used in the Kit/Assembly.

Continuing on, you probably just want to see a single value for each Kit/Assembly. So in order to do this, you are going to add Summary Type values for the columns, as follows:

RESULTS
Name -> GROUP
Member Item
Member Quantity
Member Item : Average Cost
Formula (Currency) with formla being {memberquantity}*{memberitem.averagecost} -> SUM

If you run your search, you should now be seeing every Kit/Assembly as 1 line with a cost figure next to it. That's your costing derived from member items!

Continuing on to make this cuter, here's what you can do. In your search, go on the Available Filters tab and add "Internal ID" as a filter. Save the search and make sure to make it Public and also tick in the box "Available as Sublist View" in the search headers.

Next, go under Setup->Customization->Sublists. On the Item tab, select your Search, give it a Label, select a Tab, and tick in Kit/Package and Assembly/Bill of Material.

This will add a subtab on your Assembly and Kit items that will display the Cost. Very handy!

Now, if you use Units of Measure or if your Member items are kit or assemblies themselves, or you want the cost info to be in a field, the above will NOT work. For these more complex cases, you don't have a choice other than using Suitescript to calculate in a much more in-depth manner your costing. As luck would have it (-wink-) IT-Ration has a Add-On module that does just this! You can find this module on our Website here.

How to quickly mass Clear transactions

olivier.gagnon@it-ration.com (Olivier Gagnon) — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 21:21:00 +0000

Here's a little time saving tip for Clearing transactions, a little on the odd side - but it does work.

Now, this is probably not for companies comfortably up and running that are periodically reconcilling. This is more for people who haven't been reconciling and would like to Clear a whole bunch of lines all at once. I'm sure someone somewhere has a need to do this...

To mass Clear transactions, create a Reconciliation for all those transactions (Bank->Reconcile Bank Statement or Reconcile Credit Card Statement). Just reconcile everything you want to clear and hit save. Now, go back on that date, and delete the reconciliation you just made.

This will cause the transactions to unreconcile, but they will stay Cleared.

Reconcile every line to clear

Delete the reconciliation. Lines remain Cleared, but not Reconciled.

How to text-wrap transaction column fields on printouts

olivier.gagnon@it-ration.com (Olivier Gagnon) — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 14:34:00 +0000

A recurring problem people have is, when printing a transaction, Netsuite will truncate long fields rather than text-wrap them on multiple lines.

Surprisingly, there's no way to tell Netsuite you want a certain field to text-wrap.

However, if you follow these little steps, you'll be able to create yourself a text-wrapping field to display any column you want.

Create a Custom Transaction Column field.
a. Type = Text Area
b. Store Value = uncheck
c. (optional) Display Type = Disabled
d. Default Value = to_char({fieldid}) where fieldid is the internal id of the field you want to text-wrap

Once you've created this field, you have a bit more work to do -

Customize any transaction form that you want to print
a. Add the field you just created to Printing Fields
b. For this to work, the original field MUST still be checked in Printing Fields... but you don't want it to appear, since you replaced it with your super-duper text wrapping field. So in the Width of the original field, type "0.0001"

Ta-da! Text wrapping. The only ugly part remaining is that on the user interface, users will see both fields. Unfortunately, there's no way to hide the field in the GUI in a way that won't stop it from correctly showing on printouts.

Searching on Transactions affecting Inventory

olivier.gagnon@it-ration.com (Olivier Gagnon) — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 13:37:00 +0000

It can often occur that you want to run a Saved Search to find all transactions affecting inventory, like when maybe you want to see the consumption history of a certain item, or whatever.

In most accounts, this can be trickier than it sounds. Your first reaction may be to simply add a criteria on Transaction Type and select the transactions that normally affect inventory - Inventory Adjustments, Transfers, Item Fulfillments, etc.

But (and if you didn't know this, this is important to know) there can often be times where you booked an Invoice, or a Bill, or a Credit Memo without first creating the SO/PO/RA and then the corresponding Item Fulfillment or Item Receipt (i.e., a "standalone" Invoice/Bill/Credit Memo).

