Top 7 Netsuite 2019.1 Features You Need This Release

With the upcoming NetSuite 2019.01 Release, it is easy to get overwhelmed with all the new features. Luckily, your trusted business advisors at Big Bang are here to break it down for you. After attending all the various webinars (that you may not have had the time to check out) we created our own set of Release Highlights and Top 7 New Features according to our team of NetSuite experts.

1 – SuiteFlow

SuiteFlow leverages easy-to-use point-and-click tools to customize and automate business processes.

What You Need to Know about the NetSuite 2019.1 Release

There are 4 new SuiteFlow features:

1. NetSuite has increased the number of sublist actions by adding 3 new actions. You can now add a new line to a sublist by a workflow with the create line action, you can use the set the field display label action to change column field label and, finally,control mandatory flag of a column field with the set field mandatory action.
2. Workflow can no be brought to a complete stand still without affecting the system with the new suspension of workflow execution SuiteFlow feature. Note that it works on a single workflow definition only.
3. To make your SuiteFlow experience easier, you can also display object ID to show the internal ID of the objects in the workflow. Make sure you enable the “show ID” on a transaction workflow log to make use of this feature.
4. NetSuite is constantly working on solutions to accommodate all countries at all levels. In terms of SuiteFlow, translation support is now provided. You can translate text in workflow for set field display label, confirm, show message and return user error. Make sure you enable multi-languages in international setup to use this feature.

2 – Lease Accounting

What You Need to Know about the NetSuite 2019.1 Release

Lease Accounting with NetSuite already serves multiple purposes. However, these are the most notable new features to take into consideration.

1. New functionalities in Fixed Assets Management (FAM): You can now migrate Lease details to create a new lease proposal for the existing assets based on the lease information of assets that already exist. There are some prerequisites to take advantage of the FAM new features. You will need to:
   – Create Right-of-Use asset type
   – Enable custom transactions
   – Create GL Accounts
   – Check that it is compatible with Muli-books
2. Create New Lease Proposal: there is a new sub-menu item in the Fixed Assets menu that allows you to enter the information on the lease and create a Lease Proposal. The proposal will be linked to lease journal, asset proposal and asset record (details will be carried over).

1. Create Lease Payments and Lease Amortization Schedule: the lease payments must be within the lease proposal start and end dates. Manually add or import through CSV your lease payments with the new Create Lease Payments feature. Note: payment can be 0 but not negative. You can, then, automatically create lease amortization schedules for manually added lease payments.
2. Create Lease Journal: Once the lease amortization schedule is created, the lease journal can be generated (with an automatic recognition of Right-of-Use Asset and Lease Liability). Set the journal date as the lease start date and the memo as the lease asset name.
3. Create Asset Proposal and Asset Record: From the lease journal, you can create an Asset once “Asset is Leased” is enabled and the lease information will be carried over from old lease details.
4. Recognize interest expense: interest journals are created for each lease payment with one interest expense journal per asset per period.
5. Report: Finally, you can now have a new search with “Expiring Leased Assets” that will display data from lease proposal record and highlight assets where lease end date is on, or before, the end of the month.

3 – Period End Journal Entries Enhancements

What You Need to Know about the NetSuite 2019.1 Release

This is the part that will be most interesting to your Accounting and Professional Services departments. One World is a requirement to be able to use the new Period End Journal Entries features. Here is what you should be aware of in terms of enhancements with the new NetSuite Release:

1. Improved Usability: You can now create all journals at once and automatically run dependent steps (Historical Balances, Consolidation, Income Statement Closing and Balance Sheet Closing) instead of doing it one-at-a-time sequentially. Not sure how to do that? Feel free to reach out to your Big Bang consultants and we will happily show you.
2. Added Control: especially when creating period end journals by segment. You can now group period end journals by the GL-impacting segments that you choose to gather information by groups.
3. Improved Compatibility: with the GL audit numbering feature. By enabling a preference on the Subsidiary record, you can now have the option to exclude the Balance Sheet Closing period end journals. Do not worry, it does not only apply to Balance Sheet Closing. You can still manually exclude any period end journal from GL Audit Numbering.

