SC Corner E6 Part 01: Limits of Solutioning

Becca.

I'm Becca Smith, a solution architect here at netgain. I'm a cpa and I started my career at Deloitte as a tax accountant. My legendary co host, Chris Miller, is a NetSuite expert. He's our VP of Product Strategy here at NetGain, and he has over six years solutioning with some of NetSuite's largest enterprise clients. He's been a Controller, CFO, Director of Finance, and many other roles. So let's jump in and tackle today's topic. Okay, so we actually dived super deep into our topic today, which means we have split this into two parts. So this episode is part one. Make sure that if you like it to go, listen to part two. Chris. Okay, I'm excited to start talking today. We are going to be covering kind of limits of solutioning, so wanting to cover some of those questions around when you should be pushing the limits of software, when you work within it. And then also what, like, customization kind of looks like within different erps.

Yeah, that sounds great.

Okay, well, I guess let's just start at the top. So obviously netsuite is one of the biggest selling points is that they're super customizable. Right. Being able to create safe searches, create your own reporting, being able to edit all those things, adding custom segments. Right. So I guess you've worked in different erps. Can you give me a little bit of, like, compare and contrast of what customization looks like within NetSuite versus others?

Yeah, I'd be happy to. So if you kind of use netsuite as like, the base or the standard, you know, the ability to customize is one of NetSuite's tremendous strengths. And it used to be that it was also unique. Like, other people didn't do it. Like, when I first, and even to the point where many times netsuite would have to almost try to convince people it was okay. In the early days, I remember even when we bought, I didn't believe any of it. And I was like, I don't want any of your customization stuff or, or anything like that.

Is that just from like the accountant's mindset of I want controls in place? And so it's like, you can't change anything.

Yep, Because I came from the world of part of that Great Plains and Adam came from JD Edwards, and we used to talk about before we even knew that's what existed. But, like, if you wanted to change where a field was on Great Plains, you had to hire somebody. It'd be several thousand dollars and you know, who knows how long it would take? And you wouldn't even know what they did to change that. So the idea that you could make all these changes, you were just like, well, yeah, for like a million dollars, you know, type thing.

Okay. So you're like hearing customization, you're thinking, okay, great, but I'm gonna have to pay for that.

Yeah, exactly. Take J.D. edwards, for example. Another system that was kind of like an enterprise system, but it was that, well, if you want to write a report, you would have to hire a consultant, and it would cost you a lot of money. But then it got worse. You would have to hire another consultant to interpret the report to say that it was correct, because you had no clue how it was done or how it was done.

With coding, you don't have any control on the back end.

Exactly.

So you don't have any controls on the front end.

Yeah. And so people would do that was kind of the mindset 15 years ago. And one of the first things that people came in when they were talking about cloud software in general was like, hey, if you find something that works for you, it's really good, but you can't change it, you can't make it. And now you flash, you know, your role is for 15 years, and that's what you buy cloud software for, to make it customizable and shape it. So that's been like a big change that's happened. But if you look at them, and I have experience with a couple, so if you think of NetSuite, NetSuite has two things that kind of distinguish it. It has a low. It has a no code platform, and that's your point. And clicks. So that's form creation, adding a custom field, adding a custom segment. And then NetSuite also has. We'll call it low code, and that's suite script. That's where you can actually go in and you can write JavaScript and do a lot of things. When I say low code, it's because there's a library, you know, to call functions that helps you to say this.

This is where you can go into ChatGPT, and it's gonna tell you exactly what you need. You can just plug and play.

Exactly. And that's. That's like, really nice because that's been the thing because if you take customizations, you have. You take like a next world, for example. It's a platform, but it's only point and click. You can't code it at all. And so you have to.

It becomes a lower level of Customization.

