Removing blindspots for NetSuite enterprise performance management users

For many businesses using Oracle NetSuite ERP, financial and operational reporting often starts at a high level - total revenue, cost of goods sold (COGS) and operating expenses. But relying solely on this aggregated view is like trying to drive with a foggy windscreen. Without the ability to drill into specific transactions, blend financial and operational data, and visualize the root causes of performance trends, businesses are flying blind.

Finance leaders and department heads know that meaningful insights lie in the details. Without the right tools, however, teams are forced to work with spreadsheets and disconnected reports that delay decision-making, introduce human error and keep your people guessing.

The gap between NetSuite ERP and performance clarity

While NetSuite is a powerful cloud ERP platform, its native reporting capabilities often fall short for organizations looking to scale their enterprise performance management (EPM) practices. Finance teams find it difficult to connect financial and operational data to support the measurement of cross functional metrics. Critical activities like budgeting, forecasting, account reconciliation and financial close remain manual or partially automated, slowing down the entire organization.

Sales, operations and finance teams all feel the impact. Without a streamlined way to combine information like sales volumes, pricing trends, product margins and customer behavior, it's nearly impossible to understand performance at a granular level. This affects everything from profitability analysis to cost management and operational planning.

High-level data doesn’t provide the full picture

Enterprise performance management isn’t about checking off modules in a cloud ERP system. It’s about empowering people across the business. This means moving beyond top line reporting and static dashboards to a system where real-time data is accessible, drillable and visualized.

According to Chartered Accountants ANZ’s 2024 Technology Research (supported by Phocas), over a third of organizations still integrate data manually. These reporting processes can take days or even weeks to complete. And 69% of respondents cited human error as the top concern in data management. When finance leaders are expected to provide strategic insights, these inefficiencies are more than just a nuisance, they're a risk.

Zeder Corporation, a manufacturer and distributor of suspension components for the automotive industry, runs Oracle NetSuite for its core ERP processes. But when its finance and FP&A team needed a more scalable, integrated EPM solution, they turned to Phocas.

Dean Nicolaides, Senior Management Accountant at Zeder explains his old way of working. “I used to spend hours in Excel making sense of product and customer sales data. Then, when I’d attempt to repeat it the next month, the spreadsheet might break.”

With Phocas, Dean and his team moved away from fragile spreadsheets to a system built for performance insight. They implemented Phocas Financial Statements, Budgets and Forecasts with Analytics combining business intelligence (BI) and financial planning and analysis (FP&A) into one seamless platform. The result? A single source of truth that consolidates NetSuite ERP data with other sources, automated reporting that empowers confident, data-driven decisions.

“We now have the granularity of reporting to pinpoint the root causes of variances and performance issues. When we spot a trend, we action it immediately. There’s a huge ROI on that” 
Dean Nicolaides, Senior Management Accountant at Zeder

The limitations of NetSuite native EPM reporting

NetSuite EPM users often find the built-in performance tools rigid and limited when it comes to customization. While NetSuite Planning and Budgeting (NSPB) and NetSuite Account Reconciliation offer useful functionality, they're often not enough to meet the needs of mid-market businesses operating across multiple divisions or data sources.

These challenges hinder financial management. More importantly, they prevent finance teams from building a deeper understanding of what’s driving business performance.

The value of integrated BI and FP&A

Phocas provides a scalable solution that integrates directly with Oracle NetSuite, giving users access to real-time, automated dashboards and deeper financial analysis. Instead of waiting for the monthly close or reconciling errors days later, teams can respond to performance shifts instantly.

Here’s how Phocas helps NetSuite users remove blind spots:

Phocas transforms static reports into dynamic dashboards. NetSuite users can instantly view sales volumes, pricing trends, margins and performance across products and customers. Financial and operational data is no longer siloed, allowing for a full-picture view of business processes.

Phocas replaces manual spreadsheet-based version sharing with auditable cloud-based budgeting processes that link directly to financial and non-financial data. Forecasting becomes more accurate and easier to update, enabling confident changes.

Finance teams can build financial statements or budgets tailored to specific teams or departments. For example, Zeder’s team set up management reports grouped by customer categories and sales performance. Stakeholders get the metrics they care about each day or hour – depending on how your system is set-up.

With automated data consolidation, Phocas helps accelerate the financial close process and simplifies the account reconciliation process. This reduces the risk of errors and frees up the finance team for more strategic initiatives.

From pricing strategies to supply chain planning, integrated data supports informed decisions across all departments. Finance leaders can analyze variances, model scenarios and support stakeholders with clear, confident insights.

Why integration matters

When financial and operational data live in separate systems, the reconciliation process becomes a bottleneck. Teams spend valuable time chasing numbers, fixing errors and second-guessing assumptions. This disconnect leads to inconsistent reporting, longer close cycles and missed opportunities.

A BI and FP&A platform like Phocas bridges this gap by bringing all relevant data into a single, usable view. It reduces friction across business processes and ensures stakeholders—from the CFO to the sales manager—are working with the same source of truth.

As the Chartered Accountants report highlights, 60% of organizations still use systems outside their ERP to generate financial statements. Yet only 7% use an all-in-one solution. This shows the clear need for more connected, accessible tools that reduce reliance on manual input and enable real-time, accurate analysis.

With the combined power of NetSuite ERP and the Phocas BI and FP&A platform, businesses can break free from spreadsheet reliance and static reporting. By connecting financial data and operational data into one intuitive platform provides automated data flow, reports and budgets.

NetSuite users looking to evolve their performance management practices need more than high-level dashboards. They need a solution that simplifies data integration and provides granular insight into the “why” behind the numbers. With Phocas, finance leaders and operational teams can eliminate performance blind spots and drive growth with informed decisions.