Hi all, curious if anyone has used ARM but not billed customer directly out of Netsuite. Our billing tool is likely to remain in place for a while but id like to get contracts/rev rec in Netsuite. Is there any down side to this? Assuming I’ll need to import billing/payment records from billing system?

I have an implantation where we only bring in the sales transaction when it’s been paid in the external system. As we know it’s paid it comes in as a Cash Sale posting the payment to the various banks/undeposited funds. The revenue then respects the start and end dates of each line

I don't see why you couldn't. If your rev rec is not recognized over either A) the period the cash sale is dated to OR B) between start and end dates that you import on the cash sale lines....then you might need to do something more complex.

Thanks for the response. I should have explained some more detail. Revenue and billing are over time (roughly 24 months). There is a down payment that could be 10-30% of the contract, then even monthly billing thereafter. Revenue is similar (35% up front, then the rest over contract term). I think it would work like this - Create contract record upon customer signing Down payment invoice is created (Debit A/R, credit def rev) Upon first rev rec milestone (credit rev, debit def rev) The scenario I don’t see working is when the down payment is less than rev rec. in this scenario, revenue is correctly recorded but there is a debit balance in deferred revenue. Would Netsuite know to reclass this to an unbilled A/R asset account vs having a debit deferred revenue liability balance? Or would Netsuite not recognize revenue greater than the amount billed?

@Alex Pirrotta NetSuite will do exactly what you tell it to do. I think you need to map all the scenarios that you want to post across. Then look at the ARM options available including at the Item & Transaction level. My gut feel is that you will have a combination of Cash Sales and Invoices which can be set to post to revenue on schedule, on create or when paid. In the mapping you also need to include the functionality that can be best handled in each of your systems ie billing tool & NetSuite Your solution can work, just have to match NS config options to your unique needs.

You are correct though, that you won’t be able to recognize more revenue than has been billed. Because from the external billing tool you aren’t getting TCV. Also, NetSuite will not be able to track unbilled because it’s only getting already billed transactions. So you would need to have sales orders to do that scenario. But then when the external billing tool creates invoices, you would need to transform the SO and “recreate” the same invoice on the NetSuite side. Because you cannot take a stand alone invoice and attach it to an exiting SO. You have to “transform” the SO to get true order/invoice linkage. As others have said, if your revenue is mostly simple where you only need to recognize based on whats been billed and you don’t have things like a contract assets or Contract modifications that require retrospective or prospective reallocation, then it works fine.