This means that your Invoice/Bill/Credit Memo is affecting inventory. So ok, you may think, you need to add these Transaction Types to your search. Nope, wrong. Cause then you'll be double-counting your inventory impact in cases where you have a Fulfillment AND an Invoice. Ok, so then filter on just Invoices? Wrong again, then you'll be missing out on all the Transactions that have been fulfilled but not invoiced. What's a boy (or girl) to do?

Well, you can follow this neat tip. Add the following criteria:
Is Posting = True
Account = Inventory Asset (make sure here to actually select the Inventory Asset account you're using, as per your Chart of Account. There may be more than 1, which is alright).

This way, you are 100% certain to grab only transactions affecting your inventory, because you're looking at the inventory asset account. That doesn't lie. If something goes in or out of your inventory, it will definitely have an impact on your inventory asset. And by saying Is Posting, you are basically weeding out Sales Orders and Purchase Orders and other non-impacting stuff.

So a quick example of a complete search using these criteria might be:

Transaction Search
CRITERIA
Is Posting = True
Account = Inventory Asset

COLUMNS
Date
Type
Number
Item
Quantity
Item Rate
Amount

Enjoy!

Bins and Your Inventory

mathieu.goodman@it-ration.com (Mathieu Goodman) — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 17:31:00 +0000

Bins in NetSuite can be seen as sub-locations within a location. In other words, each bin is specific to a location and can independently contain inventory. However, one confusing point about the Bin feature is that you can still receive inventory straight to your location instead of into a bin. I call this the "floor inventory", i.e. instead of being in a bin, your inventory is just on the floor. Let me explain:

Imagine your company keeps track of stock at both your store and your warehouse:

Now, imagine you have 3 distinct areas in each of your locations where you stock your items. These are called bins in NetSuite. Let's call our Store bins "A", "B" and "C" and our Warehouse bins "D", "E" and "F".

The bins specified on the Item Receipt will determine where your inventory quantity will increase, and similarly, the bins specified on the Item Fulfillment will decrease the inventory quantity from that bin.

Now here's the critical point: as I mentioned earlier you can also receive inventory into the location without specifying a bin. If you leave the Bin Numbers field empty on the Item Receipt or Fulfillment, the inventory will be increased or reduced from the "floor" of the location. The following item, for example, has a quantity on hand of 5 on the floor of the Store location and none in its bins:

And here's the same item, but with an extra 3 items received in bin A of the Store location:

Notice how the location quantity is now 8? That's because the Location amounts specified on the Item Record are based off the sum of the Location's Bin quantities and the Location's "floor" quantity.

If you keep that in mind, you can easily calculate your "floor" quantity for a location by subtracting the bin quantities from the displayed On Hand quantity. In this case, 8-3=5 which means the "floor" quantity for the Store is 5.

Generally, if you're using bins it's better to try and avoid using the "floor" quantity feature and put everything in bins, just to minimize any confusion like the one mentioned above.

Outputting all decimals of an Exchange Rate

olivier.gagnon@it-ration.com (Olivier Gagnon) — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 14:24:00 +0000

Here's a little trick for you, when outputting the Exchange Rate field in a Saved Search. Normally, if you just select the "Exchange Rate" field in a Transaction Saved Search, Netsuite will round the rate to 2 decimals.

To get ALL the decimals, just add a Formual (Numeric) field, and type "{exchangerate}" (without quotation marks) in the Formula column. Voilà, all your decimals are shown!

CSV Import Permissions

mathieu.goodman@it-ration.com (Mathieu Goodman) — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 13:51:00 +0000

When importing records through CSV, regardless of whether you're adding new records or updating existing ones, NetSuite will use the preferred form of the currently logged in user by default. This is done for security reasons, so that users can't bypass their permissions.

The effects of this behavior might not be apparent at first, but the main consequence is that your permissions to edit certain fields will be based on that form. For example, if a field is displayed as Inline Text on your form and you try to update it through a CSV Import, the import will fail or the field simply won't be available in the Field Mapping page.

