At NetSuite, we’re extremely proud of all our Alliance Partners and the effort they put into implementing and supporting our leading cloud ERP system. This year’s Alliance Partner Spotlight Awards highlight companies that have demonstrated commitment to and success in implementing NetSuite. These partners have also developed industry-leading expertise, customizations, and even intellectual property across many different microverticals.
In this blog series, we put the spotlight on the specific customer projects that earned each Alliance Partner a Summer 2023 Spotlight Award.
Scaling up with NetSuite
Pave America specializes in paving installation, repair, and maintenance for customers nationwide. The company, founded in 1998 as Pavement Partners, also sells cloud-based software it developed for fellow paving businesses called PavementSoft.
The company previously used Sage 300 CRE, an ERP system designed for the construction industry, but encountered challenges related to scaling, managing multiple subsidiaries, and recording financial consolidations and eliminations. When evaluating solutions, Pave America also looked at Sage Intacct but ultimately selected NetSuite thanks to a pricing model that was cost-effective for the business, greater flexibility, fast and easy consolidations, and proven success in both the technology and construction industries.
Working with Alliance Partner Adooma(opens in new tab), Pave America implemented NetSuite’s advanced projects, job costing, and fixed assets management modules. The company also implemented Adooma's construction bundle, which includes automated project creation that incorporates budgets, AIA billing, and automated retention.
The project kicked off in June 2022 and Pave America went live in January 2023—right on schedule. That was just in time to execute the merger of two leading companies, Pavement Partners and Brothers National, to create Pave America in February 2023. Pave America successfully managed the transition from the original three subsidiaries to more than 60.
Today, the combined entity has unified its operations on NetSuite. As Pave America continues to expand its national presence, NetSuite is there to support its growth. Adooma currently has a roadmap of features to add for Pave America, including connecting PavementSoft to NetSuite.
NetSuite makes inventory management a breeze
Established in 2002, Well-Trained Mind Press produces educational materials for standard and alternative education curriculums focusing on grammar, logic, rhetoric, and other subjects. It focuses on providing extensive support for homeschool teachers, selling books and other reading materials online and offering curricula and other guidance.
Previously, the organization managed accounting and payroll in QuickBooks, utilized WooCommerce for ecommerce, and had a third system for title management. The business tracked inventory across two fulfillment centers in spreadsheets that required manual CSV file updates.
Seeking greater transparency and up-to-date insights into orders and on-hand inventory, Well-Trained Mind Press evaluated NetSuite and SAP. It chose NetSuite for its ease of customization and scalability. Working with Beyond Cloud(opens in new tab), the company implemented NetSuite Wholesale Distribution Edition along with the NetSuite Connector(opens in new tab) for WooCommerce. The partner also built a custom integration between NetSuite and the publisher’s Firebrand Technologies title management system to further automate its publishing workflow.
With NetSuite in place, Well-Trained Mind Press can more efficiently and effectively address its customer needs without adding headcount. Well-Trained Mind has vastly improved reporting with built-in analytics that highlight sales, costs, and the overall health of the company.
Well-Trained Mind Press now has a unified platform that can foster its growth. The next steps in the company’s NetSuite journey include adding NetSuite Planning and Budgeting and NetSuite Warehouse Management System (WMS), along with NetSuite’s fixed assets management and demand planning modules.
Replacing tedious manual processes with automation
Fusion Power installs residential solar power systems throughout Arizona. Although the company just opened in 2020, it already completes more than 200 solar installations per month, and its QuickBooks system struggled to effectively manage transactions at this scale. QuickBooks also didn’t offer sufficient project management, revenue recognition, or inventory management capabilities—all of which are crucial to the company’s operations.
Before selecting NetSuite, Fusion Power evaluated Acumatica and SoftLedger. The CFO, who had previously used NetSuite, thought NetSuite was a more scalable solution. With implementation partner AST(opens in new tab) in its corner, the solar provider implemented NetSuite financial management, procurement, inventory management, order management, revenue recognition, and project management.
In addition, AST extended NetSuite’s native revenue recognition capabilities(opens in new tab) to support cost matching for inventory shipments. The partner also handled the company’s integrations with BILL Spend & Expense and MerchantE, which handles credit cards and ACH payments.
After an implementation that was on time and on budget, NetSuite has brought improvements in several key areas. The system has eased solar installation project accounting and billing, automated many aspects of cost tracking, billing, and revenue recognition, and helped reduce risk and operational costs through more oversight, automation, and better governance in accounting. It’s done all of this while enhancing both employee and customer satisfaction.
