NetSuite Planning and Budgeting

During the webinar, you’ll be introduced to NetSuite planning and budgeting (NSPB). You’ll discover how it works, what its benefits are, and a brief history of how NetSuite planning and NetSuite budgeting came to be. We’ll also have one of Gurus’ Oracle planning certified implementation specialists give a demo of the solution. 

Ready for an ERP? What are the Next Steps?

Issues Resolved Thanks To NetSuite Budgeting

Budgeting in NetSuite allows for input at the GL level. Often, there is much more detail about what makes up that final value: sales by customer, number of units sold, on average selling price or individual salary rates, including increases, bonus rates, benefit rates, payroll taxes and caps, and so on. Since NetSuite doesn't support these driver-based calculations, many companies that use NetSuite have a separate system, usually spreadsheet-based, to develop the budget, which gets imported to NetSuite when the budget is finalized. Spreadsheet-based systems have many issues as well. Much time is spent rolling forward for a new year, updating for latest assumptions and distributing spreadsheets, and collecting and consolidating those spreadsheets. While there is concern that sensitive data can get into the wrong hands, not to mention the constant concern that users will insert rows or columns or change formulas, which can disrupt the process or create errors in the budget. NetSuite planning and budgeting can help address these issues.

A Brief History Overview

Over 20 years ago, Essbase was considered one of the ten most influential technology innovations. This is still impressive by today's standards. Hyperion, a financial solutions company, and Arbor, developers of Essbase, merged in the late 1990s. Hyperion planning was introduced in 2000. This web application was purpose-built for budgeting, which included features far beyond spreadsheets, such as the inherent ability to collaborate and built-in functionality for budget approvals. In 2007, Oracle acquired Hyperion, and planning evolved into planning and budgeting cloud services or PBCS, which was introduced in 2014. This is now known as Oracle planning cloud. Meanwhile, NetSuite was acquired by Oracle in 2016. Leveraging the world-class functionality of the Oracle planning cloud, NSPB was introduced in 2018. 

What is NetSuite Planning and Budgeting

NSPB includes integration between Netsuite and Oracle planning cloud. So account lists, subsidiaries, customer lists, and other needed lists can come from safe searches. Actuals can also be pulled from NetSuite into NSPB, which offers several pre-built models that can be used to jumpstart an implementation. These models are based on the standard segments and include forms, calculations, and dashboards that are commonly required, along with vertical-specific modeling and KPIs. 

How Does NetSuite Planning and Budgeting Work

During the rest of the webinar, we’ll demonstrate an NSPB application that was built using the starter edition. You’ll get an overview of:

• The NSPB splash screen (or home screen). There, you’ll find items like the announcements panel, which can contain broadcast messages that will appear for all system users. For example, it may contain deadline dates or financial targets. In addition, this panel displays recently viewed items and any forms or reports that users have marked as their favorites
• An infolet page. This page will display high-level information, which may appear as dollar values, driver amounts, percentages, or as one of several types of graphs. This page is configurable, so it can be tailored to your company, focusing on the most important KPIs. Additional infolet pages can be added too. If desired, you may have one that focuses on budget and forecast and another that focuses on current year actuals
• Tiles, such as sales/cost of goods sold. There you’ll see the subsidiary, currency, and customers along with related information. 
• Product sales and revenue and how these are displayed 
• Slicing and dicing data on any dimension
• Data in ad hoc mode so that you can interact with forms

The NSPB can help you analyze using the same measures that you have in your NetSuite environment and can be used to develop a sophisticated budget or forecast, all thanks to the power of its reporting capabilities. 

Why Should You Choose NSPB as Your Budgeting Solution?

NSPB offers advantages over budgeting in NetSuite. It allows for sophisticated driver-based calculations to support the budget, robust reporting capabilities, multiple versions, and a comparison of versions. It also offers numerous advantages over spreadsheets: lower risk of budget cycle rollover errors, improved collaboration, reduces manual processes, and budget-built functionality. NSPB is built on recognized market-leading technology and allows for integration with NetSuite. It includes a built-in approvals process and offers the ability to jump-start an implementation with pre-built models.

Need Help Implementing NetSuite’s Planning and Budgeting Solution?

With GURUS’ transparency, you’ll receive status reports during and after project completion to allow you to keep track of the budget. Because we've worked on so many projects, we have expertise in all verticals. Our sherpa methodology is our work-share methodology that allows you to slice up the project based on your level of experience and bandwidth. Our strategic-faced approach spans across all projects to help you keep it digestible and in bite-sized pieces. Finally, our unique process allows us to leverage over many years of experience in cloud systems to help you achieve your project goals.