NetSuite vs. Acumatica
Choosing the Best ERP System

When it comes to financial software, businesses that have outgrown spreadsheets or entry-level accounting systems such as QuickBooks, as well as those running legacy on-premises systems that no longer fit their needs, have a wealth of options.

Most of the systems being implemented today are cloud-based ERP solutions, and there are a number of software vendors in the marketplace. This article examines two of the cloud ERP systems available, NetSuite and Acumatica, and the key differences between them.

What Is ERP?

Enterprise resource planning (ERP) is a centralized software system that manages the core processes of a business, including financials and accounting, order management, inventory management, human resources, and more.

In a cloud ERP system, the software vendor manages the database, servers, and data center infrastructure and customers access the software via the internet. In some cases, vendors run separate ERP instances for each customer, known as hosting. Software as a Service (SaaS) ERP systems are multitenant, meaning that the vendor runs one application with customer data separated at the database level, which creates greater economies of scale.

NetSuite vs. Acumatica: An Overview

NetSuite and Acumatica are both cloud-based ERP systems, meaning the software is maintained and updated by the software vendor and accessed by the customer via a web browser. However, Acumatica is based on an on-premises architecture and does offer an on-premises option; more on this in the deployment section below.

Generally speaking, NetSuite is better suited for growing businesses and offers international business, capabilities that Acumatica struggles with, including multisubsidiary consolidation, multicurrency and multilanguage capabilities and compliance with international taxes and regulations. NetSuite also makes building custom reports easier for everyday users who are not developers.

Product Maturity and History

NetSuite was founded in 1998 by Evan Goldberg, an early Oracle employee, as a software suite to run an entire business. The company received early backing and support from Larry Ellison, the co-founder of Oracle. Their strong technical backgrounds helped make NetSuite the first cloud-based software company and the first cloud ERP system on the market.

In 2016, NetSuite was acquired by Oracle for $9.3 billion, and the company is now run as a separate business unit within Oracle. With Oracle’s backing, NetSuite was able to more quickly expand its international operations and open new data centers that use the Oracle Cloud Infrastructure(opens in new tab).

After more than 25 years in business, NetSuite now serves more than customers in over 200 countries and dependent territories.

Acumatica was founded in 2008 by John Howell Jr., Serg Bell, and Mike Shchelkonogov. Bell and Shchelkonogov both worked at Parallels previously and brought six team members over with them. Many of the early leaders at Acumatica had backgrounds with Microsoft’s Solomon ERP system in the software reseller channel. In March 2022, Acumatica brought in a new CEO, John Case, who had led Unify Square through its sale to Unisys in 2021. Prior to that, Case also spent 16 years at Microsoft in various executive-level positions, including corporate vice president of Office and Office 365, as well as VP of Microsoft’s worldwide original equipment manufacturer (OEM) division.

Acumatica was acquired by private equity fund EQT Partners in 2019.

It currently has more than 10,000+ customers.

NetSuite vs. Acumatica: Vertical Industries

Processes, workflows, and data demands vary greatly by industry. Most ERP software vendors offer industry-specific editions as well as the ability to customize the software to meet the specific needs a business might have.

NetSuite’s core industries include:

• Distribution
• Manufacturing
• Software
• Services
• Retail and ecommerce
• Nonprofits
• Advertising, media and publishing
• Construction

NetSuite offers an array of versions for what it calls microverticals in areas including apparel, footwear and accessories; restaurants; food and beverage manufacturing; health and beauty; and more.

In addition to its general business version, Acumatica has dedicated industry editions for:

• Distribution
• Manufacturing
• Construction
• Retail and commerce
• Professional Services

Acumatica has customers in other industries as well. These customers can build out capabilities specific to their industry or business needs using its xRP platform, which allows developers to customize using standard web technologies such as Microsoft Visual Studio.

NetSuite vs. Acumatica

While NetSuite and Acumatica have comparable functionality across several different modules, NetSuite offers more. Because of this and numerous other factors, NetSuite is the preferred vendor for fast-growing businesses.