And then you go. Yep. And then say you go to like to Work Day and Workday's really started building out their platform. They call it Extend and there's things they can do with it, except it's like all code. There's no, you know, as it grows, maybe that will change. But essentially people like us who work, we'll call ourselves like the development shops that run in netsuite and do that. Those don't exist over in workday. It's PwC, it's Accenture and it's Netflix as a, you know, rolling out something they did because it's. While you can customize it, it's not point and click. You gotta start really knowing what you're doing.

If you have Salesforce or. Sorry, if you have Workday and you're looking to be able to do that type of code, are you then hiring a developer or like those consultants you're hiring to like run all of that? Do you run into the issue where you were saying where like, okay, but now I need another consultant to come in and verify that all of that is like code kosher with them?

No, because one of the things that they do slightly different is where NetSuite's super open ecosystem and for better or worse, you get like some really good developers, but then you get some people who are like, sure, I know how to be a NetSuite developer. And there's nothing. Theirs is very tightly controlled. So you can't go in and actually do anything until you've passed all their certifications and get it. Like you can't become a partner until you pass the certifications and do that stuff.

NetSuite has that too with like the SDN, like, yep, committees.

Yeah, it is. It's just more in my experience practically, you can't even get started. It's like you have to be part of the.

It's not like you come to them with like, here's a bundle of code, can you approve it? It's more like, I have to show that I'm even able before I'm able to.

That's exactly it. So you have to be one of the approved people to even start doing it. And then you only start that process with them. So. So those are kind of the different extremes. And then you look at like a. And intact. Intact has followed netsuite's role lead a little bit. They used to have no platform now. Then they introduced kind of some point and click, you know, customizations. And I've seen they've started actually doing Some apps, for example, they released a very basic lease accounting app that is technically intact native. They build it themselves, but they built it on the platform instead of the core. So that's like kind of like a first step to them trying to do what netsuite did. And then of course on the low end you've got QuickBooks, which is you, you buy it as is. And a lot of them, you know, do that. There's really, you know, I bet QBO has probably added some, you know, like.

But like your average user can't like edit anything inside of the quickbook.

That's exactly right. And they're not creating fields or the thought of creating an app or anything is, you know, not, not possible.

Okay, that makes sense. And that's actually super helpful. Just kind of get an idea of like the lay of the land when it comes to all the different ERP systems. So I guess would you say that like netsuite was the original and they're more like best in class or would you say that you think netsuite is going to move towards like one of these? Or maybe it doesn't.

Oh no, I think everyone, everyone aspires to be NetSuite or Salesforce. So like, because they were kind of born at the same time of the same thing, like Salesforce really leaned hard into the platform. You know, they used to call it Force.com and what Salesforce did that was different than NetSuite. NetSuite's platform is designed completely around it all to interact with NetSuite, where Salesforce actually went one step further and you can add stuff into Salesforce. But then over here is a complete. You would be amazed at how many apps we use in our daily life that's built entirely on, on the Salesforce platform, but has nothing to do with Salesforce. So take like.

Well, our lease accounting software is like that. Like you wouldn't have any idea you're in Salesforce.

That's exactly right. But it's built on the platform. Who else? Oh, our, our employee portal. I forget who they are. Completely, completely, completely Salesforce driven by them. So they, they're doing that the custom, you know, kind of built all on the platform. And you've got companies like Aptis and you know, and these that did. There are public companies that build everything actually just on Salesforce. So it's a pretty, it's so that part of it, the variety and kind of like the, the breadth of what they can do. Salesforce's platform is bigger than that. Like you wouldn't think to build a unique app with NetSuite, it would be meant to tie in where you could do that Salesforce. However, if you stop and look at like the premise of what netsuite want to be, and Zach used to say this when I would hear him, was they would kind of start out and then the dream was someone would come in and he actually used this as an example. Someone come in and build out who knew a lot about being a veterinarian and would come out and create everything that it took to be a veterinarian on NetSuite. And then that would become exactly what they wanted and how to. How to do that. And that's kind of what they were really. They were enabling that to be because.

Which is where we come in. Like. Right. We know a lot about lease accounting and fixed assets. And so we came in and created.

