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!
2009/09/30
Outputting all decimals of an Exchange Rate
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!
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!
2009/09/29
CSV Import Permissions
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):
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!
2009/09/28
IT-Ration Consulting's Free Whitepaper: GST and PST Processing with Netsuite.
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!
2009/09/23
Track your time in NetSuite - Where has my time gone!
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:
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
2009/09/18
Seeing Bulk Merge activity on Customer record
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.
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.
2009/09/10
Inventory Adjustement Worksheet vs Inventory Adjustment
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
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 -
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.
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.
2009/09/08
2009.2 New Features - IT-Ration's Pick
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)
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)
