Oracle NetSuite released the first ERP functionality updates for 2023 on March 16. Here is your ultimate guide to the top 9 new NetSuite 2023.1 features and how they work.
Top 9 NetSuite 2023.1 Features
1. Automating Period Close Revenue Recognition Entries
Existing NetSuite users already understand the tremendous benefits of automating complicated revenue recognition rules. The impending release takes the processing of these system-generated journal entries one step further: the period close checklist now includes the revenue recognition and revenue reclassification processes. This enhancement will particularly help accounting teams better understand the tasks that have been completed for the monthly close simply by pulling up the period close checklist and removing yet another manual checklist to keep track of outside of NetSuite.
2. AP Automation: Emailed Bill Capture
Organizations subscribed to the Accounts Payable Automation module can now email vendor bills to NetSuite for automatic transaction recording. The emailed bills are processed utilizing AI ML technology to capture all relevant details of the vendor transaction, including vendor name, PO number, items ordered, quantity, and pricing, among others. Having the option to keep this process within the NetSuite ERP can reduce complications that arise from external connections to the other solution providers. This feature will provide an increase in efficiency for the AP team, as well as minimize the possibility of human error when manually keying in transaction details.
3. SuiteBilling Subscription Management
Businesses that sell service or product subscriptions likely utilize the robust SuiteBilling module to manage their subscription billing process. As part of NetSuite’s 2023.1 release, this module gets an upgrade with the enhancement for automated price changes for subscription renewals. It will prove extremely valuable for organizations to manage their subscription renewals during a period of volatile global inflation. The feature allows for a percentage uplift to be applied at the point of renewal and minimizes the effort and burden on administrative teams to align to customer contracts.
Take Me to the Cloud Episode 43: What’s New With NetSuite?
The first Oracle NetSuite product release of 2023 is here! In this episode, Take Me to the Cloud host Melissa Holton and certified NetSuite professionals, breakdown exciting new upgrades and features that enhance the functionality of the ERP platform.
4. Scheduled Scripts No Longer Run Automatically in Sandbox After a Refresh
In the Release Notes, there has been a change to the deployment of scheduled scripts and Map/Reduce scripts after a refresh is performed that you need to be aware of. All Scheduled and Map/Reduce scheduled processes will need to be redeployed in the sandbox instance for them to process. Previously the deployment schedule process was replicated from production to sandbox to replicate the production processing, but now will need to do this manually.
This list can be quite extensive depending on the bundles of additional processes added to your account, but be sure to create a list of those scheduled scripts executing in your production account so you can quickly replicate to Sandbox. You can also bundle the scripts from Production and post them to Sandbox and then have the bundle deploy them for you when applied to sandbox.
5. Quality Management Enhancements
NetSuite 2023 Release 1 brings enhancements to the Quality Management SuiteApp with some great new features to help you with the inspection and quality management of your products:
- Outsourced Manufacturing Item Inspection Queues – The SuiteApp now enables the automatic generation of an inspection on the receipt of manufactured items on Item Receipt.
- Generation of Ad Hoc Inspection Queues – There is now a preference to check on the item record field “All Available Lots” for the item to be included. Serial-numbered items can also be selected by serial number for ad hoc quality inspection, as well to ensure the quality of these types of items.
- Scheduled Ad Hoc Inspections – Another way to inspect items is to select the preference “Schedule Ad Hoc Request” to have the item included regularly in the Inspection Queue to ensure the highest quality of items.
6.Warehouse Management Enhancements
Here are a few of the key enhancements included in NetSuite’s 2023.1 release to the WMS module for those organizations utilizing this warehouse tool from NetSuite:
- Multilevel Kit Waving – The Wave process to release orders for warehouse picking now supports Kits with Kit Components to be retrieved and then assembled to the final product for shipment to the customer.
- Bin Handing and Blocking – A new preference, “Enable bin reporting and blocking,”enables a feature that will allow you to block bins from the picking process to force the warehouse to inventory in other bins.
- Printing of Lot and Serial Number – Now you can print lot and serial numbers on labels for the item on the item label, or the pallet label.
- Automatic Status Update of Pick Tickets – WMS can now automatically set pick task lines to "Done" after you stage a partially picked item on the mobile app, it will automatically update the status of associated pick task lines. To enable this, you need to configure the new “automatically mark partial picks as Done” rule.
7. Improved CSV Bank Statement File Parsing
The 2023.1 release helped all the users which depend on CSV import to bring their bank statements into NetSuite by automatically removing before importing the time, time zone and footer from the bank statement file. The parser intentionally leaves only the transaction date in the file.
To facilitate this process even more, a new Footer Lines field has been added to the Parser Configuration subtab of your format profile, under the Formatting Preferences subtab. There you can choose the number of footer lines you want to remove in the file using the new “Footer Lines” field.
8. Invoice Groups Feature Updates
In this update, NetSuite decided to make a logic step and help AR departments to easily segregate the invoice groups created with the same AR account, now the AR account field is present in the following forms:
- Invoice Group Record – Under Primary Information, Account is a required and read-only field. This field is now an invoice grouping criterion to ensure that invoice groups have the same A/R account.
- Invoice Groups List Page – On the Invoice Groups list page, the Account column indicates the A/R account used in an invoice group.
- Group Invoices Page – On the Group Invoices page, the Account column shows the A/R account used in each invoice.
- Invoice Group Search Page – When you create an advanced search for invoice groups, you can do the following:
- Use the Account filter as a search criterion in the Criteria subtab.
- Add the Account field in the Result subtab to display the column on the result page.
- SuiteAnalytics – When you create an invoice group dataset, you can use the Account field as a Criterion.
9. Percent Complete Override Enhancements
In 2023.1, Project Management now offers a new set of data points related to Percent Complete Override. It can now offer a system calculated Percent Complete of the project for the accounting period, helping understand if the project is in track or not. This information lets project managers see the system calculations when entering percent complete overrides for ongoing projects. Previously, the Percent Complete Override subtab only listed the override values. It also shows the accounting period status and how many revenue recognition plans there are.
In addition, a new preference is available on project status records to enable automatic percent complete recalculation. Check the Percent Complete Automatic Recalculation box to prompt NetSuite to recalculate the percent complete every eight hours for projects with this status. For the In Progress project status, this box is checked by default. You can also manually trigger a percent complete override recalculation from the Actions menu at the top of project records.
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