That within the system. Yep, that's. That's, that's exactly it. And that's really where they wanted the depth to come from for these things. And it actually makes it. Innovation can happen really fast because most you think of a lot of ERP system, you take Oracle Cloud or you take a workday or even an intact. They all have industries that you think of. You would use them here where NetSuite, it's almost ubiquitous because you can turn. If you stop and really think about what you need, you can create almost anything. You know, like I go back to when at ClearChoice when I first did it, and I was like, we just want a plain vanilla box. We essentially want great planes. And then you fast forward a year and we had like tricked it out for everything for dental. You know, it was. We had done this around implants and this and this and. And it became not really even NetSuite, but it came kind of like the clear choice, ERP doing exactly what we wanted. And when people do NetSuite really well, that's kind of what happens is you take that and get it just right to how you want it to be and do. And that's kind of the purpose of that. The whole platform.

Yeah. So that. I think that makes sense. Basically, I would say netsuite almost sits in the middle then of being able to both have some of that kind of click and play type of customization available, as well as the actual code ability as well.

Yeah. Yeah. And that really gives you the best of both worlds. So before we kind of get into what you think, how would you use it and do it? That's where I'm going. Yeah. Sometimes you need something More, if you do all click and code, the danger that is, when you make the platform, you have to almost anticipate every way that someone would use something to make.

It into a clicking card specific to the dental industry, because you don't know what their specific needs are.

Exactly. Right. And it can be like, even not so much the name of something, you think, well, I can name it, but like a certain process. I need this to do this and then create this. And that's where the coding comes in. But some of the most powerful but worst design software used is when the developer guys are like, I'm sure this is how they want to do this. And you let the people who, like, really know the industry or how to use it, they're not involved. And so what you get is this.

Thing that it's a discrepancy. Yeah, I have a set software that doesn't necessarily line up with what the industry needs.

Yep, that's exactly. And that's where the click and code comes from. So, I mean, honestly, we. We do sometimes development a little bit different here, where people think of like, oh, I need to make requirements and gather requirements and we kind of do. We definitely do all of that. We run well. But many of our early apps, we get into netsuite and you start building, this is what I want the record to look like. This is what I think it would do. Then after I do this process, I want this record to happen and then I want this report and we build all of that out like storyboard it, and then development really becomes, how do I make this record turn into this record? And how do I then calculate this field that you say you need into this? I know of nowhere else that you could actually do that, kind of like prototyping, get it just how you want it to be and then turn it over to the development team and say, okay, guys, now automate this, now make it more powerful, now make it pretty.

Well, that's what the solution consultant does is you're going and you're creating the records and you're saying, okay, I created this record, I created this field, it needs to populate this field. And that's like what you're able to then give an actual example to the dev team in an actual NetSuite account, which that actually goes really well into, like, the next thing I want to talk about, which is like, as a solution consultant, where do you kind of push those boundaries of, hey, I want. I'm selling this to the client and I know it doesn't really exist yeah.

Which happens all the time. So that's a great question. I've had a couple of them where it's like, people are like a couple of doozies. Where I've had to.

It's probably just that the client is huge and so that's going to drive innovation.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So the first, kind of, the first thing that I do in my thought process is I try to think, what can I repurpose in netsuite that would work on a similar principle. And let me give you two examples. Because NetSuite has like manufacturing and distribution and software, you'll find that something that's very common in one industry is like an outlier edge case and another one. So let me give you two examples of that. The first one would be a common one is a manufacturer would come and say, okay, I'm selling something, but then they're reselling it to somebody and I need to know who that, that third person is. And a lot of times manufacturing people, I would be in things and they would be like, man, I'm not sure how to do that because the sales order sold this guy. But then you step over to the sales. The software world and reseller agreements are completely common. You have a partner that's your distributor and then they're selling it to the end user. And then sometimes you bill the end user, sometimes you build a partner and it's like completely common. And all of that was actually set up like standard stuff inside of the Software Edition, if you will, of netsuite. And so sometimes.

