Why You Need a NetSuite Implementation Guide Who Understands Finance and Accounting

Suppose you employ a company to act as your NetSuite implementation guide. However, you can’t communicate with its experts because they don’t understand financial concepts.

You’ve got problems.

A competent implementation firm needs to know more than how to customize ERPs. It needs to understand how those systems should operate day in and day out. 

That means it needs staff members with strong backgrounds in business and finance. And unfortunately, most implementation partners don’t have them. That lack of expertise can cause you severe headaches. And you’ll probably deal with a series of ERP issues, from general ledgers that don’t map to the correct accounts to inventory valuations plagued by variances.

“One of the worst ERP failures I ever saw was with a client who had used a different implementation firm,” SuiteDynamics CFO Grace Martin laughs. “And their opening balance entry was put in backwards. You’re never going to balance if the opening balance entry is backwards.”

You have to understand finance to build financial systems.

Before working with our company, Grace earned a computer science and math degree from The University of Kentucky and spent five years in Germany as a Senior Systems Analyst. Then, she transitioned to finance and spent more than 20 years helping businesses stay in the black. This ERP powerhouse is one of the reasons why SuiteDynamics has become one of NetSuite’s fastest-growing implementation partners. 

“Most of my prior experience has been with manufacturing firms,” Grace explains. “And so, I understand everything from absorption, standard costing, and inventory control to consumables.  I understand the manufacturing process inside out and have a certification in Continuous Improvement—the study of how to do everything more efficiently and effectively.  Continuous Improvement applies to business process just as much as the organization of your shop floor.”

In fact, Grace and SuiteDynamics CEO Jake Kleiner have roughly 50 years of combined experience in computer programming and accounting. They use this expertise to customize NetSuite systems that work like our clients expect. So, when company reps talk about their functional requirements, Grace and Jake speak that language. As a result, they understand clients’ needs and can discern how to achieve goals in NetSuite.

“If a person doesn’t understand accounting concepts or business concepts, then there’s no way they can optimize the system.” -CFO Grace Martin

Unfortunately, Grace says, that ability is unique for a NetSuite implementation analyst. 

Many implementation companies can’t create specific financial systems. Instead, they simply customize NetSuite modules according to a limited knowledge of the platform. They only know one way of building systems, so that’s what they build. 

“If a person doesn’t understand accounting concepts or business concepts, then there’s no way that they can optimize the system to do what the client needs it to do,” Grace says. “So, usually, what those sorts of implementers do is they try to pigeonhole clients into one way of doing everything.”

Implementation firms also often don’t understand financial reporting. So, they have limited knowledge of the data structures needed to run businesses effectively. 

And these data structures are one of NetSuite’s most significant benefits. For example, the ERP System allows users to keep a simple chart of accounts but add financial segments for other fields needed in financial reporting. Then, it pulls that data together, presenting it as a matrix instead of a two-dimensional report. So, NetSuite users can quickly answer questions requiring information from various sources, such as “What’s our net profitability by country, by customer, or by product line?”.

Or, they should have that ability, anyway.

“You can answer those sorts of questions—if you structure the data correctly,” Grace says. But, of course, that doesn’t always happen.

According to Grace, other ERP partners are now asking SuiteDynamics to help their clients—since financial know-how is virtually nonexistent in the NetSuite implementation guide network. In fact, we subcontract for several partners to ensure their clients’ financial modules are deployed correctly. Those companies are recognizing how crucial well-rounded experience truly is.

“We provide solutions that allow you to grow,”

-CEO Jake Kleiner 

“If you need an implementation partner, you’re basically looking for someone who has technical programming knowledge and also accounting knowledge,” Grace says. “Few people go to school for both of those things.”

You have to know ERPs to implement NetSuite.

Rampant under-qualification makes it difficult for companies to find and engage quality implementation partners. Yet, handling a NetSuite implementation in-house is never a good idea. SuiteDynamics CEO Jake Kleiner explains that a deployment can go downhill with one lousy coding.

“There are a ton of pitfalls with ERP implementations,” he says. “There are many things that aren’t well-documented or understood. And so, unfortunately, a lot of times you find that out by going through the fire.”

Fortunately, the SuiteDynamics team combines business and financial expertise with personal NetSuite experience. We have run previous companies with the software, gone through the implementation process from A to Z, and improved NetSuite systems for other clients. And we know how an initial ERP setup will affect a business down the road. 

We act as more than a NetSuite implementation guide. We become a partner that offers continued support through implementation and beyond.

As Jake puts it, “We provide solutions that allow you to grow.”