NetSuite Planning and Budgeting

AI fueled capabilities help reduce planning and budgeting cycle times

What is NetSuite Planning and Budgeting?

NetSuite Planning and Budgeting automates labor-intensive planning and budgeting processes, enabling finance teams to quickly and easily produce budgets and forecasts, model what-if scenarios, and generate reports—all within one collaborative, scalable solution. Embedded AI and machine learning automate data analysis to improve and accelerate planning and forecasting cycles. Create detailed AI-generated commentary and narratives. By reducing the time spent on manual data collection, reporting, and data loading, finance teams can shift their focus from data entry and formula maintenance to strategic analysis activities that significantly impact the company’s financial position.

What is NetSuite Planning and Budgeting? (Video)

Control

Data synchronization with NetSuite ERP ensures automated, ongoing access to up-to-date financial and operational data. Reduced reliance on manual data input and reconciliations means better control.

Collaboration

All stakeholders are connected in a single environment, streamlining data collection. Accessibility boosts participation and accountability, making it easier for finance to get meaningful input and engagement from operational managers.

Visibility

Data is entered in one centralized place, creating a single, agreed-upon version of information. Any changes made to numbers in the system are automatically reflected in reports and dashboards, so the current business situation is always clear.

NetSuite Planning and Budgeting Benefits

Reduced Planning Cycle Times. Templates and workflows make it easy to gather inputs and assumptions.
Accurate Information. Pre-built synchronization with NetSuite ERP ensures real-time, accurate financial and operational data is used.
Align the Organization. All stakeholders are connected in a single environment, eliminating emails and spreadsheets.
Increased Transparency. Everyone is entering data consistently and using the same processes, so all changes are tracked.
Improved Forecast Accuracy. Regularly compare and analyze actual versus projected results to refine forecasts.

90%

90% of NetSuite Planning and Budgeting customers surveyed have achieved increased visibility, control over their business operations, and more organizational alignment.

95%

95% of surveyed customers confirmed that since adopting NetSuite Planning and Budgeting, their organization has achieved increased visibility and control over their business, and more accurate forecasting.

69%

69% of NetSuite Planning and Budgeting customers surveyed said they’ve experienced improved efficiency, accuracy, and automation of previously manual, time-intensive processes.

Source: TechValidate

NetSuite Planning and Budgeting helped us close our books 20% faster, giving us the flexibility to make faster, smarter business decisions. You’re wasting your time if you’re not implementing NetSuite Planning and Budgeting.

Daniel Ruettiger, CPA
Senior FP&A Accounting Associate, Highstreet Insurance Partners

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NetSuite Planning and Budgeting Features

NetSuite Planning and Budgeting enables organizations to accelerate budgeting and forecasting processes with market-leading predictive features, reporting, scenario planning and modeling capabilities, all in one collaborative, scalable solution.

Budgeting and Forecasting

Automate tedious companywide and departmental budgeting processes. Prebuilt workflows that leverage best practices make it easy to closely track the progress of tasks, such as reviews and approvals. Budget templates are dynamically populated and updated from NetSuite’s general ledger and accommodate changes to accounting segments. Create real-time forecasts in minutes — based on actual data from NetSuite financials — to make more informed decisions and drive your business forward.

Scenario Planning and Modeling

Perform scenario modeling and multidimensional planning with any number of dimensions, such as location, product, customer or expense. Easily model complex calculations including projected revenue, operating and capital expenditures, headcount costs, cash flow and sales without the risk of formula errors posed by regular updates or monthly maintenance.

AI-Powered Predictive Planning

Leveraging embedded artificial intelligence (AI), Intelligent Performance Management automates data analysis to improve and accelerate decision making. Prediction algorithms continually monitor and analyze plans, forecasts, and variances to uncover and highlight any trends, anomalies, biases—as well as hidden correlations—allowing large amounts of data to be quickly analyzed. Finance can take faster actions on these insights, have better data to plan and significantly reduce the time spent on analysis. Predictive forecast explanations provide a quick and easy way to understand the key factors behind AI-generated forecasts.

Revenue Planning

Align revenue forecasts and sales plans with corporate objectives. Create driver-based revenue and sales forecasts for all business units in collaboration with finance, sales and service teams. Then, continuously monitor actual performance against objectives and track the resulting impact on cash flows and balance sheets.

Operational Expense

Enable flexible driver-based planning to connect your operational assumptions to financial outcomes. Support a hierarchical planning process that encompasses both corporate finance and lines of business.

Workforce Planning

Simplify workforce planning and related efforts, such as headcount, salary and compensation planning, by aligning the needs and priorities of your organization with those of the workforce to ensure organizational objectives are met.

Trended Financial Statements

Fully integrated financial statements mean the income, balance sheet and cash flow statements are connected with logic derived from Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP). These financial statements provide seamless actual-to-budget trending and this integration is flexible enough to accommodate industry-specific configuration requirements. Both direct and indirect cash flow methods are supported.

Data Synchronization

Prebuilt data synchronization with NetSuite ERP ensures data accuracy and accessibility. Up-to-date financial and operational data, account structures and dimensions are automatically reflected in your plans, budgets and forecasts.

Dashboards

Easily create in minutes dashboards that display budget and actuals data. NetSuite's drag-and-drop report builder puts powerful, yet easy-to-use, web-based reporting into the hands of finance and business managers. The system's secure, collaborative, process-driven approach makes defining, authoring, reviewing and publishing financial and management reports an effortless process, while drill-through capabilities let the finance team and business managers dig deep into numbers and better understand areas like budget vs. actual variances.

Microsoft Office Integration

Smart View for Office enables the integration of NetSuite Planning and Budgeting with Microsoft Office tools, such as Outlook, Excel, Word and PowerPoint. Users can add what-if analyses in Excel for customers, items or expenses categories on the fly and create data grids incorporating Excel formulas and formats. Common planning actions, such as spreading and allocation, are available for data grids rendered within Excel.

Challenges NetSuite Planning and Budgeting Solves

Manual Processes. Prebuilt integration with NetSuite financial data eliminates errors caused by manual transfers.
Lack of Collaboration. Users can enter comments and assumptions for collaborative planning, budgeting and forecasting.
Poor Decisions. Quickly compare budget with actuals to deliver insights more quickly and enable better decision-making.

Faster Time to Value

NetSuite distills the experience gained from tens of thousands of worldwide deployments over two decades into a set of leading practices that pave a clear path to success and deliver rapid business value. And, we get you live on NetSuite in a predictable timeframe. Intelligent, stepped implementations span the entire customer lifecycle, so there's continuity from sales to services to support.

How Much Does NetSuite Planning and Budgeting Cost?

Companies of every size, from pre-revenue startups to fast-growing businesses, have made the move to NetSuite. Looking for a better way to run your business but wondering about the cost?

Users subscribe to NetSuite for an annual license fee. Your license is made up of three main components: core platform, optional modules and the number of users. There is also a one-time implementation fee for the initial set up. As your business grows, you can easily activate new modules and add users — that’s the beauty of cloud software.

NetSuite Planning and Budgeting is available as add-on module.

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