Hey everyone, quick research question for the finance folks dealing with the fallout of NetSuite implementations. I'm researching the 'hidden operational debt' that lands on accounting teams when vendors fail to deliver what was promised. When an implementation partner misunderstands a requirement, or cuts scope to hit a deadline, it usually means the accounting team has to pick up the slack. My question: How many of you are currently relying on manual spreadsheet workarounds outside of NetSuite (e.g., for month-end close, billing, or rev-rec) simply because the original vendor failed to build the automated process that the business actually asked for? Is this a rare occurrence, or just standard procedure?

The big one is allocations for us, it's all on external spreadsheets as the allocation module can't deliver what our business needs. Which is ok, we can write a spreadsheet but would be nice if it did it out of the box (the original sale said it would be the click of a button - then the caveats began during implementation - we went with Netsuite themselves to deliver - it actually went ok!) The other one is lease accounting. It's not hugely significant for us given our low property footprint, but we were at one point considering going third party to make it work. The original lease accounting releases in Netsuite were shockingly incomplete - tbh I haven't tested the latest release as I'm focusing on testing things that are implemented rather than things that aren't

Jon, thanks for sharing, "the original sale said it would be a click of a button - then the caveats began'" belongs on a plaque in every accounting department. That is the exact bait-and-switch I'm researching! It's wild that even NetSuite's own PS team defaulted to leaving you with an external spreadsheet for something as critical as allocations. Out of curiosity, how much time does managing that external spreadsheet add to your team's month-end close process? I'm trying to quantify the actual hour cost of these vendor caveats.

Not exactly sure, adds probably half a day to close, unless we get late adjustments from audit and/or board in which case they have to be rerun

Oof. That 'rerun' during an audit adjustment sounds incredibly stressful. There is nothing worse than dealing with a fragile manual spreadsheet when the board is waiting for numbers. Thank you for sharing this, Jon. It perfectly validates the research I'm doing into the hidden operational costs of vendor shortcuts. Hope those month-end closes get smoother for you!