Thankfully, starting in version 2009.1, NetSuite has added functionality to allow you to choose which form will be used for the CSV Import. Note that when this blog entry was written, only Sales Orders supported choosing your form. Version 2009.2 supports all record types (at least those that support custom forms in the first place).

The feature mentioned above can be found during a CSV Import in the Advanced Options of Step 2 (Import Options):

If you have the Administrator role and you want a fully accessible form for CSV Imports without changing your Preferred form, this one's for you. Just create a new Custom form, make all fields available for editing and go nuts!

IT-Ration Consulting's Free Whitepaper: GST and PST Processing with Netsuite.

noreply@blogger.com (Laure) — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 18:01:00 +0000

This whitepaper provides information on the processing Taxes in NetSuite. It describes how we are using NetSuite to collect and pay sales taxes. The focus is on taxes for the province of Quebec, with notes for the other provinces.

Here is what you will find:

An overview of how taxes work in NetSuite Canada;
Tips for the configuration and usage of the tax features;
Tips to process taxes in NetSuite: Tax set up, Tax reports, Paying sales taxes and collecting reimbursement.

Download it now!

Track your time in NetSuite - Where has my time gone!

noreply@blogger.com (Martin McNicoll) — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 14:25:00 +0000

Most of our customers use the capability to track time to bill customers or track time spent on projects.

Another great usage is to track the time spent on non-billable or project activities. This is a must for metrics-driven (read: obsessed) executives!

I personally use it religiously to track how I spend my time during the day. I started by using simple Service Items like Administration, Sales, Marketing and Vacation.

I was then able to see where I spend my time for a given period using a customized Time by Item report. NetSuite's standard graph feature gave me the big picture:

I realized I was spending way too much time on Administration, so I set a goal for myself to spend 10% more time on sales, and delegate some tasks.

Now I needed more data within the Sales Service Item. On which prospect did I spend my time? When I sign a contract, what is my profitability, including my loaded cost?

So I started to enter the prospect's name on my time entries.

I make a phone call? 0:05 minutes on the prospect. Sent an email with a PDF? 0:15 minutes on another prospect.

Now I have a great image of how I spend my time!

It's all in the categorization

After 5 years of running this consulting shop, we came up with a good list. We are still improving on it and cleaning it up, but we are way ahead from where we started.

Here is the non-billable items we use as of today:

Administration
Business Development
Estimates, POC and Sales activities
Family obligations (bereavement, kids)
Marketing
Marketing - AdWords & Analytics
Marketing - Customer Surveys
Marketing - Events
Marketing - Newsletters
Marketing - Press Relations
Marketing - Technological Watch
Marketing - Web Site - Content & Structure
Paid Holidays
People - Evaluations
PMO
R&D
Sickness
Strategy
Training
Vacation

Entering time for service items that are non-billable has no financial impact in NetSuite and is a great way to push yourself to do things better. Remember, you can only know what you measure!

Seeing Bulk Merge activity on Customer record

olivier.gagnon@it-ration.com (Olivier Gagnon) — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 17:40:00 +0000

Here's a quick one -

When performing Bulk Merge, you may want to actually see the merge result on the Customer record (same as how you can see emails sent to the Customer on his Message tab). But you may have noticed you don't see Bulk Merge activity on the Message tab.

Well, the answer is that you must customize the Customer's form, and, on the List tab, tick in Bulk Merge. You'll see all Bulk Merge activity on this tab.

Inventory Adjustement Worksheet vs Inventory Adjustment

olivier.gagnon@it-ration.com (Olivier Gagnon) — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 16:47:00 +0000

I want to talk about the difference between an Inventory Adjustment Worksheet and an Inventory Adjustment - almost a pet peeve of mine! To the uninitiated, just by reading the two, you're probably thinking it's just about the same thing. And, if you've looked at these transactions in Netsuite, you may also have simply come to the conclusion the difference is mostly a user interface thing.

