UPDATED: This article was updated following communication with NETSTOCK. There was an error in the original NETSTOCK press release and some clarifications have been added to the article
NETSTOCK has announced that its inventory replenishment and optimisation application has achieved Built for NetSuite verification certification. The achievement comes two months before the annual NetSuite conference, SuiteWorld17. It also comes only a few months after they signed a deal with Sage to become a white labelled product under the Sage banner.
Not on the NetSuite Platform
This announcement does not mean that NETSTOCK has rewritten their application to sit on the NetSuite platform. It means the integration to NetSuite meets a certain level of criteria that NetSuite have laid down.
The implementation process between the two system is quick. They are both cloud-based and the transfer happens each night. This allows NETSTOCK to prepare its inventory analysis for the start of each day.
Helping small-medium sized business manage stock
Once the data is in NETSTOCK it analysis sales orders, stock and purchase orders “in just an hour or two”. It then enables users to quickly identify issues through a new graphical interface. This is not a real-time system. Businesses that are extremely dynamic will see delays in making changes. The NETSTOCK site does not reveal whether data can transfer between the two systems more regularly.
Once analysed NETSTOCK identifies where stock is out or about to go out. This is based on historical sales trends and existing purchase orders. It also identifies over stocking, allowing companies to set pricing to reduce stock to free up capital if needed.
NETSTOCK also identifies component sales within a bill of materials. Thus if an item is sold individually, as a bulk item or as part of an assembled product, all sales orders will feed into the analysis. Companies are evolving sales products to meet market demand. This is intelligent as it simplifies calculations for small businesses that create bundles of products for sale.
One early adopter, Pete Macaulay, MD of Kitchen Warehouse commented “NETSTOCK helped us to reduce inventory by 20% in the first 12 months whilst improving in-stock performance – a fantastic result.”
Conclusion
NETSTOCK first appeared on suiteapp.com in 2010. According to NETSTOCK their entry has just appeared on the app directory although the SuiteApp entry currently reads that it has been available since 2010. We are seeking clarification from both NETSTOCK and NetSuite.
Surprisingly, this will be their first SuiteWorld conference, perhaps the lure of Las Vegas was too great to resist. This could be the largest SuiteWorld yet with Oracle no doubt helping on the marketing front.
Having achieved the BNF verification certification from NetSuite one might have expected a more seamless and possibly real time integration with NetSuite. It will be interesting to see what roadmap NETSTOCK has for their product.
Russ Graf, Vice Presiedent NETSTOCK clarified that “while the vast majority of our users are fully satisfied with a nightly data refresh of our app, we do have an easy ability for the user to refresh the data as needed, on demand.”
“None of our many integrations are real time. It is not how our product is designed nor implemented. As mentioned above, for the purposes of inventory planning and replenishment, a “batch” upload of data, typically once per day done overnight, is completely adequate and appropriate. And there are many advantages to this model, not the least of which is independence from most ERP version upgrades. We now have over 900 customers around the globe, on a wide variety of ERP systems, all running the identical SaaS version of NETSTOCK/Sage Inventory Advisor. We are adding 40+ per month. We believe that level of adoption validates our model and approach.”