Anchor Group Podcast: Episode 9
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Podcast Transcript
Michael (00:00)
Thanks for tuning into the Anchor Group Podcast. This is officially episode nine. This week, we’re going to be talking with one of our very own NetSuite functional consultants, Mitchell. Mitchell is going to share ways you can improve your NetSuite environment to maximize your use of it and get the most bang for your buck. We're going to focus on topics like quality reporting and process automation. And at the beginning, Mitch is going to share his origin story—how he got introduced to the world of NetSuite.
Hey Mitch, thanks for joining our call today. How are you doing?
Mitchell (00:34)
Good, good. Great to be here. How are you?
Michael (00:36)
Things are going well over here. It’s a Friday when we’re recording this podcast, which is always a good way to end the week—chatting with experts and talking about things like NetSuite. Not too bad. So Mitchell, thank you for joining the call today. You work in the world of NetSuite and have been in that space throughout your professional career so far. Let’s dig into that a little bit. I know we have listeners who run e-commerce websites or ERPs and might be facing some complex challenges—or they’re just looking to learn something new. Today, we’re looking forward to hearing about your experience and the work you’ve done.
But before we hop into that, I’m curious if you could share with the listeners a little bit about your origin story—how you got involved in NetSuite. I know you have an interesting one, so tell us about that.
Mitchell (01:32)
Yeah, for sure. I’d be happy to. I have a bit of a unique path to finding my way into the ERP space. My father has been in ERP for about a dozen years. During COVID, I was going to college online and living with my parents. Around that time, my dad had just taken a fully remote job at NetSuite.
We spent a lot of days with me sitting on the couch doing homework, while he was in the next room on sales calls. I’d sit there listening to him all day long. I always found the conversations really interesting and kept jotting down things to ask him when he got off his calls.
That interest stuck with me through the rest of college. When I started job hunting, I carried that curiosity with me—and eventually landed here at Anchor Group.
Michael (02:33)
You know, Mitch, that’s funny. Right now, Marvel movies are kind of big, and at the beginning of some of them, the creators will preface the story with the villain or the hero’s origin story. I feel like that sets you up very well for the conversation we’re about to have today.
Mitchell (02:53)
Well, hopefully it’s a hero story.
Michael (02:55)
Yeah, that’s right—hopefully it’s a hero story. I’m sure it is. So Mitch, what we want to talk about today—and what I’d like to pick your brain on—are some of the main struggles that the people you work with experience when it comes to NetSuite.
Before we really dive into that, though, could you share your job title and tell us what you do for Anchor Group on a daily basis?
Mitchell (03:24)
Yeah, absolutely. I am a project manager and NetSuite functional consultant here at Anchor Group. I definitely spend more of my time on the functional side, which means I’m the guy getting my hands dirty when a client has a problem they need solved in NetSuite. My job is to figure out how we’re going to solve it—and then actually go in and create the solution that’s going to make that business more profitable, life easier, that kind of thing.
Michael (03:58)
That’s amazing. I bet you have a chance to help a lot of different people sleep better at night—so they’re not worrying about things going wrong in their NetSuite instance.
Mitchell, as you talk to clients, what are some of the problems they’re experiencing? What are some ways someone who’s already using NetSuite could improve their environment to make it work better for their company?
Mitchell (04:31)
Yeah, well, to start the conversation about the problems people run into within NetSuite—one thing about NetSuite is that it does solve for so many problems. But because of that, there’s also a pretty significant learning curve. It can feel daunting for a new user trying to come in and effectively do their job, especially compared to how they might have done things in a simpler system.
The reason for that complexity is that NetSuite allows you to accomplish so much more than many other systems do. But with that, the two biggest struggles I help solve on a day-to-day basis usually revolve around process automation—really just looking to save people time—and reporting, helping people get better insights into their data.
We’ve talked before about how much more we could accomplish in life if we just had an extra hour in the day. I think that’s the biggest problem we solve for—helping people get that time back. And then, of course, making sure they can actually see the data they need. We live in such a data-driven world today, and NetSuite really does have the functionality to provide all of that—as long as you know how to get to it.
