Without accurate, timely data streams that can be exported by your ERP to Excel or reconciled and replicated in BI tools quickly, C-suite will be playing catch-up with emerging trends and competitors who are leveraging more efficient strategies. ERPs are important investments that can unlock future growth by supporting automation across the business and coordinating all your data systems – including critical business intelligence (BI) tools.
However, even with a best-in-class ERP like NetSuite, there are inevitably bottlenecks and inefficiencies in your data pipelines that require manual work to overcome. These processes typically don’t scale well, and if your people are finding it harder and harder to keep up with reporting challenges, it may be time to upgrade your ERP. Here are the top four areas where problems show up and what to do about it.
#1: Issues with accuracy and consistency
Manual reconciliation inevitably leads to errors and lost time, and these challenges can have significant downstream effects on the reports, models and forecasts executives utilize. Companies without automated billing and revenue, for instance, typically experience a 3% error rate or higher. This poor data quality ultimately costs organizations at least $12.9 million a year on average, according to Gartner research from 2020. Not only does this create headaches for multiple departments as they identify and correct, but it also delays and corrupts critical reporting in areas like supply chains and revenue recognition.
In many cases, those classic Excel spreadsheets your people are compiling are the result of systems that are largely – but not fully – integrated with your ERP. When it comes to reporting, issues between third-party payment platforms up through your BI tools can all have a cumulative effect on the speed, accuracy and consistency of your final numbers. Also, even if Excel is your preferred software, many ERPs don’t make exporting easy in their out-of-the-box form to facilitate high-quality report generation.
Fortunately, the right software integrations can enable your ERP to extend its native capabilities to optimize reporting:
- Replicating ERP data directly in BI tools. By leveraging software that completely replicates data sets in a platform like Power BI, businesses can effectively eliminate errors and delays.
- Consistent formatting. If executives are looking at the same information in different formats, it can lead to unnecessary disagreement. Polished, professional reports – whether in Excel or through other integrations and tools – need to be generated consistently with drill-through capabilities.
- Drill down, slice and dice. Automated data streams give C-suite the ability to explore the data your ERP provides at any level of granularity they like. It also allows them to make the most of their BI tools’ capabilities.
- Complete business view. If business leaders only have a partial view of the relevant data sets an ERP delivers, it can lead to poor business decisions and promote conflict. Software integrations let executives dive deep into all the information your ERP contains to endlessly customize their models and forecasts.
#2: A lack of support for your unique reporting requirements
Every business has its own needs when it comes to reporting, and these vary depending on personal preference, role and overall strategy. This means your ERP should deliver flexibility with preferred KPIs while providing comprehensive access to all your data systems. Overcoming limitations often means resorting to manual processes, and these slow down reporting and introduce costly errors.
For NetSuite users, a solution like ZoneReporting is an ideal integration that automatically reconciles and replicates NetSuite data directly in tools like Power BI. Because it operates entirely within your ERP, it supports real-time insights and allows you to completely own your compliance.
And while it means greater efficiency and fewer resources wasted on validating report accuracy, it also reduces the headaches CFOs experience when dealing with old or incomplete reporting. They also benefit from ZoneReporting’s 100+ pre-built reports that can be further customized and supported by all of your ERP’s data.
#3 Revenue leakage and lost productivity
42% of companies experience revenue leakage due to inefficiencies and errors, and it accounts for 1%-5% of their realized EBITDA every year. These holes in the order-to-cash (OTC) cycle are a major headache that CFOs have to identify and manage in their daily work. It eats into their productivity and distracts them from other important tasks.
ERPs can do a lot to preserve data lineages, but anywhere manual processes creep in, there’s a risk of polluting the numbers with errors that eventually filter into Excel reports and BI tools. On top of that, revenue leakage also means lost time as employees have to go back and correct mistakes. This takes them away from more critical tasks and ultimately diminishes the speed and accuracy of reporting.
Of course, even if your business is relying on Excel to some degree to overcome ERP limitations, tools within the Zone Data Platform can help by extracting and transforming data from NetSuite so your team can focus on analytical insights.
#4 Siloed systems and inefficient workflow
Because reporting depends on the efficiency and coordination of all your other systems, achieving real-time data streams is a first-order challenge that starts with your ERP. This isn’t just about speed either – SMBs implementing data-driven decision-making can achieve 6% higher profits than their competitors. How well platforms and tools like your CRM, Excel, and Power BI integrate with your ERP all have a dramatic effect on the quality and accuracy of the reports and forecasts C-suite can leverage, and therefore the final revenue they can realize.
If your systems are siloed or create bottlenecks that are overcome through manual work, your ERP may benefit from smart integrations that provide the following benefits:
- Rapid synchronization. If your systems sync daily, or worse, less frequently, executives will be limited in their ability to identify opportunities or troubleshoot emerging problems. By integrating your systems, data can be updated constantly so there’s never any question about quality or consistency.
- Live data. Businesses handle an extraordinary number of individual transactions every day, and your ERP is the platform that organizes the data as they come in. By seamlessly connecting all your systems with the right integrations, your ERP can deliver live data streams to your BI tools.
- Business-wide automation. Because the quality of your reports, models and forecasts depends on every other system, upgrades that optimize your ERP’s data-gathering capabilities also deliver the benefits of increased automation throughout your business.
Elevating Your ERP’s Capabilities with Zone & Co
At the end of the day, the reports you generate are only as good as your ERP’s functionality and integration with your data systems and BI tools. Zone & Co delivers a range of software and integrations to extend NetSuite’s native capabilities and enhance the reporting process. ZoneReporting and the Zone Data Platform are just two of our products that support automation across your business and equip leadership with the real-time insights they need.
Learn more about how Zone & Co can help you get the most out of your ERP by booking a demo today.
