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Piracle brings Automated Check Printing to NetSuite

The NetSuite ecosystem continues to enhance the core product and the user experience with functionality that make the user’s jobs easier and their business run better.

The latest enhancement is a NetSuite integration that’s helping to take the time, hassle and expense out of check writing. For consumers familiar with online banking, automatic payments and deposits, writing checks by hand may seem quaint, but for most businesses it’s the way things are still done.

And business that have advanced past hand-written checks still have to worry about security of check stock, dedicated printers and keeping the check numbers sequential.

Piracle Systems, an SDN partner and a NetSuite user itself since 2007, has created a Piracle Payment System (PPS) integration for NetSuite, that allows a business to issue checks directly from within the NetSuite system to a dedicated check printer.

Currently, NetSuite users send to a pre-printed check form. The Piracle Systems offering spares a business from having to worry about the security of the pre-printed forms, both the fraud risk and the handling requirements, and print personalized checks directly from NetSuite.

“That usually requires two or three people to run the process,” said Dan Parker, Marketing Director at Piracle. “We’re offering a streamlined capability to use blank stock for their process.”

The integration provides an enhancement that a number of NetSuite customers have requested for check printing capabilities.

Instead of pulling the preprinted check forms out of storage, counting out the right number for the bills at hand and ensuring they match the sequential numbers match the NetSuite system, users can simply send the requested checks to a dedicated printer.

Additionally, companies can customize the checks to match company branding, add additional reference or memo fields and adjust the style.

The functionality is currently available with all U.S. and Canadian banks with some Australian and European banks to come.

It’s just another example of how NetSuite is turning to partners to expand the product, one of many more to come.

-Raghu Gnanasekaran, Senior Director Business Development, NetSuite

Cazoomi Brings ‘beautiful harmony’ to Second Mile Water, Integrating NetSuite and Online Donation Software

Donations are the lifeblood of most charity organizations and allowing seamless, hassle-free donations can make a big difference in bringing them in.

NetSuite Solution Partner Cazoomi is helping one of the newest NetSuite.org charity grantees Second Mile Water in its work to end water poverty by integrating its online donation process with its NetSuite system using SyncApps®.

Second Mile Water, a nonprofit organization led by Founder & Executive Director Travis Ramos, is dedicated to not only helping people around the world gain access to clean water and sanitation, but also to making certain they have that access for generations to come.

Givers who support their mission often donate online. On the website, Second Mile Water teases that it “graciously accept gifts in the form of gold doubloons, gold bars and even golden idols,” but ensures that gifts in the form of credit card payments are securely processed by Authorize.Net. In order to integrate this donation process between Authorize.Net and NetSuite, Second Mile Water turned to Cazoomi for help.

Cazoomi, derived from the Japanese word “和美” meaning “beautiful harmony”, is a NetSuite Solution Partner enabling grantees’ software applications to talk to each other using SyncApps®, a real-time integration solution for over 100 different applications. In response to Second Mile Water’s needs, Cazoomi created a NetSuite SyncApp® for Authorize.Net so that donations flow seamlessly through both applications.

Having worked with hundreds of nonprofit organizations including NetSuite.org grantees Fonteva and Food for the Hungry Canada, Cazoomi has created a wide range of SyncApps for several other applications that nonprofits use every day, such as Act-On Software, cleverbridge, Constant Contact, Data.com, Delivra, ExactTarget, MailChimp, OneCallNow, Salesforce.com, Parature and Zendesk.

For those attending SuiteWorld, NetSuite’s customer conference, and the premier event for NetSuite partners and customers to collaborate and learn, Cazoomi will be demoing their solutions on platforms including Twilio, cleverbridge, Parature and Zendesk. Representatives will also be giving away a few free yearly plans to NetSuite customers who participate!

To demonstrate its dedication to helping nonprofit across the globe, Cazoomi provides a 50% discount on SyncApps® for nonprofits—a special value for those who need integration support.

If you’re interested in finding out if Cazoomi can sync up your organization’s disparate systems, visit them at www.cazoomi.com. Or meet them at SuiteWorld, May 13-16 in San Jose.  If you’d like to learn about becoming a NetSuite Solution Partner so that you can work with our grantees to help them achieve their missions, please reach out to us at giving@netsuite.com or chat with us online @NetSuiteOrg.

