May be a crazy question- how do I receive to a staging location before bin putaway? Is it just its own location?

Bin Putaway in NetSuite requires no bin on the Item Receipt without WMS. If you utilize a staging bin, you'll want to utilize a Saved Search (type Inventory Balance) to see what's in there.

By default netsuite used this odd "not in a bin" when receiving then uses bin put away. I use RF-Smart and they by default receive all PO's into "receiving" Then have a function to transfer out of "receiving" into the final bin. I wish Netsuite would allow this to be the default.

What I've done with customers is enable the "Require Bin on Receiving" (or similar function), set up the preferred bin to be a default staging or receiving bin then provide a saved search for all the items in that bin.

are you using netsuite WMS? you can receive on a loading dock "Inbound" Bin and then do a bin transfer to a Staging "Inbound" Bin.