Oracle NetSuite Planning and Budgeting (NSPB) – A Brief Look
Author - Nitesh Jadhav, Principal Consultant
Oracle Corporation acquired NetSuite in 2016 with a focus on providing cloud ERP solutions to small and mid-size enterprises. Oracle NetSuite with its single, integrated suite of applications gives control and visibility over business activities such as production, supply chain, inventory management, warehouse operations, and accounting and is used in more than 200 countries, supports over 27 languages and 190 currencies. Oracle has been updating the NetSuite offerings with new modules by leveraging other solutions from their ecosystem. One such offering that benefits not only the operations side of the business but also the finance side is the NetSuite Planning and Budgeting application or NSPB.
Traditionally at smaller companies, planning and budgeting activities are carried out using spreadsheets. While this is a widely used method, there are issues of data duplication, errors in formulas, time-consuming data integration, and manual updates with no control over versioning and access. The manual planning and budgeting process also lacks the ability to perform scenario-based analysis or automatic roll-up of data. Variance reporting, that is, comparing Actual data versus the Budgeted or Forecasted data side-by-side on a single sheet has always been a tedious activity.
The NetSuite Financials solution includes Planning and Budgeting module that Oracle EPM Planning Cloud application, albeit with features that are exclusive to NetSuite applications. While NetSuite Financial Management includes certain FP&A activities such as standard Budgeting, Expense Allocations, and Operational Expenses, the limitations it has are overcome by activating the NSPB module. Riding on the features offered by Oracle Planning Cloud, NSPB leverages NetSuite’s ERP and HCM as sources for a wide array of Planning and Budgeting activities. Here is a list of some key features:
- Revenue, Expense, Headcount Forecasting, and many more
- Variance Reporting which is difficult to do in NetSuite ERP
- Automated Consolidation with prebuilt integrations with the source ERP (NetSuite)
- Rolling Forecasts, Projections using AI
- Versioning, What-If Analysis
- Income Statement, Balance Sheet, Cash Flow Reporting and Analysis
- Easy to build dynamic dashboards and reports having Financial and Non-Financial Data with drill back and drill-through capabilities
- Streamlined Workflow with Approval Process
Advantages of NSPB
Oracle NSPB eliminates the need for multiple error-prone spreadsheets, so the Finance team can spend less time on gathering and correcting data and more on analysis and value addition to FP&A, thus helping organizations take critical decisions in time to achieve their business goals. Some key advantages:
- Out-of-the-box integration of data and metadata with NetSuite ERP helps to reduce development time if an organization is already using NetSuite as an ERP solution
- Prebuilt industry-specific editions
- Simple to understand out of the box functionality (for Developers)
- Faster user acceptance as minimal configuration and development is needed. Users can start using the application as soon as the initial configuration is done
- Automated synchronization of data and metadata between the ERP and Planning applications
NSPB offerings:
NSPB can be activated as an additional module in NetSuite’s Financial Management application. It is available in two versions:
- Standard
- Premium (with optional industry-specific editions)
Standard Edition
The standard offering is recommended for small enterprises with annual revenue between $5M to $20M. It is suitable for fast-growing businesses that need a quick turnaround time on FP&A activities and management of revenue and expenses. This version of NSPB is designed for NetSuite users to quickly learn the planning and budgeting application so they can manage Revenue and OpEx planning and reporting and create the essential financial statements. It focuses on building Annual Operating Plans by integrating information from NetSuite’s Cloud ERP and HCM systems.
Premium Edition
The premium edition is recommended for mid-level enterprises with annual revenue over $20M. It is a superset of the standard offering which enables the creation of not just the Annual Operating Plans but also ongoing Forecasts by synchronizing data with NetSuite ERP. The Premium edition allows for full-blown planning and budgeting capabilities with a certain level of customization that can be done by NSPB specialists after discussions with Business users.
Keep an eye out for our next blog that will highlight the key differences in features and functionality between the Standard and Premium offerings. Please contact Julian Troake, julian.troake@accelalpha.com, or Rahul Sharma, rahul.sharma@accelalpha.com if you would like to learn more, or if you need help with implementation of Oracle NetSuite Planning and Budgeting.
NOTE: The offerings of NSPB have been updated frequently over the last two years, the above information is subject to change. Need to vet this information from a reliable source for the latest updates. All information written above is gathered from the material placed in Oracle learning center with content dating back to late 2020, and Oracle NetSuite Website