Take a sneak peek at what’s in store from the Oracle NetSuite 2021.2 Release

In a constantly evolving business landscape, organisations need optimum flexibility to be able to adapt and thrive. Achieving efficiencies, maximising productivity and increasing customer satisfaction are all key objectives. The challenges of the last year have made those objectives even more pertinent, and the solution can certainly be found within Oracle NetSuite. The latest features released under the 2021.2 update – available Mid October but can be previewed now on your test account – will enable you to access accurate data and generate greater insights that will help facilitate success.

Smart financials, operational automation and better data visualisation are prioritised. There are also some enhanced functionality treats in store for in-house development teams creating customisations, updates and integrations in test environments.

New automation feature to improve efficiencies and cash flow

Big enhancements have been made over the past few updates around the importing of bank statements and automated matching of transactions, providing great benefits to many. The downside was having no matches after this process, which meant having to subsequently manually key in, or build import files to fill the gaps.

The Automated Cash Application feature available in the 2021.2 release comes to the rescue. It allows you to generate missing payments and gives the option to apply them to open invoices, or leave them as unapplied payments. It also reconciles the generated payments, removing them from the match bank data page. This new functionality helps improve cash flow, lower Days Sales Outstanding (DSO) and reduce Accounts Receivable (AR) ageing.

Enhanced data visualisation capabilities

As real-time data visualisation provides the key to better insights for informed decision-making, SuiteAnalytics has become an important business intelligence tool for many organisations; now there is further enhancement to SuiteAnalytics workbook. While previous releases offered the capability to add multiple datasets into a single workbook, it did not allow the mixing of datasets in the same visualisation within that workbook.

The 2021.2 release brings us a step closer to achieving this, with general availability of the workbook API. Using a suitescript module, you can now link two datasets which allows use of both datasets within a single visualisation. It isn’t the stride we’d have hoped for, as currently you cannot do this from within the UI, but it is a step in the right direction. With the power it gives, we don’t imagine it will be long before we see this capability in an upcoming release.

Better Sandbox refresh options for developers

Of course, being able to ensure customisations, updates and integrations operate smoothly before going live is an important function for in-house developers. A very unexpected feature of the new release allows customers on Premium, Enterprise or Ultimate service tiers to now refresh Sandboxes from other Sandbox accounts linked to their production account. A dropdown list of source accounts is added to the Sandbox accounts page, listing applicable accounts that can be copied from.

A sensible list of limitations is included which restricts copies being created from expired or inactive Sandboxes, as well as not being able to copy from the account you are trying to refresh. This provides a great feature for in-house development teams to take advantage of and one we wouldn’t be surprised to see extended to Standard tiers in future releases.

Greater flexibility of customer scheduled maintenance

Currently, moving any kind of maintenance scheduled by NetSuite is not possible unless you are on Premium, Enterprise or Ultimate service tiers – and this is limited to New Release upgrades. Starting in 2021.2, and with enhancements planned over the next few releases, this capability is being brought to all accounts and various other maintenance types.

To execute schedule changes, go to Setup > Company > Customer Scheduled Maintenance, and select ‘reschedule’ beside the maintenance you want to reschedule. This can be done prior to, but not within 72 hours of the planned maintenance.

When rescheduling, you will be offered alternative dates that you are eligible for and are required to justify the reason for the change. Once accepted, the maintenance is moved and administrators are notified using the normal account maintenance notifications.

As of this release, three types will be added: account moves to Oracle cloud data centres, routine maintenance and database updates. The addition of NetSuite version upgrades are already planned for future releases.

The above outlines just a few of our top picks, but there’s a plethora of new features and functions to explore in NetSuite’s 2021.2 release. There’s nothing like getting hands-on to test them out and see what’s available to improve your operations, so don’t forget to check your test account access date.

However, if you would like further information or guidance on what features might be beneficial for your business, whether that be in manufacturing, warehouse distribution, financial services or professional services, get in touch with our expert team today.