The Ins and Outs of Integrating Salesforce and NetSuite
Ebook Maximizing Sales and Accounting Efficiency by Connecting the Leading ERP and CRM Applications Salesforce CRM and NetSuite ERP are two of the most fundamental and popular applications in any growing organization, used by thousands of companies worldwide. Sales teams love working with Salesforce, while NetSuite is much better suited for accounting purposes.
Despite working in different applications, each team needs critical information from the other: sharing prices, quotes, invoices, bookings, and more. However, keeping Salesforce and NetSuite disconnected from each other turns them into data silos, isolating information from other teams within the organization. Information ranging from account and contact information, orders, prices, quotes, invoices, financials, and much more needs to go back and forth between the sales and accounting departments, often resulting in manual processes via email and spreadsheets. Given how these two teams need to work together, this can cause delays, errors, and overall hamper the efficiency of business processes.
Solving this problem requires answering the following question: what is the best way to connect these two applications that best serves the organization as a whole?
2 Salesforce - NetSuite | Ebook The Lead-to-Cash Process Lead-to-Cash is that process that starts with the prospect’s intent to make a purchase and follows through to revenue recognition, serving as one of the most important business processes at any company. onnecting Salesforce NetSuite Auto ating ead to ash usiness rocesses
Lead-to-Cash: rocess starting ith prospect s intent to u through re enue recognition
Lead Account Opportunity Sales Order Fulfillment Invoice Payment
Sales Rep Sales Inventory A/R Analyst Manager Manager
The challenge in creating a seamless process lies in the fact that significant portions lie in two different organizations who need information from each other, from start to finish.
Salesforce - NetSuite | Ebook 3 onnecting Salesforce NetSuite Auto ating ead to ash usiness rocesses
Business Problem: rocess is frag ented et een t o disparate SaaS applications
Lead Account Opportunity Sales Order Fulfillment Invoice Payment
Sales Rep Sales Inventory A/R Analyst Manager Manager
Sales Team wants to use Finance Team wants to use Salesforce CRM NetSuite ERP
Each team needs information from the other - from start to finish. Result: anual processes ia e ail and spreadsheets errors dela s lac of isi ilit
Specifically for the Lead-to-Cash processes, these are typically the fields most commonly moved back and forth between the two applications:
4 Salesforce - NetSuite | Ebook If the lead-to-cash process is not automated as the company grows, there would be too many emails and manual data entry going back and forth that they end up causing errors and delays. The sales team lags in response times to prospects, while the finance team is slow in revenue recognition and closing the books. Both teams generally lack visibility throughout the entire process.
To achieve this in a holistic way, what are the individual needs of each department in the lead-to- cash processes?
Salesforce - NetSuite | Ebook 5 Needs by Role and Department
Role Sales Finance Operations / IT Need Fast response, visibility Visibility, faster revenue Reliability, security, low to entire sales cycle recognition maintenance Details View invoices, pay- All details required for Data integrity across all ments, balance, credit revenue recognition are systems limit, etc in Salesforce in NetSuite
Easy to update/config- Independence from Ensure product listing, ure Finance to respond to pricing, subscription customer inquiries details are up-to-date Troubleshooting and support If revenue recognition date is dependent on Salesforce, date is auto- Minimize number of matically captured and licenses across systems updated in NetSuite (e.g., service delivery date)
Figure 1: Integrations provide teams with the information they need to do their jobs
The ideal solution to the headache of manual processes is to integrate Salesforce and NetSuite. Integration automates how information moves back and forth between the teams, reducing the number of costly errors, delays, headcount focused on manual content, all while increasing the visibility of information across teams. Most importantly, these disparate teams can work in the native applications that they prefer, which automatically share data back and forth between systems.
Integrating Salesforce and NetSuite is so foundational that it is often one of the first that many organizations implement in their integration strategy. However, there are many different approaches that companies have taken when it comes to integration.
6 Salesforce - NetSuite | Ebook Integration Options
1. Direct, Custom-Coded API Integrations Anyone can build their own core integration. By leveraging code and APIs, custom integrations can be very powerful and are often the preferred path taken by some operational teams. However, they require trained technical resources and are very time consuming to build and deploy, especially when it involves two incredibly complex applications such as Salesforce and NetSuite. For these reasons, they are difficult to scale.
To give an example of how untenable these integrations can be in the long term, direct integration requires building your own key integration functionality. This means error checking, guaranteed data delivery, data governance and customizations have to be accounted for at the development cycle, or they won’t exist at all. Accordingly, there are no monitoring capabilities such as audit logs. These critical functions are one of the biggest challenges of direct integrations, compounded when you are dealing with such important customizable applications as Salesforce and NetSuite.
