About Brightspot
Brightspot is a leading content management system (CMS). Founded in 2008, the company helps organizations transform their digital experiences and enables customers’ content-focused teams to work smarter, faster, and more seamlessly to move business forward. Brightspot’s CMS combines an extensible architecture and integration-ready approach with intuitive publisher-informed UI and customizable workflows to make it possible for customers to work the way they want to work without compromise. Brightspot’s extensive portfolio includes three of the top ten Fortune 500 companies including Walmart and Johnson and Johnson.
Best-of-Breed Approach – Mavenlink & NetSuite
Brightspot’s previous PSA (Professional Services Automation) did not have the functionalities they wanted; it was over-customized and too clunky. They turned to Mavenlink for its user-friendly UI and reporting capabilities. Mavenlink recommended Big Bang to assist with the migration from their old PSA, and the implementation of revenue recognition in Mavenlink. Brightspot leveraged the new implementation project as an opportunity to rethink how they manage their finances and shorten the time it took to close their books at month-end.
Big Bang suggested a best-of-breed approach, where they would use the software for what they do best – Mavenlink for the PSA and Oracle NetSuite ERP for the financial.
“It was comforting to know that Big Bang has employed the two systems in their own environment, and to know that you (Big Bang) use what you install.”
– David Bultema, VP of Finance and Operations, Brightspot
The Big Bang Team completed the following:
- Mavenlink implementation,
- Mavenlink x NetSuite integration,
- NetSuite customization for revenue reconciliation.
- User Training on both Mavenlink and NetSuite
How Best-of-Breed Works
Best-of-breed is the alternative to a single system architecture. It works best when operators want to use the very best features from many systems. The main advantages include the flexibility and optimized processes. The most critical part of a best-of-breed approach is to ensure systems communicate together seamlessly so that all company leaders operate with the same valuable information.
Today, when Brightspot gets a new contract, the project manager sets up the project in Mavenlink. That project comes through NetSuite. The finance department sets up revenue recognition and invoicing rules in NetSuite. Every month, time entries from Mavenlink are sent to NetSuite which eventually triggers an invoice based on the rules Brightspot established in the software. All these manual tasks were time-consuming before, but now, it’s done in batch jobs and automated.
The Benefits of a Mavenlink x NetSuite Integration
The Ability to Scale
In the past year, Brightspot saw a significant increase in the number of customers. The solution has helped them manage the growth and set them up for success for future growth plans. Without it, growing pains would have slowed them down.
Better Month-End Close Process
Before Big Bang’s intervention, Brightspot spent a lot of time on unbilled and deferred account reconciliations. The Big Bang team set up reports and automated journal entries for Brightspot that can be triggered at the end of the month to book these reclassification entries. If the selected entry is in a deferred state and should be in an unbilled state, it will trigger, through the NetSuite code, a proposed journal entry to reclassify it to an unbilled state. With the previous PSA, Brightspot had to create these reclassification entries manually one by one which was very time-consuming. Now, all proposed entries are listed on one screen and can be generated in one click. This helps keep up with each month’s close and stay organized!
Easier Reporting within an Organized System
With the automation rules created in NetSuite, Brightspot’s accounting team can create reports easily, such as getting a list of all the proposed unbilled entries with only a click of a mouse! Everything – the data and the reporting – is easy to find and is really organized within NetSuite.
Saving Time – Days of it
Despite the growth in customers, David, VP of Finance and Operations at Brightspot, estimates that the small accounting team saves about two days of work per month.
Integrated Training Guides are Always Available
Big Bang embedded the training guides in NetSuite in case the Brightspot team ever needed a refresher. David said he barely ever needs it because “the Big Bang team made it so easy for us.”
“The Big Bang Team went above and beyond.”
David was really pleased with his experience of working with Big Bang. It was a great partnership, where they listened to Brightspot’s problems and brought meaningful solutions.
“Very responsive. I really appreciated how they listened to where our pain points were and went above and beyond. You have the technical know-how, but a lot of companies do. The solutioning is what sets Big Bang apart.”
David said that he had to explain the millions of nuances within revenue recognition and reconciliation before to other companies, but Big Bang understood the problem and were able to produce a solution that works.
“I wish you guys would have done the initial implementation of NetSuite.”
“We really got a lot out of this process. We got a great solution from Mavenlink, and we got a great financial close process.”
All quotes by David Bultema,
VP of Finance and Operations, Brightspot.