-Erin Dieterich, Global Employee Engagement Manager, NetSuite.org

A Dozen Reasons for Retailers to Attend SuiteWorld 2013

Retailers today face constant change, with new technologies and customer demands constantly emerging. The advent of mobile commerce, social media, customer behavior tracking and personalization, along with omnichannel shopping present fresh challenges to retailers.

To give NetSuite's retail customers a leg up on the competition, it is presenting an entire track of sessions devoted to retail at SuiteWorld 2013, May 13-16 in San Jose.  Each of these 12 dedicated retail–focused sessions is an excellent reason to attend SuiteWorld alone, nevermind the networking opportunities, keynotes and getting answers to NetSuite questions. They will address key issues such as retail marketing, online customer service, inventory management, sales forecasting, mobile commerce and multichannel selling.  You'll also get to explore the many advanced features of NetSuite’s end-to-end retail management solution. 

A few of the highlights include:

• Omnichannel Shopping — Here retailers learn the secrets to managing and integrating customer channels to create a flexible and seamless omnichannel shopping environment. The session will provide information and strategies for personalizing marketing and enhancing customer service across stores, websites, call centers, mobile, and social platforms while driving growth and revenue.

 

• Business Intelligence Tools for Multi-Channel Retailers —This session teaches retailers how to get real value from their customer data.  It will discuss how to use metrics and real-time analytics for inventory management, supplier evaluations and marketing campaigns.

 

• CRM in an Omnichannel World — Customers come to you over many different channels, including brick and mortar stores, mobile phones, and social media.  Providing them all with consistent high-quality service is a critical challenge.  Retail experts explain how to create a 360-degree profile of your customers and leverage it to provide the best service over every channel. 

 

• Retailing Beyond the Suite — Looking for a specific feature not currently available in your NetSuite retail solution? You may find it among the many third-party tools and applications created by industry vendors and NetSuite partners.  Attend this session and learn about many add-on products, from biometric security devices to retail traffic counters.

Often the best ideas come from your peers. Learn from other successful retailers at the session on Customer Success: Learning from Your Retail Peers. In this open forum, you'll learn the best practices and strategies of other retailers.  And don't forget to attend SuiteWorld's networking events and swap ideas with other conference goers.  

Register now for SuiteWorld and get the inside track on the newest technologies and best practices used by successful retailers. 

-Brenden Jenkins, GM of Retail & eTail Products at NetSuite

Why Multi-tenancy in the Cloud Matters

The hype around cloud computing has been going on long enough that even the derogatory term for it -- cloud washing -- is several years old.

Yet, with companies left and right fabricating their own cloud supremacy -- what we’ve termed the False Dawn of the Fake Cloud  here before -- buyers are left to sort through the fog. That’s why explaining the merits of multi-tenancy matter.

Economies of Scale

Running business applications in a single instance, whether it’s on-premise, with a hosting provider or with an Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) provider such as Amazon, does not provide the economies of scale of a multi-tenant solution. A hosted provider, aka the old Application Service Provider (ASP), model may save a company the hassle of managing hardware. Using IaaS for applications may allow companies to tap into shared commodity hardware. But running all customers on one instance of software and shared hardware means big savings. Some vendors might suggest that the advantage is only to the cloud provider, but be sure that savings are passed along to the customer. Just do a little price comparison and you’ll find out for yourself.

No More Version Lock

Cloud customers using a multi-tenant solution don’t have to worry about being stuck four versions behind the way they do with hosted software.  Ask customers whether they want the latest version of software and the answer is almost always yes. Unfortunately, the follow-up questions are how much does it cost and how disruptive will it be? Customers of multi-tenant solutions don’t need to worry about either one. Upgrades come as part of the subscription service and enhancements are iterative and gradual, what many end users have come to expect based on their experiences with consumer applications.

Investing in the future

Furthermore, multi-tenancy means the money being spent on applications isn’t just maintaining the status quo. Now, the money spent on a vendor like NetSuite is no longer being spent simply on what you have. You’re spending on the newest and latest versus just keeping the lights on. It’s benefiting from all the enhancements made by the vendor as opposed to waiting for it.

