NetSuite Integration: Comprehensive guide on how to get started
NetSuite stands out as a premier choice for mid-sized businesses aiming for an integrated online ERP system. It is one of the fastest growing business which adopted the cloud over on-premises. When the majority of ERPs rely heavily on edge processing, NetSuite adopted the opposite and asked all customers to store data in their data centres. It is one of the major forerunners to offer SaaS(Software as a Service) ERP system for SMEs.
The platform consists of a suite of applications that helps in understanding the performance of the business, accounting, finance, orders, procurement, etc. It has both CRM for sales and marketing automation, human resource management and many more. However, mid-sized businesses often complement NetSuite with specialized solutions to cover various aspects of their operations. Whether it’s Salesforce for customer relationship management, HubSpot for marketing automation, or Shopify for eCommerce. The array of these best-in-class solutions which can also be used in SME businesses is vast.
Despite NetSuite’s extensive capabilities, true digital transformation is achieved when it works in harmony with these specialized applications. When NetSuite seamlessly integrates with tools like Salesforce and HubSpot, it enhances business processes, allowing organizations to adapt swiftly to changing market demands while staying on track with their profitability goals.
In this article, we will share some of my learnings around how SMEs are adopting NetSuite integration projects and also talk about how it benefits the businesses around the globe. The article is mostly helpful for NetSuite customers, consultants, and partners.
What is NetSuite integration services all about?
By NetSuite integration, I mean the process of connecting NetSuite with other applications so as to enable seamless data flow and business process automation. With NetSuite integration in place, the businesses can unify their technology stack, operate seamlessly and keep data up-to-date across different systems. Mainly it focuses on updating data to and from various other applications like HubSpot, Shopify etc. to ensure efficient business process execution.
The rapidly evolving platform of NetSuite gives you various options to integrate business processes, some of which are internal integrations while others are for external systems.
SuiteTalk
These are mainly SOAP based web services that includes retrieving, creating, updating and deleting records in NetSuite. It is ideal for enterprise integrations, complex data manipulations and reporting.
SuiteScript
It is JavaScript based API that allows to create custom business logic within NetSuite. It helps users to build applications within the NetSuite interface.
SuiteAnalytics
It provides REST API to access NetSuite’s analytics and reporting capabilities. This is mainly used to extract analytical data used in Reporting or saved search results. These APIs are mainly integrated with BI tools.
NetSuite REST API
It is the modern alternative for SuiteTalk. It is designed to do any CRUD (Create, Retrieve, Update, Delete) operation over business processes. It uses JSON based communication through RESTful APIs.
RESTlets
They are custom endpoints created using SuiteScript (a javascript based API that sits inside NetSuite application). They allow you to define custom RESTful APIs within NetSuite
Data Imports / Export API
NetSuite also provides data import APIs using CSV (Comma Separated Values) files. It is useful while interacting with NetSuite in Bulk.
Benefits of NetSuite Integration
Now as you already know about basics of how to integrate, before we actually look into trying an integration, let us look at the major benefits of NetSuite Integration capabilities.
Smooth Business Processes
NetSuite integration removes data silos across your organization. By integrating NetSuite data with other data in various systems can help you get 360-degree view of all data and activities in your business. It helps to learn about customers, inventory, accounting, sales and marketing processes.
Better Communication
NetSuite integration simplifies communication between businesses and their partners, vendors, and customers. For e-commerce businesses, it facilitates rapid access to critical information like catalog prices, product shipments, and order statuses. Additionally, it enables the automation of order restocking rules with vendors, streamlining inventory management.
Smart Decision making
Business processes needs data for business decisions. By integrating NetSuite with other business application helps in identifying bottlenecks on a business process way before it actually happens.
Accuracy
Integrating data with other application gives you accuracy of data. For example, lets say you sell your products in Amazon. Now when a sale happens in Amazon, if data is immediately posted to your NetSuite ERP system, you can accurately see the inventories left and hence you can take decision on when to procure or you can easily forecast the sales of products.
Business Intelligence
Analytics capabilities of NetSuite gives people an option to post data into various Business Intelligence applications to help them customize daily, weekly, monthly and annual reports of their business.
Artificial intelligence
Analytics data can also help in predicting trends and patterns of business using various Machine learning algorithms to get deeper analysis of data. Forecasting the future trends using historical and statistical information can help in understanding buying pattern of customers and eventually become more successful organization among similar businesses.
Starting your first NetSuite integration
Even though SaaS applications are accessible from anywhere, it is important to note that the data present inside the application for a tenant(a tenant is an account created for a specific company) is only accessible using valid credentials. Be it you call it through API or you fetch data directly by logging in, no data is available without authentication.