NetSuite is built with real-time data entry, while Acumatica uses batch-based entry at the subledger level, which can make reporting difficult. Once a company expands internationally, the differences become starker. Acumatica cannot support multiple languages, currencies, and foreign regulatory and tax laws the way that NetSuite can, limiting visibility and creating significant manual work when transacting in other currencies and conducting financial consolidation.

Finally, history in the market and pricing are areas where the two software companies are markedly different. As a result of its long history in cloud ERP, NetSuite also has a much larger customer base and partner channel. In terms of pricing, NetSuite’s pricing structure is more transparent and better suited for fast-growing businesses, while Acumatica can create hidden charges and tied their overall pricing approach to your most important growth metric—commercial transactions.

How NetSuite Compares to Acumatica

Both NetSuite and Acumatica offer core ERP capabilities across financial, customer, product, and services processes. NetSuite generally provides richer functionality with an easier user experience and a greater ability to scale with a customer’s growth, while Acumatica tends to appeal to smaller businesses without the need for advanced functionality.

Here’s how NetSuite and Acumatica compare in features and functionality:

Financial Management

Both vendors provide the core financial management capabilities integral to an ERP system, including general ledger (GL), accounts receivable, accounts payable, cash management, currency management, tax management, deferred revenue accounting, intercompany accounting and intercompany reconciliation, recurring revenue management, billing, fixed assets, and payroll management.

NetSuite does offer some core accounting functionality that Acumatica does not. NetSuite allows customers to keep more than one book, referred to as multibook accounting. Businesses that need to give different accounting treatments to the same business event, either because of industry-, country-, or region-specific accounting rules—or some combination thereof—can do that in NetSuite and remain in compliance with regulations. Keeping multiple sets of books in parallel allows for easier reporting for compliance. Without multibook capabilities as part of the ERP software, accountants are forced into error-prone and cumbersome manual processes.

Traditionally, ERP systems provide a hard-coded set of transaction types such as vendor bills, customer invoices, and inbound and outbound payments that are rigidly reflected in the general ledger, limiting the business’s ability to see and understand their GL impact.

However, NetSuite allows customers to customize their GLs to the specific structure, account types, and level of detail to meet the needs of their business.

Acumatica customizations related to the GL typically required a third-party IT consulting team to change the core code of the application, which can be costly and create risk. With NetSuite, businesses can add custom GL lines to standard transactions to avoid manual journal entries; generate custom transaction types to create new business processes that can impact the general ledger, such as accruals for vendor bills; and create custom general ledger segments that users can tag to demonstrate the impact of transactions, as well as improve the flexibility and results from reporting and analytics.

The way the two systems are designed and configured is also a point of differentiation. Acumatica relies heavily on batch processing, which can slow performance. NetSuite’s architecture allows it to easily analyze large numbers of transactions.

Multi-Entity Management

Acumatica's branch accounting approach limits all entities to the same chart of accounts format. NetSuite's unified platform and multi-entity capabilities support a standardized GL structure at the corporate or headquarters level while giving regional business units or subsidiaries the flexibility to create custom charts of accounts. Further, Acumatica only supports a two-level hierarchy, meaning grandparent-to-grandchild consolidations are not native.

Built for multi-entity since day one, NetSuite currently supports nearly 325,000 subsidiaries for more than unique customers. NetSuite’s multi-entity capabilities automate the matching and elimination of intercompany transactions, simplifying the intercompany netting process across limitless entity hierarchies.

Acumatica consolidations appear to be kicked off manually. There is no financial consolidation process that needs to be run in NetSuite. The platform operates in real time since all subsidiaries live on the same data model. You can view the real-time, consolidated results at any point in the month before the period is closed, without the need for any process to be run or scheduled.

International Management

NetSuite offers some capabilities Acumatica does not that are particularly important for businesses with international operations or those that hope to expand internationally. NetSuite provides the ability to transact in more than 190 currencies and 27 different languages. In fact, NetSuite has been deployed in more than 200 countries and dependent territories. Acumatica customers need to manually perform currency revaluations in the system and, while there are built in localization and translation tools, they are rudimentary, and customers must rely on local partners for the country-specific functionality they need for local and legal requirements.