Ask the question

Multi-tenancy is so important that when software buyers are evaluating cloud software, whether the solution is multi-tenant or not (a true cloud solution or a hosted solution) is one of the top six questions to ask.

They are:

1. What is the vendor’s viability, cloud track record?
2. What are cloud SLA commitments, transparency?
3. Does the cloud vendor have the right certifications?
4. Is it hosted or a true cloud solution?
5. Has the provider achieved scale?
6. Can it be customized, extended, and integrated?

-Vishrut Parikh, Director, Product Marketing at NetSuite

NetSuite in the Twittersphere: Acquisitions, Media Coverage, and Toolkits

NetSuite has an active and engaged community of followers, customers and fans on Twitter. Today we’re highlighting some of the feedback, comments and shout outs we saw in the last quarter. To keep up to date with the NetSuite Twitter community, be sure to follow us @NetSuite.

NetSuite’s acquisition of Retail Anywhere got some positive reaction at the National Retail Federation 2013 Conference.

Netsuite's purchase of Retail Anywhere shows tech vendors beginning to catch up with the omnichannel aspirations of retailers. #nrf13

— Geoffrey Barraclough (@GeoffreyB) January 14, 2013

NetSuite CEO Zach Nelson’s appearance on Bloomberg West and his thoughts on enterprise software found some fans.

The rise of the enterprise with @netsuite's @zachnelson and @boxhq's @levie on a special @bloombergwest

— Emily Chang (@emilychangtv) January 16, 2013

The volunteer work of NetSuite employees and its commitment to service grabbed the attention of SmartRecruiters.

Congrats @netsuite you've been named among the elite of Facebook Employer Branding for highlighting social good! bit.ly/WWg1n9

— SmartRecruiters (@SmartRecruiters) January 25, 2013

The combination of NetSuite, OzLink and SPS Commerce was a winning formula for Lionel NASCAR Collectibles.

"@netsuite, @ozedge and SPS Commerce are fundamental to our operation." -R.Gemereth VP of IT @lionelnascar #TF13 #TFNY bit.ly/WblDg3

— SPS Commerce (@SPS_Commerce) January 28, 2013

The new NetSuite toolkit also found some fans.

Taking my first look at the new @netsuite #phpToolkit. Way slick, and a huge improvement over previous versions.

— Dave Weiss (@DaveWeissDotNet) January 25, 2013

Some Practice Fusion folks were happy to be part of the NetSuite billboard.

Billboard love! @practicefusion @netsuite #NetSuite twitter.com/PF_Kev/status/…

— Kevin (@PF_Kev) January 31, 2013

Philz Coffee, Serving Customers via the Cloud – One Cup at a Time

It seems like every time I turn around there’s a hot new coffee shop serving the best beans and the best coffee in town. For some it’s about cost, for some it’s about the beans, and for others it’s about the freshness, but for Philz Coffee the story is different. If you don’t know Philz, it had its start in the Mission District of San Francisco and since 2003 has been taking a “customer-centric” approach to coffee, one cup at a time.

Philz is named after Phil Jaber, who started working on the perfect cup of coffee almost 25 years ago. Phil began his coffee career experimenting and creating great-tasting coffee blends and finally decided to start selling his coffee at the corner grocery at Folsom and 24^th in 2003, but that was just the start. After perfecting his blends, Phil wanted to make sure each cup was made in a way that brought out all the flavors of the coffee and thus the Philz Way of coffee making was born. Using a custom designed coffee station, Philz is all about creating a perfect cup of coffee, one cup at a time.

Phil, together with his son Jacob, didn’t want to stop there. They wanted to bring their particular approach to coffee to the masses. And this was about more than just a single retail location. Jacob knew that if Philz really wanted to scale, they needed to have a technology foundation that would seamlessly support their growth. So in 2010, Philz adopted NetSuite. After a recommendation from a friend and an evaluation of NetSuite, Philz made the move from QuickBooks to cloud-based NetSuite. For Philz, it was a great fit, it matched the company’s current needs, but its all-in-one capabilities provided the foundation for future growth.