Michael (06:02)
Yeah, data-driven—you’re not kidding. Everything seems to have some sort of chart these days, which isn’t a bad thing. But I know people can sometimes get analysis paralysis. They’re afraid to take action because they have too much data, or they don’t understand the data they’re looking at.
So let’s start there, because data can be extremely important.
Mitchell (06:16)
Yeah.
Michael (06:31)
If you actually know what you're looking at—if you know how to use it. So Mitchell, talk to us about that learning curve, about setting up data. Well, let’s backtrack for a second. First off, my question for you—just because I don’t quite understand right now—is: what sort of reporting comes out of the box natively within the NetSuite environment? And then, how can somebody build and scale the native reporting to really make it into something they need?
Mitchell (07:00)
Yeah, I think the main two user interface reporting options that everyone thinks about with standard, out-of-the-box NetSuite are going to be the Reports feature—which includes fairly standard, collapsible and expandable reports across a variety of, quote-unquote, departments or your different lines of business.
Those reports primarily exist to give insights that can be viewed quickly at a top level or broken out into a more detailed view.
Michael (07:45)
What’s an example of the data someone could surface or access in a report like that? Are we talking product information, orders, invoices—more on the accounting side? What type of data can be broken down?
Mitchell (08:03)
Yeah, it spans pretty wide. You can get everything from sales data—viewing at the order level, then expanding out to the individual items on those orders—to AP and AR aging. NetSuite has some nice native reporting functionality around both of those.
And, you know, nobody wants to be behind on their bills or be waiting longer than necessary to get paid for products or services. So, the AP and AR functionality in reporting is a really useful tool.
There are definitely additional reports that come natively. There’s a whole slew of them—I’d say probably 40-plus—that already exist when you load up NetSuite. But beyond that, you’re able to customize those reports.
You can take any of those 40-plus native reports and say, “I want to break this out by department,” or, “I want to see which of my four locations this is at,” or, “I want to add a few more columns.” Maybe it’s helpful for me to see the item name, but what really helps me is seeing the sales description for that item—instead of the SKU, which, if I’m not working with it every day, might just look like a random string of letters and numbers.
So, I really think the native reporting functionality has a ton of value—just by digging through what’s already there. But it becomes especially valuable when you start customizing it to fit the exact needs of your business.
Michael (09:53)
And then a follow-up question to that, Mitchell: can anybody with NetSuite user permissions find those reports, access them, and customize them? Or are there specific users within the company who can modify those?
Mitchell (10:13)
That's a great question, first of all. Generally speaking, not everybody is going to have access to all of those reports. And many folks who do have access to some reports won’t have access to others.
That’s actually by design—you want the data that matters to specific people to be in their hands. That said, you can make reports visible to anyone in the organization who needs to see them.
You can do that in a few different ways—at the permissions level, or on an individual report basis. Maybe someone who normally wouldn't be able to see a certain type of report can be granted access to one that’s helpful to them. Or maybe a report is really only valuable to senior sales reps, and not something the junior reps need to see if they're not handling enterprise accounts.
You can really pare down or expand that visibility to make sure the data is in the right hands.
Michael (11:16)
Yeah. A further question about just making sure the data ends up in the right hands—there’s a cost associated with giving users access to different parts of NetSuite.
So, let’s say a company doesn’t want to give its entire outside sales team NetSuite licenses. Is it possible to export one of those reports to share with that team regularly—maybe monthly or quarterly? Or do those exports get really wonky and messy? How easy is it to share reports with people who aren’t in NetSuite?
Mitchell (12:09)
Yeah, absolutely. All reports in NetSuite are exportable—either through Excel, PDF, and I believe even Word documents.
That means, for example, your outside sales team is a great case. Maybe your sales manager uses NetSuite heavily and has a full license, but the team uses a third-party CRM and isn’t in NetSuite. The manager can still pull all that data and bring it to your monthly review or share it with the team.
