What is a NetSuite Suitelet and Why Would it Matter to you as a Finance Professional

If you are a user of NetSuite who belong to the Finance Department – CFO, VP of Finance, Financial Controller, Finance Manager, A/R or A/P Specialist, etc., –  it’s time to add another NetSuite vocabulary as you may use it in making your work easier someday.

While using NetSuite, you probably have encountered a report requirement that is not supported by the out of the box reports or Saved Searches.

An alternative solution you may be using right now is the use of Excel manipulation.

However, this is an unpleasant way of dealing with it as it will be an endless journey of downloading the Excel files and redoing the work.

There is another approach. It may be costly as it will require development hours but will be worthwhile in the long term since you will increase productivity and avoid the unpleasant work as mentioned.

That is through a NetSuite SuiteScript feature called Suitelet.

What is a NetSuite Suitelet?  

You may have heard this term before. You may have interviewed a NetSuite Developer mentioning that they have experience developing suitelets, but what are they, exactly?

Suitelets are custom pages that you can build using SuiteScript code.

Think of it as an extension of your NetSuite account where you have the freedom to choose how it will appear or behave. Note that each component, be it a field or the instructions that will happen upon the click of a button – is equivalent to a few lines of its source code. Since everything – the UI, behavior, back-end logic – is controlled by the source code, it takes more time to configure it than when you’re setting up a feature on the out of the box NetSuite.

Why do we have to develop suitelets?

Your company may have a business process that is highly unique it cannot be supported via standard reporting or saved search formulas.

This is where Suitelet comes in. It gives much more flexibility as to what you can achieve.  Here are some examples of what you can achieve in NetSuite:

Advantages of using a Suitelet

• You can create highly customized reports that are not supported via standard reporting or saved searches.
• You can choose to combine two searches and display it a single list.
• You can choose to have simple to complex calculations for you to better analyze the data you’re looking into. 
•  You can have more flexibility in controlling the user interface, like colors, window size, field layouts and some other UI tweaks.
• You can drill down and retrieve multiple levels of data.
• You can create interactive forms and embed it on your web page.
• You can digitize manual procedures such as submitting reports, logging performance reviews, plotting leaves and other employee requests.
• You can add other functionality such as the ability to export, create charts, add some back-end logic such as creation of records / transactions, etc.

Disadvantages of Using a Suitelet

Remember that since this is a custom application, its behaviors, UI fields are not easily added or maintained. You will have to control the source code or come up with a complex architectural design for it to become configurable.

Since it is mainly controlled by its source code, it requires extensive hours to develop, hence can be costly.  Therefore, you need to properly assess if this is a worthy investment before you jump into it.

Suitelet in action

For you to have a clearer view of what a Suitelet can do, you can see this sample project that we did for a non-profit organization where we built them a membership form with an interactive User Interface.

Is Suitelet the right option for me?

Here at CEANA Technology, we provide free consultation on whether your requirements would involve development of a Suitelet or not. Book a call here and let’s discuss further.