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If you’re a business owner or executive relying on NetSuite to run critical operations, chances are you want to audit your NetSuite instance from time to time. But auditing an ERP without the proper precautions can cause major headaches. You might accidentally break integrations, corrupt data, or disrupt workflows.
The good news is you can audit NetSuite safely and effectively if you follow a few best practices. In this post, we’ll explore step-by-step how to:
- Set goals and scope for your audit
- Assemble the right audit team
- Develop an audit plan
- Gather data and document findings
- Report on opportunities for improvement
We’ll also look at why conducting regular self-audits is so important for optimized NetSuite performance and reduced risk.
Let’s get started!
Set Concrete Goals and Scope
First things first—define why you’re auditing and what you hope to achieve. Are you looking to:
- Uncover cost-savings opportunities?
- Reduce compliance risk?
- Identify process bottlenecks?
- Pinpoint new feature opportunities?
- Something else?
Get very clear on your motivation upfront so you can scope the audit appropriately.
For example, if your main goal is finding immediate cost savings, you’d focus more on reports, user behavior analytics, and license optimization. For reducing compliance risk, you’d prioritize testing security controls and reviewing system access/permissions.
Set a Clear Boundary
The natural next step is setting a boundary for what parts of your NetSuite instance will be in scope.
This keeps the audit targeted and actionable. Trying to boil the ocean rarely ends well!
Consider auditing functions or users one at a time. Like reviewing the procure-to-pay process in one audit, then order-to-cash the next. Or start with sales ops this quarter, finance next quarter.
You’re more likely to complete the audit and implement recommendations if scope is narrow and deep vs. broad and shallow.
Assemble a Skilled, Unbiased Audit Team
Who exactly will carry out the audit? This decision has huge implications for effectiveness.
You want a balanced team combining business users, system experts and fresh pairs of eyes.
Business users lend crucial context about existing processes, pain points and needs.
Network admins maintain back-end system knowledge to assess infrastructure health.
While third-party auditors like SuiteRep provide unbiased assessments, identify risks and ensure best practice adherence based on their extensive NetSuite experience.
Having business, tech and third-party perspectives helps offset blind spots and validate findings across biases. It leads to more balanced recommendations overall.
Map Out an Audit Plan The next best practice is creating an inspection plan upfront—the who/what/where/when/how. Outline:
- Data sources: Where can auditors collect information needed to measure goals? Common options include system reports, usage metrics, process documentation, user surveys, benchmark research and more.
- Tools and timeline: What tools will auditors use to analyze data? And what’s the schedule for completing research, assessments and reporting?
- Tests and benchmarks: How will auditors measure performance data against targets and industry benchmarks to identify gaps? Good benchmarks account for company size and complexity.
- Deliverables: What will the final deliverables be to share opportunities uncovered and how will they be shared for action planning?
Thoughtful planning in advance leads to organized execution later.
Gather Data and Document Findings Now it’s time for auditors to dive in!
Using the mapped plan as a guide, they’ll:
- Extract and analyze data from sources identified
- Conduct user interviews to add qualitative perspectives
- Assess pros and cons of current configurations
- Document where goals are being met versus not met
- Compare performance against benchmarks
- Highlight outliers, gaps and bottlenecks surfaced
Constant collaboration ensures issues are explored from multiple angles. Share questions, tests, results and interpretations across the team.
Having an online workspace like SuiteAnswers helps centralize findings, discussions and next steps in one secure, searchable platform.
Report on Opportunities Uncovered
The culmination of an audit is reporting out on what was uncovered.
Reports should focus on highlighting improvement opportunities aligned back to original goals and benchmarks—not just raw findings. Here are some best practices for clear, focused reporting:
- Organize opportunities by theme and priority level
- Include context and proof points with hard data
- Show target benchmark comparisons
- Call out interdependencies that could impact changes
- Outline range of options to close gaps
Socialize across leadership to align on which opportunities to tackle first based on factors like effort, impact and cost.
Rinse and Repeat
Auditing business systems takes time and diligence. But keeping up regular assessments pays dividends over the long haul.
Aim to audit major areas of your NetSuite instance once annually at minimum. More complex functions or rapidly changing parts of the business might warrant quarterly or monthly check-ins.
Save time next go around by keeping past reports and plans handy to adapt vs. starting from scratch.
Over time you gain rich trend analysis—spotting what’s improving or not early enough to stay proactive.
Why Choose SuiteRep for NetSuite Implementation?
As highlighted throughout this article, NetSuite expertise is invaluable when tackling initiatives like self-audits. But most businesses lack needed skill sets internally to optimize their ERP instance alone.
That’s where dedicated NetSuite partners like SuiteRep prove vital resources. Our deep software knowledge combined with extensive NetSuite implementation experience lets us guide clients to better business outcomes through services like:
- NetSuite Upgrades – We flawlessly transition clients to new platform versions, preserving customizations.
- Health Checks – We audit NetSuite configurations against proven industry best practices to reduce risk and optimize performance.
- Managed Services – We act as clients’ virtual NetSuite department for sustained improvement post go-live.
- Strategy Consulting – We provide unbiased guidance to transform processes and reporting using NetSuite’s full capabilities.
- Issue Resolution – We supplement clients’ teams to quickly troubleshoot and resolve system bugs and user adoption problems.
In short, SuiteRep operates as an extension of your team to amplify ROI from NetSuite and related technologies—now and into the future as needs evolve.
To discuss how SuiteRep can help optimize your next NetSuite project or initiative, schedule a free consultation today.