Not long ago, ERPs lived solely in the world of large enterprises. The costly on-premise deployments and heavy customization took years so conventional wisdom said wait until sustaining significant revenue growth.
Today’s reality stands starkly different. Advancements in cloud delivery models have collapsed these barriers making integrated business management systems accessible and affordable for growing startups. In fact, data shows over 50% of companies onboard cloud financials before crossing $5M in revenue.
Within the SaaS landscape specifically, uptake happens even earlier. The subscription-based business model maps naturally to cloud. And the inherent speed and flexibility requirements make standing up back office functions on legacy systems painful.
These market dynamics push fast-scaling SaaS founders to evaluate enterprise-class options earlier. This allows unlocking operational capacity and insights required to focus energy on accelerating customer acquisition.
Many land on Oracle NetSuite as the ideal foundational platform priming their business to systematically scale up and out. The full-featured single database connects all core business flows – from financials to revenue management, inventory fulfillment, global payments and beyond.
But implementing NetSuite properly from day one requires thoughtful strategy and execution. These best practices set SaaS startups up for long-term gains in both speed and growth.
Adopt a Phased Rollout Mindset
Rarely does an organization require using 100% of any complex business system upfront. With NetSuite, while extensive functionality exists, going live with it all at once slows users’ ability to get proficient and extract value.
Instead, embrace a phased rollout mentality focusing initial implementation tightly on must-have capabilities. Target foundational areas like:
- Core financials and complex revenue recognition needs
- Sales record creation and management
- Customer and contact data tracking
- Reporting and dashboards on KPIs
Once these functions stabilize after go-live, progressively rollout supplementary modules in subsequent releases. This agile approach keeps teams lean as they expand on the platform.
Integrate Around Key Systems
Most SaaS offerings today integrate with dozens of surrounding technologies touching systems like payments, tax, payroll, email marketing, data warehousing, and more.
Attempting to interconnect everything at once unlikely makes sense on day one. Rather, identify the 2-3 most vital NetSuite integration touchpoints to enable for your starter workflows.
Common high-priority connections for SaaS companies include:
- Payment gateways like Stripe or Braintree to enable recurring billing and invoicing
- Tax engines such as Avalara for automated sales tax calculations
- Marketing platforms like Salesforce to pass lead and account data
Connect additional satellites across financial planning, HCM, analytics and beyond over time as need and bandwidth permits. But focus priority links on critical system interactions to operate on from launch.
Create Fundamental Reports & Dashboards
Without proper reporting and visibility, NetSuite’s operational power gets severely underutilized. Fail to set this up effectively from the outset and teams default back to spreadsheets quickly.
Start by establishing dedicated hierarchies and tags in NetSuite to categorize key sales dimensions like customer type, geo, product line, sales rep and channel.
With categorization schema in place, define essential reports and charts on key metrics across:
- New MRR
- Recurring revenue growth
- Account retention
- LTV to CAC ratio
- Days payables/receivables
- Cash runway
Build dashboards visualizing these outputs for consumption across the leadership ranks from execs to individual sales reps.
Arm employees with real-time visibility into performance indicators that motivate actions aligned with strategic results.
Why Choose SuiteRep for NetSuite Implementation?
Transitioning business platforms poses immense challenges but simultaneously serves as a pivotal milestone priming process improvement and future scale.
SuiteRep offers targeted guidance borne from lessons learned implementing NetSuite’s flexible platform across 1000+ mid-enterprise firms. Our solutions combine leading practices tailored for your industry with enough customization to realize needed gains without over-engineering.
We take an agile iterative approach conducting rapid prototyping and user testing to ensure the right capabilities come online at each phase at the right time – no more, no less.
NetSuite entrusts SuiteRep to joint engagements supporting their largest global clients because no partner better understands how to start right, scale fast, and continually optimize a living, breathing platform.
To learn more about SuiteRep’s startup-centric NetSuite implementations, contact one of our experts for a free personalized demo showcasing our balanced approach and unique advantages.