Can I just pause you real quick out of curiosity. So when you talk about like the Software Edition and like a manufacturing edition, are those just modules inside of NetSuite? Which ones are you talking about?

So what, these? So the different editions, probably I'm getting a little bit like the suite success modules, they'll do it. Different editions will have different features enabled in it. So for example, retail has things around like fulfillment requests and different pieces of inventory, like how to lookbooks and things like that that are in all of netsuite but they're turned off in the other editions.

There really is like an edition essentially of NetSuite that you're downloading.

Yeah. And so it's like.

And the stuff's just enabled, essentially.

Yeah, it's a collection of enabled features. Features.

And so then we are saying that like, hey, you downloaded the manufacturing one, but go in and enable some of these features that are related to software.

That's exactly right. You go in and you use the software and you set up the partner and the end user thing and now all of a sudden what you have is that ability, that ability to do exactly that. And so a lot of times it's almost like that. Like when you're a solution consultant and you know, and netsuite especially, we're very. You get very verticalized, which is great. You want to build depth and know the industry. But if I was to give a piece of advice kind of when what I did was because I went everywhere, I was always having to study all the pieces to it. And so you. And now Nest has gotten so vast that there are things that if you like go, well, I don't know. But if you know kind of what some of the other industries are doing and that it's a common in another industry, you'll find that Nest Suite typically is someone's thought of something or there's something that's there. The other example I'll give you was actually one we were at which at the time was, well, I'll say it was Hewlett Packard. And so we were in this opportunity. We were, we were somewhat shocked that we were even invited to the room. So everybody, you know, Jim McGeever was there. We had everyone and I was the SC and myself and Joe Friedman. And so everyone's like, wow, we can't believe we're how we actually got invited into the room here to do it. But we were kind of doing some things. But I was actually at a. Another I was doing. I was splitting time between the presentation HP and then doing a dental company. And as different as though they made. It was. Oh, it was Invisalign and, and this is kind of similar thing for intercompany. So Invisalign wanted to sell, you know, things and it would kind of go through a couple of subsidiaries. I saw it at this and this a little bit like triple transfer pricing international. So it's intercompany moving goods from one company to the other. How do I control the margins? And I had spent a fair amount of time trying to figure that out. Well, lo and behold, like on the meeting I wasn't at Hewlett Packard said, okay guys, we do. This is the way we do things internationally. And we have this selling entity that sells to this selling entity, this entity sells to this selling entity. I'm already hearing, and I wasn't there. And essentially the answer that came out was, oh, we can't do that. We don't know how to do that. And it was like, well then this meeting's Over. And so I get this call, and it was like, Chris, it was the effect of, we're dead in the water unless you've got something that's gonna magically be. They magically mean this happened. And it was like, yeah, I can do that. Don't worry about it. And then it was just like, but.

It'S coming from the dental company.

But it's coming from Invisalign. Exactly that in doing that. And so. And what I had done was we had released kind of like an intercompany type buy sell agreement. But people thought it was only going here. They didn't realize that you could, like, chain it together. And then if you control the pricing by the vendor, you. You could control the margin. And so it was like taking something that existed. And this is kind of my level one is there's stuff that exists in NetSuite, but if you step back and think, how can I reimagine or reapply it? You would be amazed at how standard features can be repurposed.

Sitting there inside of netsuite going, how can I make this happen? And are you just, like, playing with different records? Are you, like, looking at the architecture?

Yeah.

It kind of triggers these brilliant idea.

Oh, I know, Brilliant. I'll usually have, like, a hypothesis like, okay, what does this look like? And, you know, I try to. I try to. You know, I'll kind of think it's not deductive inductive. I got to make sure I get my words. Or someone will write us and be like, you're an idiot. But I'm really good at kind of finding the similarities. And so if you break something down, so first you kind of look at, like, what's the real process and the principles are involved. Because accounting, a lot of times you're probably. And you see this all the time now, too. Becca, is that you? Because you see so many industries didn't do that, but things really boil down to 10, 12, like, accounting principles. And they may have a lot of different. They may be, like, have different presentations, different names. Maybe there's some wrinkles.

