Eigth compelling new features!

Check the new NetSuite features

As NetSuite rolls out its bi-annual release, many exciting features have been added to NetSuite’s ever-growing ecosystem. Our goal, as NetSuite consultants, is to stay on top of our game and provide you, what we feel, is a look at the most useful features in this new 2021.2 release.

Below are the top 8 compelling and useful features that NetSuite users are sure to benefit from.

1. Expense Report Policies available with custom approvals

You can now apply expense report policies when you submit an expense report with custom approvals. Examples of expense report policies include only being able to report expenses in the US, Canada and Europe or setting a limit on hotel expenses per day. Expense claims can have the following statuses: “Open”, “In process”, “Approved” or “Rejected”.

For all user roles except the administrator role, expense claims must meet the defined policy criteria before you can save them. When you log in with the role of Administrator, you must evaluate each expense report before saving the record.

2. New exchange rate integration provider

HSBC has now become NetSuite’s exchange rate provider. This global bank brings century-long expertise in multiple currencies and offers the same features as previous providers. Changes are made prospectively, so your exchange rates that were already in the system before the update remain unchanged.

3. Autonomous Supply Chain / Material  Requirements Planning (MRP).

By far one of the biggest changes in Netsuite in the 2021.2 release is Autonomous Supply Chain / Material Requirements Planning (MRP).

Some of the major improvements include:

– Improvements to Netsuite’s MRP capabilities for those using Netsuite Demand planning: it now features a dedicated planning repository that ensures planners can make decisions based on timely and consistent information. Planners can now easily monitor, hold or release orders for approvals and aggregation. You can now view and accept action/exception messages individually or in bulk. Planners have full insight into how demand is allocated to supply through pegging information.

– You can now use the planning workbench to distribute data by line, plan, location, user-defined item categories and groups. Planning workbench highlights situations that require attention, helps prevent both shortages and excess inventory, and provides what-if analysis capabilities for simulating multiple plans.

– Intelligent predictive risk capabilities have been extended to sales and purchase orders. For SOs and POs identified as potential risks, alternatives will be recommended.

4. E-commerce / SuiteAnalytics

E-commerce has been extended with possibilities to track and collect information about the behaviour of shoppers. Some examples are: geographical location, actions performed on the site, surfing devices used and search criteria parameters. This feature has been added via an extension and is available for most SuiteCommerce B2B and B2C web shops.

5. Advanced Numbering Duplicate Detection for Imported Transactions

NetSuite now supports duplicate document number detection for advanced numbering. When you import a transaction, NetSuite determines which numbering rule applies to it based on the criteria of your rules. Next, NetSuite checks whether a transaction with the same document numbers already exists for the rule. If NetSuite detects a duplicate, it takes one of the following actions, based on your setting for Warnings for duplicate numbers:

• No warnings – NetSuite does not warn you when imported transactions use duplicate document numbers and imports all transactions.
• Warn (UI only) – NetSuite warns you when imported transactions create duplicate document numbers and imports all transactions.
• Warn and block – NetSuite warns you when imported transactions create duplicate document numbers, and does not import these transactions.

The behaviour of these options when saving transactions in the UI is unchanged from previous releases. To set duplicate detection for imported transactions, go to Setup > Accounting > Preferences > Accounting Preferences > Items/Transactions > Other Transaction Preferences, and set the preference for Duplicate Number Warnings.

6. New payment link function

The Payment Link feature allows your customers to pay an invoice quickly and easily online using a computer or mobile device. Your customers can now receive an e-mail of the invoice with a link to the payment page. They can choose which method they want to use to pay, including credit cards and PayPal. This feature can be used in conjunction with your SuiteCommerce and SuiteCommerce Advanced.

7. Warehouse management improvements

Within the warehouse management functions a number of useful improvements have been added:

• New WMS Preference for Order Reallocation: this brand new preference allows you to automatically check the Commitment Confirmed box for transaction lines that you include in a wave. The preference is called ‘Automatically set to confirm committed quantities in a wave’.
• The WMS Wave Release Schedule Page is updated in two ways:

1. Status – Allows you to set the status of the wave you want to generate to one of the following options: ‘Pending Release’ or ‘Released’, giving you more insight into the status of the wave.
2. ‘Email Address for Failed Status’ and ‘Email Address’ for Created Wave Status – These two fields are split off from the old Email Address field. When you choose to send notifications for both the Failed status and the Wave Created release status, you can specify the recipients for each status, which makes the wave release more user-friendly.

• Other Quick Ship by Pallet: After you pack the pallets, you can switch to the NetSuite WMS mobile app to ship them via the Quick Ship capability, making the logistics process even more frictionless. Warehouse Management includes the pallet number for you in the WMS shipping manifest.

Other improvements to the Warehouse Management functions include the ability to ‘Tally Scan’ from your mobile device, newly introduced System Rules, an ‘Allow staging for assigned picker only’ feature and the ability to pick boxes from your mobile device, allowing you to print labels from any location.

8. Purchase to Project now available

Purchase to Project is a brand new SuiteApp, which will certainly be updated with new features and further improved in the coming releases, so make sure you keep an eye on it! In release 2021.2, Purchase to Project enables project managers to perform the following important tasks in NetSuite:

• View purchase orders and supplier invoices entered for a project or project task.
• Initiate purchase orders from within a project or project task.
• Allow or prevent creation of purchase orders and vendor invoices for a project or project task.
• Designate approved project vendors for project related purchase orders.
• View the total invoiced amount of billable items and expenses for a project.

For the sake of brevity, we have not described the features below in detail. If you have any questions, please contact us and we will be happy to help!

In addition to the aforementioned updates, there are a number of other enhancements that are part of 2021.2. Be sure to check out the release notes to find out how they will impact your NetSuite environment.

– SuiteApprovals Enhancements: you can now perform project-based approvals. When you enable the Projects and Project Management features in your account, project managers can approve project-based records and documents.

– New Sandbox Renewal Options: Allows you to copy your sandbox accounts from your production or other sandbox accounts, transferring all configurations, data, user passwords and customizations. Very useful when you have just finished your perfect account setup in one of your environments, where you would like to continue experimenting. You must have a NetSuite Premium, Enterprise, or Ultimate service tier.

– Two new fields on Sales Orders: ‘Optimize Allocation for Gross Profit’ and ‘Optimize Allocation for Revenue’. Both Optimize for Gross Profit and Optimize for Revenue calculate allocations to maximize the sum of gross profit or revenue on the selected sales order lines.

– Article COGS and account changes no longer affect historical records, eliminating the need to process unnecessary changes to previous transactions.

– Improvements to electronic bank payments:

• Payment File Administration (PFA) for in-transit payments can now be rolled back using the new Roll Back button on the Payment File Administration page.
• Company bank and entity bank data is processed with SuiteScript 2.0. To avoid changes to existing SuiteApp behaviour, adjustments that were made with SuiteScript 1.0 must be repeated with SuiteScript 2.0.
• You can now clear the Aggregate By Payee box on the Electronic Payments Preference page to disable the aggregate by payee settings.

NetSuite 2021.2 update is on its way!

As you saw above, the 2021.2 update adds promising new features that continue to improve in critical areas for NetSuite users. With so many new features, you may be wondering where to start, what you can do to prepare for NetSuite 2021.2, how to test the latest release, and more to ensure your organization and system are ready for the upgrade.

If you need help testing and validating your current processes, including customizations, scripts, workflows and integrations for NetSuite 2021.2 or any future releases, get in touch!