QuickBooks to NetSuite: When and Why to Make the Switch for Growing Businesses

When considering the transition from QuickBooks to NetSuite, it’s important to understand that both are powerful accounting software systems, but they serve different business needs and scales.

QuickBooks is an accounting software designed to help small businesses and individuals. NetSuite, on the other hand, is a much larger ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) system that can manage not just your accounting and finances but also track your data from a multitude of other functions like supply chain, human resources, customer service, commerce and more. In simpler terms, QuickBooks is geared towards smaller and new businesses to help manage general accounting, while NetSuite is for larger organizations looking to get a much broader understanding of their data and components within their business. While QuickBooks is great for an organization’s financials, scaling the organization or changes to operations complexity will drive the switch to a larger ERP system like NetSuite.

As businesses evolve, they often find that their financial management needs outgrow their current systems. This is where many organizations begin to evaluate QuickBooks vs NetSuite to determine the best fit for their expanding operations. It is important to understand when and why it may be time to switch from QuickBooks to NetSuite. When your company grows, your accounting needs may become more complex, making it more challenging for QuickBooks to manage your business operations, exposing its limitations in interpreting your data. Companies using QuickBooks often need to supplement it with additional systems or applications for various functions like revenue management, fixed assets, procurement, order management, billing, inventory management and service delivery, leading to increased complexity and costs. If these systems are not properly integrated, there is a risk of human error when transferring the data between them. NetSuite’s cloud-based ERP solution automates core finance, accounting processes and operations while providing detailed and actionable insights into your business performance. NetSuite’s ERP includes industry-specific preconfigured KPIs, workflows, reminders and customizable dashboards that reveal the alignment between the operations and accounting tasks.

When to Consider Switching from QuickBooks to NetSuite

As your business evolves, you may find that QuickBooks no longer meets your needs. Generally, it’s time to consider a switch to NetSuite when your organization requires:

  • More complex financial reporting
  • Support for expanding business operations
  • Tools for global expansion

When evaluating QuickBooks vs NetSuite, consider these specific scenarios that often indicate that a transition to NetSuite would be beneficial:

  • Global Subsidiary Management: You need to manage multiple subsidiaries, handle multi-currency consolidation and transactional translation, or require country-specific localization including automated tax calculations.
  • Scalability: Your business growth demands a system that can handle increased transaction volumes and complexity.
  • Robust ERP System: You want to integrate financials, CRM, inventory, and e-commerce into a single system to streamline operations and improve efficiency.
  • Advanced Inventory Management: Your operations require real-time visibility into inventory across multiple locations, as well as advanced forecasting and demand planning capabilities.
  • International Compliance: You need to ensure compliance with international accounting standards and regulations.

Data Migration Strategies

For implementation, there needs to be a stakeholder alignment on the data mitigation strategy and effective change management when making the switch. The actual uploading can be done in a few different ways:

  • Extract and Load: The process involves extracting data from QuickBooks and loading it directly into NetSuite. To achieve this, a custom-built or prebuilt connector is needed to bridge the gap between the two platforms, but unfortunately, there is no opportunity to validate the data during the transfer. In addition, NetSuite allows you to segment your data in new ways and this approach would not allow you to transform your data to NetSuite’s improved data segmentation/dimension approach.
  • Extract, Transform and Load (ETL): The ETL process consists of three steps: data transformation either in-stream or at an intermediate location between QuickBooks and NetSuite. This intermediate location is typically a database, data warehouse, CSV, or Excel file.
  • Manual Extraction Using CSV or Excel Files: Let’s briefly consider the CSV or Excel route, which is the most inflexible option. It lacks the ability to audit or modify data through transformation. Although it is a demanding and manual approach, it remains popular due to the widespread use of Excel. 
  • Automated Extraction: Pulling the data into a data warehouse allows you to clean up or manipulate it before loading it into NetSuite, without impacting the original source data. The migration process involves transferring information from one schema to another.

Benefits of Switching to NetSuite

The decision to move from QuickBooks to NetSuite can significantly impact your business operations. As your business grows, you will see an increase in customers, employees and data requiring greater automation in a more mature environment. NetSuite’s cloud-based ERP is a more robust application that can help you understand your business, financials and operations to an extent QuickBooks cannot.

If you are trying to decide if you have outgrown QuickBooks, Withum can help. Our experts can assess your readiness and guide you through the entire process from strategy to implementation, helping with change management and adoption.

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Contact us today to learn how we can support your business growth and manage the transition to a new system.