In reality, the two have very important differences. An Inventory Adjustment is your day-to-day tool for adjusting inventory for miscellaneous reasons. It basically acts like a normal transaction. You add or remove a certain quantity, and the financial impact of this is as if you'd sold or bought the items - quantity * rate equals +/- inventory value.

A Worksheet does NOT have the same impact. A Worksheet is a *reset* of your inventory quantity and value. So it is not an incremental change. The impact is twofold: first, the complete removal of all quantity and value (so your impact is the current On Hand Value) and the second is the addition of the new quantity and value (so your impact here is the value exactly as you enter it). Your Average Cost is completely recalculated in the most simple of ways - value divided by quantity.

What this means is that the Worksheet if a powerful, powerful beast. In practice, it should be used for periodical physical inventory counts, or if your inventory has gone out of whack and you need to fix it (this can happen in a myriad of ways). An Inventory Adjustment is NOT the appropriate transaction to use for physicals and to correct serious problems. Inventory Adjustments just pile on changes on top of existing ins and outs. It is not certain, it is not absolute and it won't fix problems at their root.

Another thing you need to know about Worksheets is that they are a "solid wall". This is best illustrated with a simple example -

01/01/2009 I have 5 Widgets on hand

01/03/2009 I make an Adjustment for -5. I now have 0 on hand

I then backdate a transaction, or even edit an old one, dated 01/02/2009, adding 3 items

On 01/03/2009, I now have 3 items on hand. The changes I made before the Adjustment are taken into consideration.

If I redo this example with an Inventory Adjustment Worksheet, so that -

01/01/2009 I have 5 Widgets on hand

01/03/2009 I make a Worksheet, setting the item to 0 on hand

If I backdate or change a transaction on 01/02/2009, adding 3 items, on 01/03/2009 I STILL have 0 on hand. The Worksheet acts as a solid reset. No matter what comes before, after the Worksheet, you will have what you wrote.

So good inventory management needs judicious use of Inventory Adjustment Worksheets as well as Inventory Adjustment. I've too many accounts slowly slip into inventory hell because of improper use of one or the other. The difference is not just a question of user interface. Accounting-wise, you're doing two very different things.

2009.2 New Features - IT-Ration's Pick

olivier.gagnon@it-ration.com (Olivier Gagnon) — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 14:28:00 +0000

With Netsuite's 2009.2 release arriving quickly, we at IT-Ration have scoured the release notes, attended Partner conferences and tested in Beta instances all the shiny new toys user will be getting. Here is our list (in no particular order) of the most relevant and useful new features likely to get you excited:

1. Inventory Transfer Orders
This has often come up as a request from many customers. Up until now, any Inventory Transfer basically caused instantaneous inventory movement from one Location to another. However, as anyone that actually transfers stock from one warehouse to another will tell you, there is freight time to be considered - something Netsuite just didn't handle. With this new functionality, you will finally be able to correctly handle transit time, through the familiar and logical steps of creating the Transfer order, Fulfilling it on one end and then Receiving it on the other.

2. Absolute Pricing for Customers
This one is simple, but very handy. You'll be able to define the price a customer pays for specific items directly on the customer record. This adds a finer level of granularity than was available with Price Levels, so I'm sure this will be very useful to many. A great example of use are contracts between you and a customer. If after negociations you agree to sell a good or service to a customer at a specific rate, it doesn't make sense to create a Price Level for it, since no other customer will be using this rate. A rate defined directly on the Customer is the way to go.

3. Inventory Adjustment Worksheet Posting
Inventory Adjustment Worksheets used to be the very first first transaction of a date. Meaning, if you did a worksheet at 5:30pm, after a full day's entry of Invoices, Bills, and inventory movements, intending your Worksheet to be the final count after all these movements, you had a problem, because the day's transaction would be recorded on top of the worksheet. Oops. But now, with 2009.2, you will correctly be able to mark your Worksheet as being the very last transaction to be considered on the given date. Much better this way, especially during year end's physical count! (If I lost you on that one, look forward to an upcoming blog post where I'll explain a few gotchas about Inventory management).