Token based Authentication
Token based authentication enables developers to get an access token by calling an authorization url. The token will be used for all next API calls.
OAuth 2.0
It gives a robust authorization framework which enables applications to get additional protection in terms of Grants for tokens. The OAuth 2.0 is an industry standard way of communication and is useful for calling all REST services, RESTlets or SuiteAnalytics connect.
To start integration, you first need to login to NetSuite using administrator credentials. Next move to Setup-> Company - >Enable Features.
From this section, you can enable REST APIs and OAUTH 2.0 authorization.
After you enable both REST API and OAUTH 2.0, again click on Setup -> Integration ->Manage Integrations ->New
Now you can name a new integration and Configure the OAuth 2.0 section
You must provide the Redirect URL and enable REST Web services from the OAuth 2.0 section, to be able to call data. Once you configure, you can get the Consumer Key/ CLIENT ID and Consumer Secret / CLIENT SECRET from below. Save all the changes.
Finally to access the API, we use the same Client ID and Client Secret in Postman to authorize the API. To do this we install Postman and add the details.
To request for authorization, you need to set authorize.nl as baseurl with all the details mentioned in the image. The request will return you access_token and refresh_token, which can be used to call various individual requests.
Here I have used the access_token to call suiteql queries to retrieve data using SQL Statements.
Finally you can call the APIs using the service url with proper data in JSON format.POST https://demo123.suitetalk.api.NetSuite.com/services/rest/record/v1/customer
And according to REST standards, the data will be created in NetSuite.
You can get the Postman Collection for your NetSuite instance using the link https://<accountID>.app.NetSuite.com/app/external/integration/integrationDownloadPage.nl
Alternatives to NetSuite Integration (Why iPaaS)
Even though NetSuite provides API to communicate, it is not a good idea to use it in complex business scenarios. Businesses are complex and involves a lot of applications specifically for each business processes. Now to integrate all the applications with one another using API makes it complex. And the complexity grows more and more as we add more and more applications to it. iPaaS or Integration Platform as a Service is a middleware component that centrally sits for your organization and takes care of all integration complexities.
Now choosing iPaaS over custom made integration is manifold. Let us look into them.
Ease of Use and Implementation
iPaaS software provides pre-built connectors or templates which lets you install an integration and use it immediately. It also provides in build designers which helps you design data transformations easily.
Handle Complex Logic
Handling complex integration logic through point to point integration with other apps will not be easy. If the logic of transformation is complex, the maintenance of such a logic would be difficult. For example, lets say you want to add customer lookup before sending data to NetSuite, using custom made software, you then need to create a lookup database which will be difficult to handle.
Centralized Integration
iPaaS accelerates the integration development as it provides centralized integration system where you can manage all your integrations. You can add / alter applications just by plugging it in the central hub, and hence the speed to market improves considerably.
Scalability and Flexibility
iPaaS solutions are much more flexible and scalable both horizontally and vertically. That means if you deploy an integration in a SaaS Solution, you can add more and more machines to work and give you power to process your data. Similarly, when there are new applications to be added, you can also quickly do that without changing any code in existing solution.
Cost efficiency
In case of custom application, one need a team of developers to maintain the project and adjust changes. The iPaaS provides user interface for anyone to change logic without needing an additional developer. Also as less and less cost involved while adding newer applications, the solution becomes less expensive. Using iPaaS solution NetSuite Integration cost will reduce eventually.
Compliance and Security
iPaaS system typically adheres to industry standards and creates integration following best practices for data security and compliance. Providers invest in robust security measures and ensure compliance with regulations. Your data is also secure as it provides an additional layer of protection.
Monitoring and Analytics
Includes built-in monitoring and analytics tools to track integration performance, troubleshoot issues, and gain insights into data flows.
Adaptability
Quickly adapts to changing business needs and technology advancements. iPaaS also offers policies for auto -upgrade flows or agents which will ensure all the latest enhancements are automatically updated for your integration.
APPSeCONNECT is an iPaaS Solution that has time tested solutions encompassing a large number of integrations. The integrations are pre – packaged and shared for free with the customers hence requiring less and lesser amount of effort required. Now let us talk about the NetSuite integration scenarios
NetSuite Integration Scenarios
Now let us explore some of the common integration scenarios for a company using NetSuite. To enhance better understanding, I have categorized the integration scenarios into buckets.
NetSuite CRM Integration
Sales teams are the profit centers of any organization. NetSuite being largely an ERP system, provides inadequate functions to perform sales capabilities. When the sales team works with NetSuite CRM system, they become overwhelmed to see the features actually working. Lot of our customers take other software outside NetSuite to improve the funnel.
A few alternatives of NetSuite with CRM applications could be the following.