Further, while Acumatica sells its own branded offering in the UK, Ireland, and other territories such as South Africa, in most others, it works with OEMs where a local software company “white labels” the Acumatica product—rebranding and customizing the solution for its particular region. For example, it is called Visma in EMEA, Visma.net in Nordic countries and the Netherlands, Cegid with XRP Flex in France, Lexware’s Haufe X360 in Germany, and MYOB in Australia and New Zealand. While this approach extends Acumatica’s geographical presence, it complicates and limits a customer’s ability to enter into a single vendor contract and operate on a single solution for their global needs.

Lastly, because of its lack of multibook accounting mentioned earlier, Acumatica cannot support international businesses that need to comply with the US Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) and the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) out of the box.

CRM

Both vendors offer CRM capabilities, including sales force automation, integrated marketing, service and support automation, and a customer self-service portal.

NetSuite also offers a partner relationship management feature.

Human Resource Management Systems

Acumatica offers payroll functionality as part of its core system but relies on partners for all other human resource management capabilities.

On the other hand, NetSuite offers complete payroll processing, as well as core HR features all built on the ERP platform. Its SuitePeople human resource management solution provides capabilities for HR managers, employee self-service, workforce management, HR reporting and performance management.

Reporting and Analytics

Both vendors offer prebuilt reports, self-service reporting, business intelligence and analytics, and dashboards.

But Acumatica uses a legacy-style, segmented chart of accounts with limited dimensions. Additional tags can be applied to transactions to help with data pulls, but this results in limited drill-down ability. Conversely, NetSuite’s dimensionality and segmented analysis capability is unlimited, thereby reducing dependency on customized reports.

Acumatica’s subledger architecture also impacts reporting. Subledgers are a series of transactions grouped by type, such as accounts receivable or accounts payable. Because subledger architectures are designed to pull certain transaction types but leave others out, this creates reporting challenges. The detailed data is ultimately stored at the subledger level and a summary is pushed up to the GL through the batch process. To access that detailed data from reports, which pull from the GL, requires drilling into the subledger to access data on customers, vendors, or projects, and building out more reports.

This is significantly more cumbersome than NetSuite’s architecture, which stores all transactions on a single database, meaning everything in the system is updated in real time and there is no need to run batch jobs to update the books. With NetSuite, when a user needs to access information on a customer, they can conduct a global search and access all the information for that customer in a single view. With a subledger architecture, they would need multiple screen tabs and reports to produce a similar result.

The subledger architecture also impacts the close process. With batch processing of the subledger, extra time and effort is required to review of all the transactions and approve them for summary entry to the GL. With NetSuite, the GL is updated in real time with no need to review transactions. This allows businesses to more easily undertake effective financial strategies like the continuous close.

Project Accounting

Both vendors offer project cost tracking, advanced billing, time and expense management, and project management.

NetSuite offers a robust professional services automation (PSA) module, which also includes resource management whereas Acumatica is dependent on a third party.

Deployment Options and Infrastructure Considerations

Acumatica and NetSuite are both cloud-based ERP systems. Acumatica offers cloud, on-premises and hybrid options, while NetSuite uses a traditional software as a service (SaaS) multitenant cloud deployment. While some customers may appreciate the control that maintaining software in their own facilities provides, most analysts agree that established SaaS providers have greater security, uptime, and performance than a single business can provide on its own. SaaS customers also benefit from the economies of scale and automatic upgrades that carry customizations forward.

Since its acquisition by Oracle, NetSuite has moved its platform to global data centers built on Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI). By using OCI, NetSuite is able to offer greater availability and reduced latency, as well as comply with the growing number of increasingly stringent regulatory and data privacy requirements.

Acumatica is hosted on Amazon Web Services and runs on the Microsoft MySQL Server Database.

