Netsuite 2020.2 is just around the corner, as per usual it brings with it a host of improvements, upgrades & new features. In this article, we’ll explore some of the biggest features and updates to look out for with the release of 2020.2. We’ll be looking at the latest features for accounting, banking, infrastructure and inventory & order management. We’ll also cover what you need to do to ensure your business is ready for the new release.

Accounting

NetSuite 2020.2 includes a new accounting preference to give you control over the generation of revenue recognition forecast plans. The accounting preference Disable Creation of Forecast Plans lets you skip forecast plan generation. When you check the Disable Creation of Forecast Plans box, NetSuite suspends creation of revenue recognition forecast plans. If you suspend a forecast plan, create and resume it later, generation of forecast plans will take longer than usual.

The only reports affected by this accounting preference are the Revenue Recognition Forecast reports. When you disable forecast plan creation, these reports no longer include forecasted lines.

There’s also an update to The Currency Exchange Rate Types feature that lets you store multiple currency exchange rates for a currency pair and date. Unless you enable this feature, you can have only one exchange rate for each currency pair and date combination. This feature is available in NetSuite OneWorld only after you enable the Multiple Currencies and Intercompany Framework features.

Other NetSuite 2020.2 accounting features:

• All balancing segments preferences and setup processes are now on the Balancing Segments subtab in Setup > Accounting > Accounting Preferences (Administrator).

• A new Payments Use Transaction Line Segmentation preference adjusts payments using balancing journals and an inter-segment cash account.

• Print the general ledger impact for transactions from all accounting books, including secondary books.

• Filter and select which general ledger impact statements to print in bulk based on general ledger number, document number, or transaction number.

Sequential Liability SuiteApp version 1.02 is now generally available. This SuiteApp provides a unified view of accounts payable, accounts receivable, projects, and cash balances while enabling financial controllers to pay vendors confidently.

Banking

You can now use format profiles to configure imports for expense reporting in addition to bank and credit card reconciliation. If you use the Expense Reports feature, you can set up imports of corporate card charges for employee expense reports. To set up a format profile for manual import of corporate card charges, create an implementation of the new Financial Institution Parser Plug-in. To set up a format profile for automatic import of corporate card charges, you need to use both a parser and connectivity plug-in.

In this release, you can also automate the process of creating and matching account transactions with imported bank data.

For many businesses, the reconciliation of Credit cards is a major month-end task, NetSuite now supports automatic Credit Card retrieval, currently, AMEX is supported out of the box but additional custom connections are possible and likely major Credit Card providers will be provided in the next releases.

Another useful feature is the automatic creating of transactions based on bank import data if there is a match NetSuite will automatically create the transaction giving you one less thing to do with each bank reconciliation. These items may be small but overall cuts the amount of time to close the books each month which for any accountants out there like myself it’s all adds up to a quicker month-end close.

Other NetSuite 2020.2 banking features:

• In NetSuite 2020.2, you can manage duplicate transactions directly from the Match Bank Data page. NetSuite automatically stores imported bank lines flagged as duplicates in the Excluded subtab.

• In NetSuite 2020.2, the new Financial Institution Parser Plug-in API enables you to import and parse additional data types, including corporate card expenses.

• The Banking Import History page (previously called Imported Statement List) now includes status details about each bank import. You can expand each row to view the import details.

Infrastructure

Data centre-specific domains are targeted for deprecation. As of 2020.2, you must use account-specific domains or dynamic methods to discover the correct domain to use for SOAP web services, RESTlets, external Suitelets, and external forms. The Traffic Health tool is available in NetSuite to help you find the use of data centre-specific URLs by the aforementioned services.

Traffic Health now evaluates the NetSuite UI, Commerce sites, inbound email, and the File Cabinet to identify traffic that is using data centre-specific URLs in your account.

Inventory & order management

NetSuite 2020.2 introduces a new Supply Planning tool that can help supply planners determine how to best establish criteria to fulfil Demand Plan requirements. Supply planning takes sales order details to generate dependent demand for work order components. The tool enables you to balance supply and demand to achieve your organization’s financial and service objectives.

The NetSuite Supply Planning process starts when one transaction, or a combination of transactions (Purchase Order, Transfer Order, or Work Order), are created or initiated. The Item Demand Plan records the expected future demand for an item based on previous or projected demand, and inventory supply is matched to demand sources. All this information is stored in the Planning Repository.

The Planning Repository process fetches the latest data from NetSuite to help you control the timing of the input coming from the execution system. It provides a consistent view of supply and demand. It also helps you resolve issues and analyze scenarios.

In terms of order management in NetSuite 2020.2, the Installments feature includes enhancements to payment amount division. Prior to NetSuite 2020.2, any tax amount was collected with the first instalment amount. You can also use the Invoice Groups feature to combine invoices for your customers. Combine invoices into groups based on characteristics the invoices share. A customer can have multiple invoice groups based on the different criteria for each group.

Other NetSuite 2020.2 inventory & order management updates:

• You can use the NetSuite Supply Plan Definition to establish supply planning criteria. The plan definition provides the information that drives the scheduling process.

• After the Supply Plan is run, the Planning Engine generates planning messages, planned orders, engine supply, engine demand, and pegging information.

• The data produced by the planning engine appears in the Supply Planning Workbench. From the workbench, you can review action and exceptions messages.

• After orders are firmed, released, and changed, you can then implement the planned orders and approve the change orders.

• NetSuite 2020.2 Supply Allocation includes the Inbound Shipment feature as a source of supply. This information helps improve the accuracy of purchase order supply allocation calculations.

• Use the Invoice Groups feature to combine invoices for your customers. Combine invoices into groups based on characteristics the invoices share.

NetSuite 2020.2 Global Subsidiary Management Features

NetSuite has been the leading global entity solution for a number of years and continues to lead with the introduction of additional features here such as Transaction Pairing for intercompany bills and invoices

What other great feature is the support for international phone number formatting which is supported both in the user interface and SuiteScript,

When you enter a phone number in NetSuite, the phone number is formatted according to the following rules:

• If the number you entered is the same country as your subsidiary, the system omits the country code and formats the number according to valid national standards.

• If the number you entered is a different country than your subsidiary, the system keeps the number in the international format and formats the number according to the standards of the given country on the basis of the used country code.

We’ve built a number of phone integrations with NetSuite and this will allow the numbers to format automatically to work with the external phones we support if you are looking for phone solutions that work with NetSuite touch base with us on what we have used and recommended.

What to do before 2020.2

Before the 2020.2 release, you must update your integrations, RESTlets, external Suitelets, and external forms in your production account that are still using data centre-specific domains. Integrations and external Suitelets must either use account-specific domains or use a dynamic method for discovering the domain. NetSuite gives you the tools needed to identify the data centre-specific URLs in your account and to verify that the updates you make are successful. See the help topic Traffic Health for information on locating data centre-specific URLs in your production account

To get an internal review of your account and what 2020.2 would benefit your NetSuite setup, please get in touch with us below.