NetSuite with Salesforce Integration
Salesforce has truly transformed the SaaS market with its CRM Application, making it the preferred choice for many upper mid-market businesses. To make the most out of Salesforce, it is important to connect and integrate between Salesforce and NetSuite.
NetSuite Zoho CRM integration
A more affordable version of CRM would be Zoho. Smaller to mid-size customers prefer Zoho to save monthly recurring expenses. Similar to Salesforce Zoho also needs to be integrated for Customers, Orders, Items etc
NetSuite HubSpot Integration
HubSpot is also one of the popular CRM platform that works in tandem with NetSuite. The integration involves Customer information along with the contacts. Also, when a deal is created at HubSpot, it can easily go to NetSuite as Sales Order or Opportunity.
Some of the other popular CRM integrations with NetSuite could be :
- NetSuite and Microsoft Dynamics 365 CRM
- NetSuite and SugarCRM
NetSuite Marketplace Integration
Marketplaces are sources of high volume orders. There are large number of customers visit these marketplaces day in and it is important to integrate NetSuite with popular marketplaces to improve sales as well as to earn customers trust.
To integrate NetSuite with Marketplace, the following data points needs to be considered.
Let us now look into some prominent marketplace integrations.
Amazon Integration with NetSuite
Amazon’s popularity has skyrocketed when it comes to other marketplace competitors. Due to its customer first approach, it has become one of the trusted names all over globe and it has become one of the popular choice for them while identifying its growth strategies. Brands which are not on Amazon is finding it increasingly difficult to operate in the market and are missing out big time.
NetSuite with Amazon integration includes both Fulfilled by Amazon (FBA) and Fulfilled by Merchant (FBM) scenarios. In the former, the merchant keeps stock at Amazon warehouse while in later, the merchant fulfils the shipment from their own warehouse.
NetSuite Walmart Integration
Very similar to Amazon, Walmart integration with NetSuite helps in getting order and other transactional data to be passed to NetSuite seamlessly. Walmart is also a popular marketplace which needs to be connected to NetSuite to perform important business functions.
NetSuite eBay Integration
eBay being a niche in Luxury goods, electronics, bags, furniture etc., also needs to be integrated with NetSuite to perform critical business functions. Sales order, Invoices, or fulfilments needs to be integrated with NetSuite.
NetSuite and Wayfair integration
Wayfair is the favourite marketplace for home furnishing and décor items. Companies in this industry needs to integrate their Wayfair account with NetSuite to perform critical business functions.
NetSuite eCommerce Integration
To create a brand of their own and also to create trust among the customers, it is evident that mid and upper mid sized companies open online stores in various eCommerce platforms. As per current trends, the last decade has shown a considerable growth in eCommerce Web stores.
Integrating eCommerce applications with NetSuite is important to ensure master data is synced, transactions are reflected in both the applications and control mechanisms and business checks are in place.
Let us look into the integration points which needs to be implemented
Now let us look into some of the prominent eCommerce Applications which needs to be integrated.
NetSuite Shopify Integration
Shopify is one of the favorite eCommerce platforms for mid-sized companies. Shopify integration with NetSuite lets you define Web Items along with attributes and synchronize the online orders seamlessly in NetSuite. As eCommerce can support both B2C and B2B, in case the customer is using Basic, Grow, Advanced, or Plus, B2B scenarios should also be integrated with NetSuite.
NetSuite and BigCommerce Integration
Similar to Shopify, BigCommerce is also a SaaS based eCommerce software. Orders coming from BigCommerce can easily be transferred to NetSuite using an integration. The integration is also capable of sending B2B data using BigCommerce B2B extension.
NetSuite and WooCommerce Integration
WooCommerce is very popular as it is free and easily integrated with WordPress. In case of WooCommerce, the order data and various other related data needs to be updated to NetSuite for quick processing.
NetSuite Magento Integration
Magento is one of the most popular and complex open source eCommerce System that people have adopted more in recent years. As Magento is highly customizable and people who are using it customizes a lot, it becomes way more essential to sync the data properly with NetSuite such that business processes are accurate.
NetSuite POS integration
In case of Retail stores the number of customers are huge and needed to be checked out quickly to efficiently process orders. Even though POS integration looks easy, but as the number of SKUs are huge for these types of retail customers.
Here are the following integration points that need to be implemented during NetSuite and POS integration
NetSuite and Lightspeed Integration
Lightspeed is one of the premier and largely used POS System that is used by a large number of retail customers having physical stores. Now when the data is placed in POS system, the data is transferred immediately to the NetSuite to process it quickly. As POS Systems execute at parallel.
