One of the important tasks of any report is to transfer data into a readable format, allowing users to make informed decisions more rapidly. At the same time, reports should help increase productivity and guide the company in the right direction. But in practice, it’s common for reporting to slow users down, leading to reduced productivity… Do you want to be a rising star on this highly competitive market? Purchase our reliable and powerful reporting tool. High-quality, well-laid-out and easily accessible data is crucial for the proper functioning of an enterprise.
What’s in NetSuite Analytics & Reporting?
NetSuite Analytics & Reporting allows you to monitor both the operational and financial workings of your company. Thanks to its wide variety of analytical tools, the system can provide users with any information required, in real time. That’s due to its centralisation within a single database and its full customisability for both operational and strategic needs. Multiple variants of each reporting tool are immediately available, allowing you to modify the resulting report to suit your needs at any time, without needing to know any database language. The reporting structure of NetSuite can be divided into two areas – NetSuite SuiteAnalytics and Reporting Tools and NetSuite Data Warehouse.
NetSuite Data Warehouse is a data warehouse that is pre-built into the system and serves to save and collect data from multiple sources and functional locations into a single place. At the same time, it enables the distribution of this data for reporting purposes. The above-mentioned reporting tools are directly connected to the data warehouse.
SuiteAnalytics and Reporting Tools represent the “front-end” architecture of reports – this is what you as users will see and work with. Descriptions of the individual tools follow below. All of these tools are built on top of the data warehouse, from which they draw processed information. Each of the tools offers interactive data processing in various forms: simple tables, structured overviews, graphs or pivot tables, and even comprehensive summary pages displaying information from multiple sources.
In general, there are five different ways of working with data in NetSuite (each with potentially different use cases). Each of these variants can be used to meet the needs of employees at different levels and throughout the company (from top management to, for example, warehouse or production operators). As part of the broader NetSuite architecture, we refer to these as a whole as SuiteAnalytics. Suite Analytics Connect provides archiving, analysis or reporting within the system or through third-party apps.
Dashboards: For user access, NetSuite is a role-based system. Each individual can set up their own personalised home page, or Dashboard. And that’s for each role they are assigned. Using a number of different portlets, it can also display various metrics, KPIs and scorecards immediately after logging in. Reminders can also be useful, letting you know about predefined tasks and activities (such as Removal Orders or invoices). The layout and choice of the data that is displayed is entirely up to each user and also depends on the access rights assigned to the given user on the basis of their role.
Reports: NetSuite offers a number of preconfigured standard reports, with detailed click-throughs. If you have more specific requirements, you can modify the reports according to your needs, expanding the scope of the information displayed, with no limits on the number of customised variants. The system offers a comprehensive, flexible, structured and user-guiding form for displaying the necessary data at multiple levels. Financial Reports are also available, such as P&L Statements, Balance Sheets and others.
Saved Searches: These allow for the user-friendly and effective creation of scorecards in a slightly different form than the above-mentioned reports. These are highly flexible and powerful tools that allow you to link up two source tables and to display aggregate as well as detailed data and calculations, and to transfer data on the basis of more complex conditions. Saved Searches also offer structured data tables, which you can export for later analysis in programs such as Excel. They also offer the option of sending email notifications when certain criteria are met, or on a regular basis (for example, once a week). It is this notification function that opens up further possibilities for your reporting.
Workbooks: allow the transfer of large data sets connecting multiple levels of source tables into one final report, displayed as a table, pivot table or graph. Their drag-and-drop functionality makes them easy to use even for beginners. You can create multiple reports at once from a single source dataset – in all of the aforementioned formats. The Workbook is your best choice if you need to create a complex report gathering information from multiple source tables. Similarly to the other tools, the resulting data can be exported into text or XML formats and then, for example, shared between different systems.
The key characteristics of NetSuite reporting tools can be summarised in the following points:
- An effective replacement for manual spreadsheet reporting, because data is processed in a single database.
- 360° perspective on the user’s business (especially combined with external systems integration).
- Sharing flexibility – tools may be shared across users, or conversely limited to individuals or groups based on established criteria.
- Supports multi-books, meaning reporting that meets various accounting standards and requirements.
- User-friendliness – requires zero knowledge of a database querying language or coding; the user is essentially independent of IT support.
- Rapid creation and easy customisation.
- Filtering options based on selected parameters.
- Export variability – Excel, PDF, sending emails.
- Can report multiple dimensions.
Summary
Powerful, accessible, easy to use, with a broad range of preconfigured functions alongside high variability and personalisation options. These words sum up the properties of NetSuite reporting tools. The possibilities, as far as the complexity and appearance of the reports that are prepared goes, are almost endless – you can draft a simple report in mere seconds, and simultaneously build a high-performance tool providing complex data over multiple data dimensions. Last but not least, you can connect NetSuite to an external system, and thanks to its architecture it can serve as your primary reporting tool.