4 – Customer Specific Promotions

What You Need to Know about the NetSuite 2019.1 Release

The new feature is pretty self-explanatory. Make sure to enable SuitePromotions (at no additional cost) in order to use the feature. The benefits include:

1. Enhanced Promotions targeting: you can now specify promotions to a unique customer, or a group (static or dynamic). Group segmentation is based on Saved Search, as always.
2. Optimized Performance: Get a better performance when you target specific customers.

Some examples of promotions with the new update:

• Customer attributes (billing address, subsidiary, Sales Rep, etc.)
• Purchase History (has bought items X, Y, Z, has spent $XX last month, etc.)
• Events (has registered online, has been referred by a friend, etc.)

5 – Refresh Dashboard

What You Need to Know about the NetSuite 2019.1 Release?

We’d love to give you a whole description of your new dashboard, but as they say “a picture is worth a thousand words”. The most notable change is a cleaner and more modern design with the ability to have a multi-series chart in your trend graph portlet (you can compare up to 3 KPIs including standard and custom).  

6 – SuiteTax

What You Need to Know about the NetSuite 2019.1 Release

There are additional tax types with the NetSuite Release:

1. In-country transactions (domestic sales and domestic purchases),
2. International transactions (exports, imports), and
3. Intra-community transactions (intra-community sales, and intra-community purchases).

By leveraging the new tax features you can benefit from:

1. Multiple Tax Registrations using different multiple tax engines: this will make it easier to apply multiple taxes based on different areas to your tax items.
2. Tax Code Lookup Enhancements: you can set default tax codes on the Nexus, the Item and the Entity records.
3. Transaction Summary Box Enhancements: Added Tax and Tax Details are now available in the transaction summary box. You can find Tax Code, Tax Rate and other Tax-related information under the “Tax Details” subtab. It is also available on printouts.  
4. Automatic Tax Rates Update: Tables are now automatically updated and managed by NetSuite with effectivity dates. Do not worry, you can still create your own custom tax codes, if necessary.  

Note that some bundles are not supported in SuiteTax anymore, namely:

• International Tax Bundle
• Tax Audit Field Bundle
• Supplementary Tax Calculation Bundle
• Withholding Tax Bundle

7 – PSA (Professional Services Automation)

What You Need to Know about the NetSuite 2019.1 Release

According to our experts, this is probably the most interesting part . NetSuite never stops developing new features to enhance user experience, especially when it comes to Professional Services Automation. Here are the most important ones to note with the 2019.1 Release:

1. Resource Groups: based on your role, you can now create resource groups in NetSuite to simplify and improve resource management. This will allow you to maximize efficiency and save time, reducing costs related to administration due to the elimination of the repetitive steps. With a resource group, you can easily assign large groups to different projects and tasks allowing you to speed up the entire process.
2. Purchase Charge Rules: With this new feature, users can benefit from several new advantages. First, it allows your to generate a new type of project billing. Your Purchase Charge Rules can integrate purchase orders and vendor bills into project charged based billing. Moreover, this feature includes the support of non-inventory items. Finally, by using the Purchase Charge Rules you will make it easier to fulfill tasks such as filtering, setting limits and multipliers but also, ordering.
3. Create project from Opp/Estimates: This new feature is relatively self-explanatory. Your project creation can now cover the entire CRM process with the Create project from Opp/Estimates feature. It will follow the behaviour for Sales orders.
4. Change customer on a project: In their efforts to maximize efficiency for companies whose business model requires PSA, NetSuite now allows managers to change customers on a project. This will improve usability and save businesses valuable time.
5. Bulk Task Reassignment Update: Last, but not least, there is an update to the Bulk Task Reassignment feature. Aside from being able to use the feature the way you are used to, you now have better accessibility of the tool and the ability to select specific project tasks. This will increase productivity, especially when you need to replace/change a resource on a specific project.

 

The 2019.1 NetSuite Release offers us numerous new upgrades and features that improve the user experience. If you are not sure which ones apply to your business, you can always count on your trusted business advisors to guide you through the process and highlight the ones you should be paying attention to. After all, we are here to make your life easier!

 

For more information about the 2019.1 NetSuite Release, you can read the release notes (you will need to login into your NetSuite account to access the file).

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