2. Recipes and Accelerators on an iPaaS Several integration platforms offer “Recipes” or “Accelerators” as a starting point. However, due to the nature of the specific NetSuite and Salesforce applications, these tools are simply starting points in the integration process. They still require deep technical knowledge in the integration platform, and thus require a significant amount of technical resources to implement.
3. iPaaS-Based Integration Apps Integration Apps are standalone SaaS applications built and run on an Integration Platform as a Service (iPaaS). As a standalone product, they include a complete set of pre-built integration flows out of the box. Because they are built on an iPaaS, they allow for a level of robustness and customization that is not possible with other types of integrations. The out-of-the-box functionality means you can build and deploy the integration, even if you aren’t an IT expert.
While many other vendors offer recipes and accelerators to help connect applications, Integration Apps are exclusive to Celigo’s Integrator.io. Because it is a standalone SaaS application, the integration is continuously maintained and updated by Celigo as new functionalities get rolled out. Celigo has turned the lessons learned from over a decade doing thousands of Salesforce-NetSuite integrations into its flagship Integration App.
Salesforce - NetSuite | Ebook 7 Celigo’s Salesforce – NetSuite Integration App
Celigo’s Salesforce-NetSuite Integration App is the only pre-built, fully managed integration application that automates lead-to-cash between these two applications. Streamlining the lead- to-cash process gives businesses a unified 360-degree view of customer data across departments, resulting in faster revenue recognition and reduced IT spend.
Built for both IT and end-users, the Integration App keeps sales teams in Salesforce and finance teams in NetSuite, eliminating the need for duplicate licenses. Additionally, ongoing product enhancements are automatically available, including any updates required when there are changes in NetSuite or Salesforce APIs. For example, if NetSuite releases an updated API, Celigo is responsible for making sure that the integration experience is also updated for the end user.
Pre-built flows include:
Salesforce and NetSuite are two of the most customizable applications out there, and no two instances are the same. Because the integration app is built on an iPaaS, it can easily accommodate custom use-cases out-of-the box and expanded with few technical resources. Maintenance can be done directly from the user-friendly dashboard, allowing you to monitor integration activity in real time and handle errors.
8 Salesforce - NetSuite | Ebook Example of the opportunity lifecycle with the Salesforce-NetSuite Integration App:
In common integration scenarios, users typically want Salesforce opportunities passed into their ERP when they reach particular milestones – like “Closed Won,” for instance.
Celigo features a mapping dashboard to configure pre-built integration flows, automating the synchronization of Salesforce and NetSuite for your business processes. The parameters for triggering data syncs can be set at the stages that best meet your needs.
Once deployed, the Integration App triggers a data sync based on your specifications. In the case of a “Closed Won”, the integrated Salesforce-NetSuite system would scan and verify whether a customer who has reached that particular stage exists. If the customer exists, the integration will update the information across all of the connected apps. If they do not, a record would automatically be generated and that opportunity’s data would be updated in all other instances.
In this scenario:
• Celigo syncs the Salesforce opportunity information to NetSuite where a sales order is created using the information from Salesforce • Any line item attributes, such as tax codes, read/write schedules, etc. in NetSuite are inherited natively so that information does not need to previously exist in Salesforce • Once a sales order in NetSuite is created, Celigo updates the opportunity in Salesforce. The sales order number will be included in the header, and an order record is created. • The order record includes a link to the invoice in PDF format. The PDF indicates the billing stage (pending approval, pending billing, pending fulfillment, billed, paid, etc.). • As the opportunity goes through the billing stages, the information is automatically updated in Salesforce giving your salespeople complete visibility into invoice activity in real-time.
Salesforce - NetSuite | Ebook 9 Advanced Feature Set
Opportunities and Sales Orders Sync Salesforce Opportunities to NetSuite Sales Orders or Projects, with option to sync NetSuite Sales Orders to Salesforce Orders or Opportunities
Order Fulfillment When a Sales Order is fulfilled in NetSuite, a custom Salesforce Fulfillment record is created and updated
Items and Products Manage Items and Products in either NetSuite or Salesforce, with automatic updates to the other application
E-Signature Sync Salesforce documents electronically signed with EchoSign or DocuSign in NetSuite based on document status
Accounts, Customers, Contacts Update Salesforce Accounts, NetSuite Customers, and Contacts between both applications using conditional rules
Customer Financials Let Salesforce users view Invoices, Payment, Deposits, Cash Sales, Refunds and other NetSuite transactions directly in Salesforce
NetSuite Capabilities Supports NetSuite OneWorld, Contract Renewals, Multi-Subsidiary, SuiteBilling*, Multi-Currency, and more (*requires Celigo’s SuiteBilling add-on)
Faster Revenue Recognition Real-time visibility into quotes and bookings
10 Salesforce - NetSuite | Ebook 1820 Gateway Drive, Suite 260 San Mateo, CA 94404 USA 650.579.0210 www.celigo.com [email protected]