Philz has retail, wholesale and online parts to its business and NetSuite provides the technology backbone for all of these elements. Additionally, Philz uses NetSuite for its manufacturing processes, trusting NetSuite and the cloud to manage the secret blends that Phil has taken years to perfect. Since adopting NetSuite, Philz has grown over 400%. Philz now has over 13 retail stores, and five more expected to launch before 2014 Philz also supplies coffee to FaceBook, Google, Twitter and Virgin America. Customers can also order directly from Philz Coffee for their favorite blends.

Philz is just starting its journey to provide coffee around the world, similarly NetSuite is on a similar journey to provide the Fortune 5 Million company an application to run their entire business. And just like Philz, who serves its coffee one cup at a time, so is the approach at NetSuite, bringing businesses to the cloud, one customer at a time.

-Ranga Bodla, Industry Marketing, NetSuite

10 Tips for Getting the Most Out of SuiteWorld 2013

With a new location, a new slate of sessions and a wealth of new NetSuite partners and customers, SuiteWorld 2013 promises to be the best one yet.

The NetSuite conference is moving from San Francisco to the San Jose Convention Center this year to accommodate the roughly 5,000 attendees expected to be at the show May 13-16. And a show with that kind of turnout with more than 180 breakout sessions requires a little preparation. Here are 10 ways SuiteWorld attendees can ensure they get the most out of the conference.

1. Research.  SuiteWorld offers a wealth of information for getting the most out of your NetSuite deployment with sessions that cover every facet of the suite. Factor in some free time, but be sure to spend the time up front figuring out your business needs and the schedule that makes the most sense for you. Then you’ll be better positioned to come home with actionable information.
2. Go Early. SuiteWorld’s preconference in-depth training workshops offer a deep dive into all areas of the solution for intermediate to advanced NetSuite users, spanning reporting, OneWorld, workflows and more.
3. Take Note of the Keynotes. NetSuite leadership (CEO Zach Nelson, CTO and founder Evan Goldberg, and COO Jim McGeever) will open each day with a keynote session providing entertaining, informative insight into NetSuite’s progress, product roadmap and vision for the future of the cloud.
4. Learn at Lunch. SuiteWorld has three ways to make your lunch more than just a break from the show to scarf down some food.  Tuesday offers a chance to sit down with show sponsors to get answers to your questions about the cloud, integration or simply network. Wednesday offers the chance to meet with the user group community and share best practices across multiple roles. Wednesday also presents the chance to have lunch with SuiteWorld bloggers and NetSuite product experts. Just sit down at the table with the topic you’re interested in.
5. Brainstorm. If the excitement of the show and the energy of progressive companies executing on their vision has you inspired, wander over to the SUITEideas area to whiteboard your ideas and get insight from NetSuite product experts on how to execute on your own vision.
6. Network. There’s perhaps no better way to learn and grow at SuiteWorld than by talking and sharing with fellow customers and partners. In the session rooms, the hallways, the coffee area, it’s a chance not only to learn how to get the most out of your NetSuite implementation, but potentially find the right partner or business opportunity. Better yet, chill out in the SuiteLife lounge where you can rest, recharge and network in comfort.
7. Meet the SuiteGuru. Sit down with our technical experts and get your specific questions about CRM, Ecommerce, ERP, OneWorld, OpenAir, the SuiteCloud platform or Web design answered in 30-minute meetings. But be sure to schedule them, pre-registration is required and seating is limited.
8. Tour the Floor. Wander the show floor, pick up some schwag and find the solution your business needs to accomplish its vision. It’s all on display. When you’re done, wander over to the SuiteStore to pick up your official SuiteWorld gift from customers such as Incipio (iPhone 4 or 5 case), Nakajima (Hello Kitty swag), Philz Coffee (lb of coffee), Liberty Water Bottle (official SW water bottle) or School of Rock (t-shirt). 
9. Get Out. You’ve traveled to San Jose, now take some time to get outside. Take a walk, go out to eat at one of the area’s signature restaurants, soak up Silicon Valley.
10. Get Down.  After all the contacts are made, the questions answered and your mission accomplished, be sure to grab a cold drink and have a suite time at Wednesday night’s SuiteCelebration Gala.