4. Classifications on Receipts and Fulfillments
You can now tag Class/Locations/Department at the line item level on Item Receipts and Fulfillments. Simple, but good news if you wanted to do that and just couldn't before.

5. Period Closing Enhancements
Netsuite will now have a little wizard to help you figure out what are all the little things you should be doing when closing a Period in Netsuite, step by step. Good feature to ensure your accounting remains in good health. The wizard/checklist is mandatory, so you won't be able to simply Close a Period by checking a single box like you used to. However, should you want to skip a step (like, say, Revalue Open Foreign Currency Balances), you can simply mark the step as Complete rather than actually doing it. So in the end, you won't be forced to do anything you don't want to.

6. Sitemap Generator
This one is for you webstore users. While Netsuite still clearly flags this functionality as being "Beta" (meaning it may not work all that great for you, especially if you have a more complex flow - see limitations in the documentation), this is going to be a great time saver. I imagine many webmasters, daunted by the effort required to get one up, will now happily be able to include a sitemap, while those that already had one will be relieved of the work taken off their hands.

7. CSV Import Support for Purchase Transactions Imports
2009.2 will open the CSV Import Assistant to purchasing transactions, which will be good news to many. Don't forget about the IT-Ration Connector for more complex importing needs and other records, as always!

For full details of thse functionality, as well as the many others, check out the 2009.2 Release Notes in your Help center, under Additional Resources->What's New->Version 2009 Release 2 Sneak Peeks (there is a link at the bottom for the full Release Notes, which are much more detailed than the Sneak Peek)

Hidden Saved Search Types

mathieu.goodman@it-ration.com (Mathieu Goodman) — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 12:34:00 +0000

Have you ever had to create a Saved Search for a record type that's not available in the "New Saved Search" page?

Well, there are some workarounds to that limit, and here's an example.

NetSuite doesn't allow you to directly create a Saved Search for Messages, but there actually is a Message-type Saved Search; it's just not displayed on the New Saved Searches page. You can access it by using this link: https://system.netsuite.com/app/common/search/search.nl?searchtype=Message

If you pay attention to the link, you will see a parameter "searchtype". In this case, the type is "Message". Another record that works is "Location". Try different record types to see if they also work!

Accept Payment Through Top-Level Customer - The Ills of It

olivier.gagnon@it-ration.com (Olivier Gagnon) — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 12:24:00 +0000

In Netsuite, you have the option in your Accounting Preferences to turn on "Accept Payment Through Top-Level Customer".

This functionality, in itself, is quite useful and a lot of people use it. It simply means that you can create Invoices in the name of sub customers, but have a Parent Customer make all the Payments. It's a functionality that makes plenty of sense when dealing with subsidiaries, sub-customers or departments or a larger client.

However, it also happens in reality that, for whatever reason, the parent-child link between the entities may be severed. One's instinct would then be to do the same in Netsuite - the system in fact does allow you to simply erase the value in the "Child Of" field on customers, thus liberating it of its parent, and allowing you to post both Invoices and Payments directly to the newly freed child.

Bad idea.

You see, Netsuite deals very, very poorly with this situation. In the system, you have Invoices in the name of one entity (the child) and Payments in the name of another entity (the parent). This makes sense as long as the parent-child link exists. Without that link, you've got an invalid situation, from a system point of view.

What happens *exactly* at this point has varied over the last few months. Last winter, we had a customer who separated children and parents. In that case, Netsuite changed the records so that all the Invoices were now Open. The child kept all the debt and the parent kept all the credit. Considering many parent/child relationships had been severed, it took us over 60 hours to correct the data. Then their accountant had to reconcile everything again. Yeah. It was a mess.

More recently, another customer had to sever parent and child again. But this time, Netsuite behaved rather well. The Invoice remained Paid in Full and the Payment was fine. BUT, as soon as you hit the Edit button on the Payment, the invoice being paid instantly vanished. In other words, the Payment record can never, ever be edited again.

The official(ish) word on the matter from Netsuite is that you should NOT be separating parent and child records. Netsuite shouldn't allow you, plain and simple. And I can only assume this will be patched and enforced in the future.