So yes, the functionality exists to move key data from NetSuite—your source of truth—into other places where it’s needed. That said, in my experience, you tend to build reports a bit differently when you know you’ll be exporting them regularly—especially as PDFs. You don’t really have control over spacing or layout there, so you need to be a little creative in how you set things up.
But the nice thing about NetSuite is that, as long as you’re willing to be a little creative, you can pretty much accomplish whatever you want.
Michael (13:28)
If somebody is struggling right now with their exports, is that where—if they contact Anchor Group—someone like yourself or someone in your role would come in and help straighten out that data? Help get the export looking the way they need it to and be creative with that data?
Mitchell (13:43)
Yeah, absolutely. I think we regularly help with every step of that process. All the way from, “How can I leverage these reports that already exist to be more helpful for my business?” to, “How can I customize these reports to be extra helpful for my business?” And even, “How can I set these reports up to export regularly in the best way possible?”
Michael (14:14)
Yeah, well, that's great that there are features to be able to export regularly—because getting the right data into the right people’s hands can be very impactful for a business, especially when it comes to making decisions.
One last question on this reporting topic. I’ve spoken with a few people who have either been put into roles where they’re now in charge of NetSuite for the entire company, or maybe they’ve been hired into a role and didn’t quite have as much NetSuite experience as they thought they would need—or maybe they were handed a lot more NetSuite responsibility once they were already in the job.
I’ve been on calls where you can tell they’re just deer in the headlights, wondering, “What is going on right now? I need help understanding NetSuite.” So Mitchell, when we talk about reporting—understanding how to customize these reports—what’s the learning curve like? What has your experience been with how long it takes someone to learn how to use the filters and features they need to access reporting effectively?
Mitchell (15:29)
Yeah, I think a significant part of the learning curve really comes down to someone’s overall level of experience building reports in other systems. If you've been responsible for reporting before, that puts you at a pretty big advantage coming into NetSuite. Where to click is going to be different, and the data from one company to the next is going to be different, but if you know what you want the end result to look like, you’re already ahead.
There’s definitely a trial-and-error learning path with reporting. It really comes down to just getting the reps in—getting familiar with how NetSuite specifically works. And honestly, you can learn pretty quickly how to create some really valuable insights using the native NetSuite reporting tools.
Michael (16:21)
One plug I want to make here at Anchor Group: if you check out our website, anchorgroup.tech, we have training on various parts of the NetSuite environment. Since we’re talking about reporting specifically, if you—or your team—need training, whether it’s videos or helpful documentation, we have resources available to everybody at anchorgroup.tech.
If you find yourself in a moment where you’re struggling with reporting, or if your team needs support to get up to speed, definitely feel free to check that out. That can help shorten the learning curve—the time it takes to really learn and understand these tools if you or someone on your team is new.
So Mitch, at the beginning of our call, you also mentioned process automation as one of the ways companies can get more out of NetSuite. I think a lot of people might not fully understand how automation works within the NetSuite environment. A lot of tasks are still very manual, and companies are spending time, energy, and money on things that could be automated.
Let’s dive into that a little bit. What are some of the ways you can automate a NetSuite environment?
Mitchell (17:39)
Yeah, I think one of the most common things you’ll hear from a new NetSuite user is, “This used to be three clicks in my old system—and now it’s twelve in NetSuite.” If you’re experiencing that in any area of NetSuite, you’re not alone. I promise you, that’s an incredibly common thing to feel—and luckily for us, it’s something we can solve.
Michael (17:55)
Interesting, okay.
Mitchell (18:09)
I think the transaction processes—your order-to-cash and procure-to-pay processes—are really where we see a lot of room to operate differently than what comes natively in NetSuite. We can customize those processes to fit your needs.
For a lot of people, it’s not that they need something huge, crazy, or custom. It’s just, “Hey, I’m wasting a lot of time clicking buttons when these three actions could really be just one button click instead of three.”
Michael (18:43)
So Mitchell, break that down for us for a second. You say natively, from what I’m hearing, it sounds like there might be quite a few clicks in the process—and there are ways to, in a sense, automate some of that. Walk us through an example, if you can. For instance, take procure-to-pay—what does that look like natively, and what are some of the specific things you can automate as part of that process?