NetSuite's project accounting functionality also enables project-level accounting and profitability analysis, empowering Fusion Power to effectively measure and manage KPIs. Next, the company plans to add NetSuite Analytics Warehouse and NetSuite WMS and integrate the system with Podio CRM.
Corporate executives get easy access to reports and data
A fast-growing regenerative medicine franchisor, QC Kinetix offers a cutting-edge, nonsurgical alternative to joint and musculoskeletal pain relief. Since 2017, QC Kinetix(opens in new tab) has provided all-natural biologic protocols that use the best of what the body naturally produces to aid in a patient’s recovery and give them back the quality of life they deserve, without the use of surgery or drugs.
By 2021, QC Kinetix was one of the fastest growing franchisors in the US. As a result, the company quickly outgrew its QuickBooks accounting software and faced challenges tracking inventory and distributing products to franchises. It also lacked visibility into the performance of individual franchises and struggled with a delayed month-end close process due to manual reconciliations and manual entry of all transactional records. Its executive team had no direct visibility into budget vs. actual reports, and staffers had to manually input financial data into Klipfolio for reports and analysis.
QC Kinetix evaluated FinancialForce (now Certinia) and Sage Intacct before NetSuite emerged the winner thanks to its more robust and flexible reporting. QC Kinetix went live on NetSuite a month ahead of the target date and the system brought in monthly historical balances for the past 12 months for all seven of the company’s subsidiaries.
With the help of Zenardy(opens in new tab), the company implemented NetSuite Financials First. With its franchises still on QuickBooks, Zenardy moved 20 QuickBooks P&L and trial balance reports to NetSuite through a direct API integration. This lets the finance team view financial reports for individual franchises so leaders aren’t dependent on each franchise managing their own reporting.
With NetSuite in place, the company has sped up its month-end close process with bulk uploads of all transactions and an auto-reconciliation process. This also provides the accurate and speedy financial reporting its executives need to make better decisions.
Simpler and faster multisubsidiary reporting
Founded in 2017, ezCater is a Boston-based company that connects businesses with restaurants and caterers through an online marketplace. With more than 100,000 restaurants across the US on its platform, ezCater provides flexible and scalable catering for everything from recurring employee meals to one-off events such as sales offsites and board meetings. Prior to NetSuite, ezCater used Sage Intacct and was slowed by a number of manual processes.
After selecting Connor Group as its implementation partner, ezCater implemented NetSuite Financials First Premium, NetSuite OneWorld(opens in new tab) to manage financials across multiple subsidiaries, and NetSuite Revenue Management. Connor Group also configured a proprietary financial controls package that strengthens workflows, roles/permissions, and reporting. The partner migrated historical data for ezCater’s four domestic and international entities to the new software.
The ezCater and Connor Group(opens in new tab) teams worked together to meet the NetSuite go-live date of May 1, 2023, and the business completed its first month-end close with the new system on time.
Today, NetSuite provides consolidated data and reporting for all of ezCater’s entities and transactions, some of which is collected through other proprietary applications integrated with NetSuite. And this is just the first phase of the implementation as ezCater looks to expand the capabilities of its ERP system.
Supporting Subway’s digital journey
Since it first opened its doors back in 1965, Subway® has grown into one of the world’s largest restaurant brands, serving customizable and signature sandwiches, wraps, and salads to millions of guests. The brand has more than 37,000 restaurants in 100 countries.
The company used a highly customized ERP system for equipment ordering so stores could place orders with Subway’s preferred vendors. But when the franchise transitioned equipment ordering to another operating entity, it needed to retain transactional data for multiple years in case of an audit or other needs.
With MindStream Analytics(opens in new tab) as its implementation partner, Subway selected NetSuite Analytics Warehouse(opens in new tab) and set up several custom data flows. Given the challenge of loading a large volume of data, MindStream worked closely with the customer to create a customized approach that met its needs.
NetSuite Analytics Warehouse lets the company pull datasets directly from the ERP via Saved Search exports and then load these exports into datasets in the analytics warehouse tool. This allows Subway to quickly find the full datasets it needs and simplifies data management for the business. Comprehensive training ensured Subway's team could effectively utilize the system for reporting and data analysis, enhancing its reporting capabilities.
MindStream is now working with Subway for NetSuite Analytics Warehouse post-go-live support and to help the company with any new initiatives on the near horizon.
Find out how the unique skills of NetSuite Alliance Partners can help your business get the most out of NetSuite(opens in new tab).