We look forward to seeing you. Be sure to follow @NetSuite and #NSW13 on Twitter to keep up to date on the show. If you’re looking for more inspiration, check out the scene
from last year:

 

For more information on SuiteWorld 2013, please visit: http://www.netsuite.com/portal/press/events/nsw2013/main.shtml

Seven Ways Finance Teams Are Being Overworked, and How To Fix It

Accounting and finance teams are being asked to do more than ever to provide actionable analytical insights and help solve business problems on a daily basis. Unfortunately, the haphazard growth of business systems often gets in the way, and the end result is that financial professionals are being overworked and struggling with financial software systems that are simply not up to the task.

Here are some of the most painful ways finance teams are being overworked today:

1. Financial professionals are forced to deal with disparate systems with little to no integration.
2. Manual tasks, such as spreadsheet export/import cycles, are required to answer even the simplest business question.
3. There are no real-time, customizable dashboards available to operational personnel and executives, meaning that every business question has to flow through the financial department.
4. Mobile access to financial data means grappling with VPN connections, or worse, simply having no access to the information while out of the office.
5. There is no company-wide standard for KPIs, meaning there is no clear way to compare costs or performance across different departments or divisions without complex, manual calculations.
6. Subsidiaries are being run on different financial software platforms with no integration or real-time visibility at headquarters, making accurate performance data costly and time-consuming to obtain.
7. Getting hold of data for company-wide reporting, auditing and decision support requires logging in to multiple data systems or asking for IT assistance.

Fortunately, there is a way out of this mess. NetSuite has teamed up with the Institute of Management Accountants (IMA) to find answers to these problems. I will be leading a webinar on February 13 at 1:00 p.m. ET and will be presenting IMA research on how these problems are affecting finance leaders, and will moderate a panel discussion of financial executives who will share real-life insights into how they overcome these obstacles in their own organizations.

After the webinar you'll know how to deal with these seven signs of overwork, and know the way forward to improve company-wide visibility and performance. I hope you will join me for the talk by registering now for this free webinar here. There's even a CPE credit in it for you.

-Vishrut Parikh, Director, Product Marketing at NetSuite

Cloud ERP in 2012: The Competitive Landscape

Clearly 2012 was a big year for Cloud ERP. More providers than ever were declaring their commitment to the platform, all while sending some mixed signals as to their true intentions.

For a company built on the cloud from the ground up -- strange as that might sound, it’s the truth -- watching the competition struggle with adapting to the new business model all while trying to maintain their legacy business makes for an interesting read.

What follows is an examination of the competitive landscape for Cloud ERP in 2012.

Microsoft

In many ways, Microsoft has a well-earned reputation as a fast follower, but its Cloud ERP progress has been anything but.

At its 2011 Convergence Conference, Microsoft boldly laid out its plan to release the next generation of Dynamics ERP on Azure, starting with NAV. Then last March, Microsoft pledged NAV would go into Beta and arrive by year’s end along with GP 13. Only that didn’t happen.

Then, in December, Microsoft further delayed its Cloud ERP plans deeper into 2013, telling
InformationWeek:

An anticipated Microsoft Azure public-cloud deployment option for Dynamics NAV and Dynamics GP ERP apps has been pushed back into the second half of next year.

SAP

Meanwhile SAP’s long and winding road toward Cloud-based ERP continued its meandering path. Walldorf spent the last year firmly focused on HANA and mobile, leading some (okay, me in another role, but I heard it from others too) to wonder if SAP was leaving ERP behind. Certainly, it plans on leaving much of its new ERP business to the partner channel. Not necessarily Cloud ERP, of course.

Business ByDesign remains SAP’s Cloud ERP offering, but where once the company trumpeted its plans and what success it had with the product, SAP is now playing coy with customer numbers for Business ByDesign. It’s stuck on 1,000. From SearchSAP.com’s SAP Watch Blog:

“We’re still referring to the number that we provided last November, more than one thousand users,” according to Astrid Poelchen, director of SAP product communications.