But at the end of the day, like, I care about the debits and the credits happening in journal entry and how I'm going to get there.

Yeah, exactly, exactly. And so if you stop and think about kind of what's the fundamental thing that they're trying to do, it almost starts to look like another thing that you know how to do, you know, and that's really where I always start. And then I say, if it looks like this Thing that I want to do. Oh, well, that looks like an allocation or an amortization, just with a different thing. Then now I've got a way to kind of start doing it and then. And that's kind of where I start because I build a lot of stuff. But I hate to start there because fundamentally you don't want to. Like, if you scripted everything, then it becomes, while it will work. But a lot of times what I worry about is it's fragile. So I can show someone something in a very fragile manner. Like it's that. And then what I end up turning over to the dev team is something where they have to make like antifragile. And that's where all the effort comes from. It's not so much, hey, you got to work in this one thing. So whenever it's like a core thing, I prefer that because then it works. You know, the margin for error.

It's like the core functionality inside a NetSuite.

Yeah.

And if you have to like go towards that process of kind of break it down to what are the debits and credits, what like GL impact are you originally look or like at the end process looking for. For. And then is there anything inside of NetSuite that can give me that impact?

That's exactly, that's, that's exactly it. Because you, you kind of want to break things into two parts is there's the GL impact and there's kind of the operational or informational. And if you were going to build things, it's almost always around that, that operational.

Because netsuite does the GL pretty well.

Yeah, exactly. And so that's where you put like the detail records and we'll, we'll talk about that. The other kind of philosophy, and this is part of like the sales philosophy, is customization should fall under kind of like a continuum if it's back office, like fixed assets. And you'll hear this, I tell people you use the best practice because on this side of the line, it's about reducing your cost per transaction. And nobody, if you start creating some unique depreciation formula and doing all these things, let's be honest, you're wasting your time and everybody else's time trying to look busy and important as an accountant. And so here it's like on one level in the back office, it's like, adopt best practices and try to reduce your cost per transaction through standardization. And so that's where, like, that's where our apps, like, like a lot of our back office apps that's where they. That's how they approach it, and we do it. But on this side of the line, where you talk about customer facing, this is where your secret sauce is. And this is where the closer you get to your interaction with the customer, that's where you want to do more and more customization. That's where you want to spend your dollars. That's where you want to get the secret sauce.

And we've talked about that before. Like, when you're looking at where to spend your time on, like, a deal, like spending your time on what the customer sees.

That's right.

And like, the closer to the customer, that tends to be like, the best place. Place to spend your time in a demo prep, right?

Yep, that's exact. That's exactly it. And then, of course, there are times when you have to do scripting. So if we talk about kind of the Gl impact part of it, if there isn't something where I can get exactly what I want, that's when I'll, you know, we'll make something sometimes, because sometimes what you need is to get it to the journal or the debits and credits. I need something to be like a helper. I need a. I need that little.

Script that, like, runs it for me to be able to get the final impact because there's something missing.

Yep, that's exactly it. And that's really where I'll spend the quote unquote customization time is to get those pieces, because that's. That's often the automation, and that's often the real pain point. And that's what is great about netsuite is netsuite's really good at doing simple, like, take this number in this field, multiply it by this, and turn this into a journal entry that does this. And people are like, wow, how did you get to do. You know, that's. And that's really what makes the scripting side really, really powerful. The advice I would give is like, I've never. I have tried. I am not very. I can't write code very well. I can write a little bit. I'm like one of those, you know. You know, the people that can. Like when you travel, and they're like, oh, well, I can speak Spanish, but I can't.

I can't read, communicate to get in trouble, but not out of it.

Yeah, exactly.