So my recommendation to you is the same: Do Not Separate Parent and Child Records When You Have Invoices Paid By The Parent. Just create a new Customer record and start over, leave the old entities be. Yes, you lose the history. But that is probably better than the chaos you will unleash if you sever the relationship. Anyway, just be careful.

How to Convert an Account from Non-Inventory to Inventory

gabriel.tupula@it-ration.com (Gabriel Tupula) — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 17:19:00 +0000

In NetSuite, there is a Standard KPI called “Inventory” that you can monitor in your Key Performance Indicators portlet and that could also be used in the KPI Scorecard portlets. This KPI is showing the value contained in the different inventory accounts.

By default, NetSuite is configured with an account named "Inventory Asset", of type "Other Current Asset". If you use only one inventory account, you should be fine with it. But if you would want to use more than one account to manage your inventory, you may create other accounts in your chart of accounts. In this process, it is really important to not miss a step while creating the new accounts, in order to have their balances calculated in the Inventory standard KPI: you must check the option “Inventory”.

This option can only be applied when an account is created. If you edit an account, you will remark that the Inventory field is read-only.

If you have an account that you were using for your inventory and you forgot to check the Inventory field, there is a workaround. Using the “Merge” feature, here are the 2 steps to apply the correct setting to an existing account:

1) Create a new account, with the Inventory option checked.

2) Edit the original account and merge it to the new account. Be very careful during this step, as it cannot be reversed once completed.

Average Cost Math - The Little Details You Should Know

olivier.gagnon@it-ration.com (Olivier Gagnon) — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 12:54:00 +0000

Recently, a customer asked me to present a detailed explanation of how Average Cost is calculated for an item. This may seem like a no-brainer, but there are certainly a few quirky details you should know about.

Inventory Items
Every time an item’s quantity is incremented (so through Item Receipts, positive Inventory Adjustments, Inventory Transfer, etc), there is necessarily a cost associated to that. This cost is used in a weighted-average calculation to determine the Average Cost. Example:

I buy 10 Widgets A at 10$ a piece Monday
I buy 20 Widgets A at 15$ a piece Tuesday.

My average cost is (10*10$ + 20*15$) / (10+20) = 13.33$

Decrementing transactions (Item Fulfillments, consumption through Builds, decrementing Adjustments and Transfers) have no effect on Average Cost.

HOWEVER, once an item reaches 0 on hand or lower, Average Cost ceases to be calculated. So if an item is underwater (negative on hand quantity), Average Cost is NOT updated at all, until you resurface. You can buy as much as you like for whatever value you want, until you return to positive on hand quantities, this has absolutely no impact on Average Cost.

Also, as soon as an item reaches 0 on hand, Average Cost history is lost. That is to say, the next transaction that increments the item’s on hand value will be considered the sole transaction in the weighted average calculation. Example:

I have 10 widgets on hand with a current Average Cost of 15$ each.
I sell 15 widgets. I now have -5 on hand. If I look at my item, it still indicated 15$ Average Cost.
I buy 5 widgets for 100$ each. My on hand value is now 0. My Average Cost has not been impacted, and still indicates 15$ (note that it does NOT indicate 0$ - it remembers its last “valid” average cost).
I buy 1 widget for 30$. My on hand value is now 1. My Average Cost’s history is reset, and so my Avg Cost is now 30$

Assembly Items
The rules are basically the same. The only nuance to note is that Assembly Items are usually only incremented by performing Builds. In that case, the unit cost of the build, for the purpose of the weighted-average calculation, is the sum of the Average Cost of the member components.

A Note on COGS
Note that while Average Cost is not updated when an item is underwater, Netsuite will correctly calculate the value of the item for the purpose of Cost of Goods Sold impact based on the value of incrementing transactions. Example:

I have -32 on hand of my Widget, with a stated Average Cost of 10$
However, I have been purchasing this item for much more recently (though not enough to make it above water), making its true worth at round 22$.
When I sell this item, Netsuite will record a COGS of 10$. However, when I increment my inventory through purchases, Netuiste will post a “Cost of Sales Adjustment” based on the value of the incrementing transaction. So in this case, I can expect to see an additional 12$ posted as a “Cost of Sales Adjustment”.

