Dynamic Special Order for NetSuite: Solution Case Study

Industry Highlighted: Manufacturing, Wholesale, Assembly to Order

Solutions for: Volume Purchasing, Managing Special Orders (SOs), Procurement, ‘Just in Time purchasing’, Drop Ship Orders, Discount Purchasing for large orders

Client Need & Business Context

Company Type: They specialize in wholesale distribution and light assembly to order - selling, engineering, servicing and repairing machinery for marine, industrial and agricultural industries.

Client Requirement: The client wanted to leverage a dynamic solution for managing special orders in terms of volume purchasing. They were looking to take 50+ special orders a day and wanted to save significantly on the manual work. They expected around 100 SO lines per day with each purchase order (PO) set to be sent out daily as well.

High-Level Business Context: At a high level, the client had been shopping around for a while, but unable to find a solution that fit their specific needs. When they came to us, they were at a point where they needed a solution in place in a timeline of under 30 days.

Let’s Dive Into Deeper Detail: 

Let’s take a step back and look at the wider context of their solution requirement. Having implemented its legacy ERP system in 2004, the company’s growth called for a major upgrade to its back-office system. Seeing as their current ERP system provider had stopped developing the software, the client began actively looking for a replacement.

They were looking for a system that could manage their expansive growth and increasingly complex business processes. The most important feature for the team was that their new ERP system worked within the cloud.

Their search brought them to NetSuite, a cloud-based business software with functionalities for ERP, CRM, and e-commerce, which uses leading cloud technology to manage and synchronize company departments. NetSuite would allow the client to run their entire business in the cloud with one unified software system.

While the right ERP system is essential for any growing organization, it is important to tailor the system for your business’ work processes. The client chose NetSuite because of its cloud capabilities and the fact that NetSuite has its own internally written software, which could be customized to fit the company’s needs.

Customization was a crucial factor in their ERP implementation. The need for an experienced partner to help tailor their NetSuite for their targeted goals led the client to connect with GURUS Solutions. Their team had previously implemented NetSuite themselves but turned to our team for a custom script.

Where GURUS came in:

After the teams connected, a GURUS technical consultant contacted the client to speak about their needs and tailor a custom script for them. The client sought to leverage a Dynamic Special Order system for their NetSuite in order to manage volume purchasing. This required a custom script that would allow them to place one hundred special orders a day without having to manually input the orders every time. In addition, the custom solution had to be ready within a month’s time.

The Solution:

The GURUS team sprung into action, creating an automated Dynamic Special Order script which allowed for sales orders to have many special order lines, which could then be added to their respective purchase orders. They could also now add to an existing open Purchase Order for a specific vendor, or to create a new PO for that vendor and then be able to add any future lines to that new PO.

Another strong requirement that our solution fulfilled was having the ability to get rebates by ordering in bulk using 1 Purchase Order with a large amount of items, as opposed to several smaller POs.

From there on, the project went smoothly until completion. The success was owed in large part to the strong collaboration between the client and our team, as it required a deep dive into their business processes in order to get a more in-depth understanding of what they needed.

The client later noted that the difficulty in the past with similar projects for them was in communicating with NetSuite project managers. What differentiated things this time around was the level of involvement that we provided in order to maintain the project on track. This is, in large part, due to GURUS’ Sherpa methodology, which offers clients the possibility of choosing how they want the workload to be divided amongst their team and ours. Because of the ease of communication during the entire process of customization, their project was delivered on time despite the short timeline they had asked for.

By the time we were done, we were able to save their staff a significant amount of time by eliminating large amounts of manual work that were eating away at their productivity. At the end of the day, they now have more time to focus on other areas of their business.

Post-Project:

Forty days into the implementation of their custom script, the client expressed relief at being able to remove their past software server infrastructure from their office. Moving their business into NetSuite’s Cloud Solution allowed them to veer away from their previously bulky system. 

Sharing their thoughts on the project, the client described GURUS Solutions as “A very reactive company with a core group of programmers with a solid understanding of NetSuite who are interested in solving customers’ program requirements.”

Key Solution Elements:

  • Reduced the need for inventory space with a quick turnaround time
  • It is now easier to manage few PO’s with many lines instead of hundreds of 1 line PO’s
  • They can now have many lines across many SO's to one (or many) PO’s
  • Our solution enables rebates on bulk purchasing from vendors
  • Automated Solution means less impact on the purchasing team
  • One Sales Order (PO) can now be related to many Purchase Orders (PO). POs created from “field” is now a multi-select.
  • SO and PO remain the same, except with now custom fields.

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