NetSuite payment gateway integration
Payment gateway is another application which is used by eCommerce Businesses to capture payments, especially to the B2B customers. After an order is created in eCommerce site, the payment link is directly created inside the Payment App and sent to process the payment. The payment system enables the customer to have a readymade solution to see all the payments in one place.
NetSuite Stripe Integration
Stripe is one of the most popular payment system that is adopted by a large number of retailers. To track payment of any invoices, the Stripe allows to send some data which could be meaningful to integrate to NetSuite, like Payment details, Invoices etc.
NetSuite Square integration
Square is another payment processing service which allows the retailers to process payments to B2B orders. Integrating Square with NetSuite plays a vital role as all the details of payments were transferred to NetSuite to identify payments made to it.
NetSuite Payroll integration
NetSuite Payroll integration helps in HR efficiency and cost saving. The process of syncing payroll data will ensure the Employee payments are made correctly and accurately.
NetSuite and ADP integration
ADP is one of the popular payroll processing application which helps in keep track of employees regular timecard information and which can be transferred easily to NetSuite for processing. Informations like regular time card information, overtime, benefits, deductions and tax can accurately identify the actual payment to be made for each employees.
NetSuite Gusto Integration
Gusto is another payroll processing application. One can send Employees, its benefits, its termination details, the Contractor details or even the invoice paid could be transferred seamlessly from NetSuite to ensure all information are correctly shown in different platforms. Gusto provides public REST API to communicate with NetSuite.
NetSuite UPS Integration
UPS or United Parcel Service is a registered shipping service for American business. NetSuite provides prebuilt integration with UPS Account which you can configure directly to work with your NetSuite account. Hence after an order is fulfilled, the integrated UPS Service can automatically sync barcode levels for the package and also give tracking information about shipments.
To get started with UPS, you can use the following steps
- Go to Setup 🡺 Company 🡺 Enable Features
- Click Transactions.
- Go to Shipping & Receiving section and check Shipping Label integration.
- Save changes.
You can now go to Setup 🡺 Accounting 🡺 Shipping and change the Default Shipping Carrier to UPS. This will enable UPS Shipping in NetSuite.
NetSuite EDI Integration
Many large companies need their trading partners to be able to interact data through EDI or more specifically Electronic Data Interchange process. As NetSuite data could not directly be converted easily to EDI standards, a middleware application can process it correctly. APPSeCONNECT supports EDI and any data from NetSuite can be transferred to and from APPSeCONNECT quickly.
Best Practices of integration
Integration is a complex step in a business. It helps in work efficiency but it can quickly go reverse if it is not taken care of correctly. Here are few best practices of a successful integration
- Understanding the business processes is the key to any successful integration. Identify stakeholders and collaborate with them to define clear goals for every integration step.
- Employ iPaaS platform for your business to reduce complexity of integration. Platforms like APPSeCONNECT can streamline the integration efforts to a great extend.
- Ensure data Consistency and integrity in the platform. A small step of data validation before actually pushing data to platform can avoid data inconsistency and preserve data integrity across all systems.
- Choosing right integration mechanism in also a step to consider. Sometimes you want to employ trigger based integration using Webhook to ensure the process happens in real time rather than going for Scheduled data sync.
- Error handling and retry data sync is another important step to address transient failures. Write error logs to help monitoring the data sync over time.
- Loose Coupling of integration points is also necessary. When data is loosely coupled, adding and altering any application or business process becomes easy.
- Security is another key measures. For example TLS.1.2 encryption built into the middleware is way to go. Sometimes certified solutions are preferred which gives end to end encryption while transferring data from application, which gives additional security. Choosing a platform like APPSeCONNECT which invests heavily in security must be a good option of you are trying to integrate.
- Alerts and health monitoring of integration is critical. It is not recommended to add integration logic inside the ERP systems, and hence a middleware is the only way to implement. Corrective measures should be taken automatically or at least there should be a notification system to mitigate any issues in the system.
- Optimize for performance. Sometimes optimizing database queries or API requests or handling API throttling could be necessary to avoid processing delays.
By following best practices, the solution could be made robust, scalable and efficient.
Conclusion
In this world of diverse applications, connecting systems becomes one of the mandatory steps. Depending on the complexity of scenarios and business processes one can think of various apps and services. But connecting them together would be a challenge and to mitigate the same one can employ a development team to develop and create the integration points depending on their own requirements. But alternatively there are pre-built integrations available for those who do not want to delve into the complexity and want to use time-tested solutions for their business. APPSeCONNECT being an alternative, is an iPaaS platform that gives a huge number of pre-packaged integrations connecting NetSuite with various other platforms. The platform is truly customizable and can deliver according to the customers need, gives easy interfaces to integrate between applications.