Mitchell (19:10)
Yeah, here’s a great example. If I’m selling a product and working with a customer who likes to have confirmation that I’ve received their order, they also want confirmation when I’ve shipped their order so they know it’s on the way. Additionally, when I’m going to bill that order—when I create the invoice—I want to confirm that they’ve seen they owe my company money.
In that process, we’re not just talking about creating the order and sending it out. There’s also the creation of the item fulfillment in NetSuite, which involves a lot of time spent behind the scenes—picking, packing, and shipping items—and then also the billing side.
We can put together some really cool solutions to make it significantly quicker to communicate with customers, whether that’s fully automatic or even just at the click of a button. I’ve even seen setups as complex and unique as identifying different types of customers—and knowing that certain customers like to receive emails in different ways.
Automatically, behind the scenes, the system knows what type of customer it is and decides, because it’s this type of customer, to send this email content with this particular template for their order confirmation. All I had to do was create the order, and the system takes care of that communication behind the scenes.
We have the ability to do some really unique and helpful things like that.
Michael (20:55)
Interesting. I can see how that would be very helpful, especially for some of those unique cases out there. In addition to automating that part of the business-to-customer relationship, what are other areas you can automate within NetSuite that help streamline internal processes? How can a business use automation to win back their internal team’s time for other tasks?
Mitchell (21:27)
Yeah, I’d say a great example of internal process automation is the level of functionality we have for designing and implementing approval processes. Across many areas of NetSuite, different businesses leverage approvals as a way to have that second set of eyes on something—which can be really helpful.
We can set up these processes so that instead of me creating a document and sending it to my boss, who then sends it to their boss, and waiting three days to make progress on that task, we can automate the approval process with email notifications.
For example, as soon as I enter an order, my boss gets an email. If it looks good, with the click of a button, they can send it on to the next approver. If it doesn’t, they can click a button to send an email back to me saying, “Hey, this isn’t good—you need to fix X, Y, or Z.”
I think that’s a great example of how an internal process can be made much smoother with what NetSuite has to offer.
Michael (22:45)
Yeah. And when it comes to setting up these automations and understanding what’s possible, I know the Anchor Group team—and the team you’re on, Mitchell—has worked on a lot of different customizations and automations over the years. I think your team has really learned where you can push the native functionality and where you need to get creative with solutions around it.
As we wrap up our conversation today, just one more question for you. In your experience working with NetSuite, where do you think its strongest strength is? Where does it hold the most weight compared to other platforms out there? I know many merchants are on NetSuite, but where does it shine the most in the ERP space?
Mitchell (23:52)
Yeah, for me, I think the obvious answer—as someone who’s certainly not a CPA—is that accounting is by far NetSuite’s strongest area. At its core, it’s an accounting software with a bunch of other functionality layered on top.
Every ERP has its own strengths and weaknesses, but for an accountant who hasn’t been using just one system for the last 20 years—someone who’s open to working within a different system—there’s just so much functionality on the accounting side in NetSuite. I really think that’s the best selling point NetSuite has. And it can do some very unique things in that space.
Michael (24:36)
That’s good to hear. Having software that’s strong in that area is incredibly important, especially as you grow your business—and, of course, so you don’t get into trouble with the government. Always a good thing to have.
Well, Mitchell, thank you for taking the time to chat today. It’s been great—always good to learn more about NetSuite. And if you’re listening to this podcast as we wrap up and you’re looking for more information…
Mitchell (24:43)
Yeah. Yes, that’s an important piece.
Michael (25:04)
…on anything we talked about, feel free to check out our website: anchorgroup.tech. As I mentioned earlier, we have helpful training tools and resources there to get you off the ground if you’re starting to learn or work with NetSuite. Whether it’s for you or your team, these resources can help you become more dangerous—in a good way—when it comes to your NetSuite environment.
So once again, thank you, Mitchell. And until next time, everybody, keep on chasing greatness, and we’ll talk to you in the next episode.
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