So even though the stated Average Cost of my item will be inaccurate, the ledgers should correctly reflect what is really going on.

Credit Memos and The Account Field

mathieu.goodman@it-ration.com (Mathieu Goodman) — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 21:11:00 +0000

The Credit Memo record (and possibly other records) have an Account field, where you can choose which Accounts Receivable account will be affected by the Credit Memo. However, this field has somewhat unusual behaviors.

First of all, the field won't show up on Credit Memos if you only have one Accounts Receivable account in your Chart of Account. This is true even if you're using a custom Credit Memo form and the "Show" checkbox for the "Account" field is checked. As soon as you have two or more accounts of type "Accounts Receivable", the drop-down will show up. This can be quite confusing, especially since NetSuite usually shows drop-downs with only one result and allows you to create new records (such as an account in this case) on-the-fly with the little "+" button beside the drop-down.

Second, the default account used for Credit Memos is not a company setting, unlike most accounts for transactions. In the case of Credit Memos, the account is what we call a "sticky" default, which means the default account that is selected on the Credit Memo is the one used on the last created Credit Memo. This means you must always check the account on the Credit Memos you create to make sure it's the correct one.

NetSuite Credit Limit and Bypassing Credit Hold

mathieu.goodman@it-ration.com (Mathieu Goodman) — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 15:09:00 +0000

From NetSuite's Help Center:

You can use credit limits and credit holds to manage the amount of credit you extend to customers.

A credit limit defines the maximum currency amount the customer is allowed to accrue in outstanding receivables. A credit hold blocks entry of a transaction if the customer's credit limit has been reached.

Credit holds are also applied when customers are delinquent in making payments. You can define a grace period after the due date of invoices. Then, once the grace period has passed, customers are unable to place new orders on terms until they have paid their overdue invoices.

When using the Credit Limit functionality in NetSuite, the system won't let you create or edit a customer's transaction if he is on Credit Hold. This is done to avoid bypassing the Credit Limit by adding new items to existing transactions. Since there are several cases where this restriction needs to be bypassed, NetSuite offers some options to work around the Credit Hold:

There is a company-wide setting (found at Setup > Accounting > Accounting Preferences > General Tab) that allows you to enforce, warn of or ignore credit holds.
The setting mentioned above can be overwritten by users by going to Home > Set Preferences > Transactions Tab. This must be allowed by administrators by checking Allow Override for Customer Credit Limit Handling at Setup > Company > General Preferences.
Regardless of the aforementioned preferences, there is a hidden flag called "credholdoverride" on transactions that can be set through scripting to bypass the credit hold.

Tips on Average Cost Accounting in NetSuite

mathieu.goodman@it-ration.com (Mathieu Goodman) — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 21:22:00 +0000

First and foremost, welcome to our blog! Here at IT-Ration Consulting, we've been in the NetSuite business for over 6 years now, and we thought we could share some of our extensive knowledge to the general NetSuite community.

As a first post, I'd like to talk a bit about the Average Cost costing method and how it's managed in NetSuite. The most important thing to keep in mind if you're planning to use Average Cost as your costing method in NetSuite is that the average price is calculated from the Item Receipt record. That means any discrepancies between your Purchase Order, Item Receipt and Vendor Bill may impact your Inventory Asset and Cost of Goods Sold accounts.

In fact, any difference in item rate between the Item Receipt and Bill is sent to the Inventory Received Not Billed account. This can cause many headaches when it comes time to complete your account reconciliation. It can also skew your company’s profitability quite a bit.

The simplest solution is to always make sure your Purchase Order, Bills and associated Item Receipt have the same item rates. This can be taken care of manually by diligent users, but some scripting and customization can automatically take care of this for you as well.

If you'd like more information on the Average Cost costing method in NetSuite as well as potential solutions, my co-worker has written a great whitepaper entitled "Item Average Cost Impacts in NetSuite".