Meanwhile, SAP’s big cloud splash was the acquisition of SuccessFactors and the outspoken CEO that went along with it. The man empowered to lead SAP’s cloud initiatives moving forward, wasn’t too impressed with the way Business ByDesign has been brought to market.

“It hasn’t been marketed right, it hasn’t been positioned right or explained right and people haven’t been trained right,” Lars Dalgaard said at Sapphire, SAP’s user conference. “There isn’t much I can say that’s been done right.”

SAP did manage to release Financials OnDemand, accounting, general ledger and other functionality pulled from Business ByDesign and offered as a separate module, but that has the potential to simply further confuse customers evaluating SAP’s growing number of ERP products.

Workday

With its roots in HR software, Workday ventured into financials in 2012, with Workday 16 and Workday 17, no doubt a partial response to Oracle, SAP and IBM pushing into its cloud HR turf with the acquisitions of Taleo, SuccesFactors and Kenexa respectively.

The push was also likely fueled by Workday’s IPO. And while, analysts have been generally impressed with the product, Workday’s customer base sits at just 325 major customers, according to the IPO filing, making BusinessByDesign’s 1,000 figure seem like a wild success.

Sage, Epicor, SAP Business All in One

There are, of course, many flavors of cloud and plenty of providers more than willing to take their on-premise software, throw it up on Amazon and call it Cloud ERP. We’ve written about the problems of the fake cloud here in this space before.

SearchManufacturingERP does a nice job of explaining the pitfalls of public Coud ERP in the context of Sage, Epicor and SAP’s Business All in One products being put in the cloud last year.

As Bob Parker, group vice president at IDG Manufacturing Insights, said in the story:

“I would greatly question the performance of putting the database tier in the cloud. SAP Business All-in-One] may be certified, but you would be certifiable if you do it.” In the typical, three-tier SAP deployment, Parker said, the middle tier is where business logic resides, database queries come through, and transactions are processed. This tier must communicate with the database tier. “There’s probably considerable latency running that [database] on the cloud,” he said. “You’re going to take all that internal traffic between your on-premise middle tier and your Amazon database tier.”

Epicor and Sage, which are both moving their products to Windows Azure, have a legacy of .NET and SQL Server to thank. However the transition from on-premise to the cloud is not an easy one, requiring code modification.

Then there’s the SQL Azure database. Again, from SearchManufacturingERP.com:

The required SQL Azure database is also a potential trouble spot. It’s precisely the challenge Epicor has faced, according to R "Ray" Wang, CEO and principal analyst of Constellation Research Inc. “They’ve had a hard time getting SQL Azure to work,” he said.

The coming year promises more advancement, hype and likely a missed goal or two, but it’s clear which direction the market is moving.

-Barney Beal, Content Director/Editor at NetSuite

SAP Raises Maintenance Again, Highlighting Benefits of SaaS

Under surprising, but maybe not unexpected news, Frank Scavo and Jarret Pazahanick revealed today that SAP is again raising its fees for maintaining software it already sold.

SAP has done this before. Four years ago, SAP eliminated its low-cost maintenance option (scroll down to bypass registration). That decision led to a customer uproar, a KPI program that was established and scrapped and a great deal of examination of just what SAP customers get from maintenance. That’s what made today’s news surprising.

According to Pazahanick, SAP sent a letter to partners today, informing them of the change. It said:

To be able to provide the same level of support in the future, we will change the maintenance rate for new maintenance contracts with SAP Standard Support from 18% to 19%, effective July 15, 2013.

Of course, maintenance fees are a huge cash cow for legacy, on-premise software vendors. That’s what keeps this news from being unexpected. As Reuters points out in its coverage of SAP’s latest earnings call:

Software sales generate high-margin, long-term maintenance contracts and are an important gauge of a company's future profit.

It’s a point Scavo also acknowledges with some pointed questions of his own. How will maintenance be improved with the hike? How will SAP’s gross margin change as a result? Have there been increases in SAP’s support costs to justify this?

It’s times like these that Software as a Service (SaaS), with its automatic upgrades, standard monthly fee and ongoing, consistent support structure, starts to look very good.

-Barney Beal, Content Director/Editor at NetSuite