An Introduction to NetSuite SuiteProjects

NetSuite has launched a new module, SuiteProjects. It’s designed for professional services businesses and oversees the full lifecycle of a firm’s projects, from the initial proposal, right through to invoicing at the end.

SuiteProjects is a professional services automation (PSA) solution. When combined with ERP, HR and CRM software, it delivers a comprehensive solution for any professional services business.

Here’s our introduction to SuiteProjects, including its key functionality and main benefits.

What is NetSuite SuiteProjects?

SuiteProjects is a solution that streamlines service-based businesses. It’s a comprehensive project management suite that empowers teams to be more productive, employ resources better and therefore run more profitable projects. With effectively-run projects, companies will have more satisfied clients and can reduce their levels of non-billable work. Companies can also generate accurate and timely invoices, thereby improving cashflow and reducing revenue leakage.

With powerful intelligence and real-time reporting, visibility across the organisation is improved. Forecasts, KPIs and other measures can be tracked to ensure project deadlines are met, resources are optimally managed and projects meet their profit targets.

As with all NetSuite products, SuiteProjects is cloud-based so can be accessed with an internet connection, from anywhere and at any time.

In SuiteProjects, users can set up projects, create tasks and assign staff to them. The dashboard shows the status and key metrics for those projects, with measurements such as billable hours, percentage complete, project risk level, billing forecast and more. Then, users can drill down into individual projects to easily see details of the tasks and project plan, identify any underperforming areas and to link quickly to other key aspects of the project.

Which Businesses Can Benefit from SuiteProjects?

SuiteProjects is aimed at services businesses that manage project-based work. It is ideal for IT consulting services, advertising and marketing agencies, companies involved in software implementation, or any business that provides services to customers.

With the increasing servitisation of products, it’s also apt for businesses that offer their products in service formats, such as those that sell maintenance contracts for their products.

NetSuite SuiteProjects is suitable for your service business whether your resources number 10 or 20,000.

Key Functionality of SuiteProjects

First and foremost, SuiteProjects is a project management tool. It allows teams to collaborate on projects and gives oversight of the project in real-time. The status of projects is always kept up to date, so that any issues can quickly be identified and resolved.

Resource management functionality allows managers to minimise the time that team members are non-billable and ensures that appropriately qualified staff are allocated to the right projects. Optimising resources in this way helps raise productivity and per-engagement profits.

With time and expense management, detailed hours and expenses information is easily captured. Project staff can quickly add this information whether they are in the office, on site or on the road.

The billing functionality automates basic invoices for services as well as more complex billing, such as for recurring contracts, time and materials agreements and fixed fee business. There are flexible billing options that let you invoice on completion of the project, or when project milestones are achieved or according to dates and schedules. The invoicing is fully integrated with the finance functions of NetSuite.

With the optional Advanced Revenue Management module, complex project revenue calculations and allocations can be automated and multiple revenue scenarios can be supported, including revenue recognition, forecasting and reclassification.

Project accounting delivers comprehensive reporting for analysis of project-by-project profitability. Project activities are connected to the business financials, ensuring accurate billing and accounting during the project and efficient time and expense management.

The analytics tools give real-time, on-demand access to reports and intelligence data that help professional services firms monitor and analyse the performance of their projects.

Remote access is fundamental to all NetSuite products and SuiteProjects is no exception. It is a cloud-based system that supports users wherever they need to work. Just an internet connection and browser are all that is needed, giving staff access via mobile devices from work, home, on the road or on client sites.

Integration Provides a Single Solution

Integration with other elements of NetSuite gives professional services businesses a single solution to manage their business, from initial enquiry through to project completion.

By integrating with NetSuite CRM, companies get a full view of the customer relationship and can capture and manage the necessary detail needed when running projects. This includes sales force automation, marketing automation, customer support and service, giving a view of contacts during the entire customer lifecycle – from prospect, via closing the deal, through customer onboarding and service delivery, finally to after-sales service. NetSuite CRM integrates fully with the project management features, eliminating the need for manual rekeying of customer data, for example. This reduces the chance of mistakes and speeds up and streamlines internal processes.

Combining SuiteProjects with NetSuite OneWorld allows global professional service operations to manage the complexity of multiple business units, billing in different currencies, varied local taxation rates, compliance and differing reporting requirements.

To find out more about this professional services automation tool, download the NetSuite SuiteProjects datasheet. If you would like a demonstration, please get in touch or book an appointment with one of our certified consultants.