Like, that's the phrase I've heard.

And so I can end up. I can explain in the terms like, okay, guys, I need you to do this and this and this. And I needed to do this. So I can like explain to you in the. Like, I understand enough about how it should work and I can read it and actually interpret what the code is doing and sometimes even make modifications, but I have no talent for just being able to sitting down and creating out of nothing. I'm always impressed by that. But I would say as an SC spend, even if you don't have any talent for it, like I do, the more time you spend doing understanding it, it pays dividends everywhere because you can instantaneously know, can I do this or not do this? What will be the level of effort? Could I. Can I tell a customer? Yeah, this is going to be pretty straightforward to do or no, this is going to be really hard to do.

So when you're saying, like, go in there and like, play with code, are you like, where inside of netsuite are you doing that?

It's a good question. So what I'll do, what I've done is I'll take like the, the. In the old days, what I would do is I would take the. I would take like the developer classes. I would take them about once a year.

Yeah.

And I would work.

Those still exist.

Yeah. And I would work through those developer classes. But what I've been doing now and which is light years ahead is like, right now we're working on like a collections app. So I've actually been having ChatGPT write code. So, like, I'll tell it. I need a suitelet that does that has these fields and I needed to do this for this application. And I'll be like, write me the code and then it'll write it and then I'll go load it into NetSuite and look at it and it'll be like, it doesn't work. And I'll be like, I need to do this or this. And as you do the different iterations, and then sometimes I actually have to go in and make some modifications like, oh, it's. It doesn't know the name of the field, for example, that I wanted to refer to. So I put that in and put in. To me, that's been the very, very best way ever to learn it. So the. If I were to.

It's basically coming up with a. I want the program to do this and seeing if you can even just get it tweeted.

Yeah.

And kind of coming up with your own little.

Exactly. So they have these. So now they have the thing when you do the paid version, it's like the, the. The pretext. So on the prompt you can pre text it. And so, you know, I did some asking around and some research, but like essentially I pre text all my prompts with like a bunch of NetSuite sweet script type stuff. You know, this is, this is your Persona. This is what I'm looking to create. This is what I want you to do. I want you to create this, give me these types of examples, focus your code on these principles and it will generate it. The days of me just sitting around going, oh, the code's done it. That is a long ways away if ever will happen. But if you want to be able to know how things work and what would it look like and what would it do, it's actually an amazing change.

I think that's an excellent piece of advice actually because I feel like it's something that's time consuming and so you're never going to do it unless you see that there is a benefit that'll come to your career from doing it. And even if you never decide to go into development, because I've always felt that way. If you understand how a computer thinks, then you understand what's possible.

That's right.

And I totally also agree with the thought of if you understand how difficult the code is on the back end of NetSuite, then it's much easier to go to a client and say, hey, we can do this, but it's going to take 40 hours of work or it's going to take 120 hours of work. And then it also just gives like more realistic expectations in the sales cycle.

Yeah, that's exactly right. And then the other thing is too, Becca, and I've seen you do this is you can present them and deliver them with a lot of confidence. Yeah. And then you give them options. And that's probably the other thing too is like you do a really good job of that is okay, we could do it this way. Here's the coded version, here's our halfway point. That's like point and click type customization. And here's your manual workaround that quite frankly may only be 15 minutes a month. That's probably the other thing that happens when you start to know it. I've worked with a lot of really good SCs. However, when they don't understand this part, a lot of times what SCS would do would be like, well, you just write a script. You just do this and that and it becomes, well, you get a script, a workflow, it kind of becomes a euphemism for all things. And I.

It's the catch all.

Yep.

And I don't become a catch all. That's when you get clients that are unhappy. When you get into the implementation cycle, like, well, I was told you could do this. And you're like, yeah, but that doesn't. The logic doesn't exist.

That's exactly it. And so that.

Okay, well, that's the end of part one. We do have a second part to this episode because we just kept talking, so. So if you liked this, continue and go listen to part two.