Artificial Intelligence

• Oracle's unique single-stack AI structure, from hardware through user applications, includes everything needed for NetSuite to build and deliver advanced AI features.
• NetSuite uses Oracle’s AI services to embed AI capabilities into NetSuite.
• This unified structure of this AI framework allows NetSuite to control for privacy, security, and compliance at every level.
• Acumatica is more restricted approach to AI when compared to NetSuite, due to limitations around architecture and internal investment.
• Because Acumatica is a closed platform, it is hindered by a lack of flexibility, slow innovation, and limited collaboration. It is reliant on external providers, such as AWS, MSFT Azure, and Google Cloud Platform, for AI features.
• Architecture limitations act as natural roadblocks to AI. Even the best AI tools can’t source the right data given Acumatica’s lack of dimensional reporting and subledger-driven GL.
• Acumatica is a low-cost provider who lacks the technical and financial investment that Oracle brings to NetSuite.

Integration

The NetSuite SuiteCloud Platform is a comprehensive customization and integration platform using SuiteScript, a JavaScript-based programming language aligned with the latest ECMAScript standards.

NetSuite’s integration solution SuiteTalk provides a set of web services APIs that enable external systems and applications to interact with NetSuite. It offers both SOAP- and REST-based APIs.

For visual process automation, NetSuite SuiteFlow allows the creation of simple to complex workflow-driven processes through an intuitive point-and-click interface. Users can create and edit virtually any workflow pattern, and set triggers based on user-driven events, schedules, or upstream business processes, without the need for code.

Additionally, SuiteCloud includes SuiteBuilder, empowering administrators with a no-code, metadata-driven approach to extending all facets of the NetSuite data model. Administrators can rapidly create and customize forms, fields, records, transaction types, and navigation elements with SuiteBuilder point-and-click tools.

SuiteCloud’s assortment of tools and features ensure that customizations are upgrade-safe, carrying forward automatically with each new NetSuite release.

Acumatica runs on its xRP Cloud Platform, which also runs REST and SOAP-based web services with support for the .NET framework, Microsoft’s Visual Studio, C#, and ASP.net.

Partner Ecosystem

No software vendor can provide all the functionality that thousands of individual businesses in myriad industries require. That’s where customization capabilities and the partner ecosystem become key. Partners fill gaps that some businesses might have in the core software by either integrating with the software or building out specific department- or industry-focused functionality.

Both NetSuite and Acumatica use partners. However, unlike many other software vendors, Acumatica works entirely through its value-added reseller network of partners for all sales and implementations. While this can be an advantage to partners, which don’t face potential competition from the software vendor’s sales team, it leaves customers without a direct contact to the software vendor itself.

NetSuite has the option to purchase and implement directly through NetSuite. And, given NetSuite’s maturity, it has a much more robust partner ecosystem. NetSuite also has a large number of solution providers, which provide consulting and implementation services, often by region or industry. NetSuite also offers business process outsourcing (BPO) partnerships for companies that want to outsource accounting, customer service, or ecommerce operations.

To extend functionality, NetSuite’s SuiteApp.com(opens in new tab) marketplace features more than 700 add-on applications that are either built on the NetSuite platform or are tightly integrated.

Acumatica has more than 300 partners on its Acumatica Marketplace.

Pricing

Pricing is another core difference between NetSuite and Acumatica.

NetSuite offers a per-user model while Acumatica markets its offering based on the computing resources required and with “unlimited users.” However, the reality is both models are impacted by user counts because, as one might expect, the more users a company has, the more computer resources it requires. Typically, fast-growing companies prefer the per-user model because the number of employees that need to access the ERP system doesn’t grow nearly as fast as the number of transactions.

NetSuite’s per-user and flat-fee pricing delivers greater transparency and predictability, as well as a declining impact on revenue as a business grows. Acumatica’s pricing model can penalize growth and contain hidden costs.

Licensing

Licensing models from both Acumatica and NetSuite offer advantages.

Acumatica’s method is often attractive to smaller firms that are just getting started with ERP and companies that may want to give a large number of employees access to the financial system. NetSuite offers similar advantage for smaller firms, but its model is more predictable, with less uncertainty around moving between tiers. Additionally, fast-growing companies often prefer a per-user model because the number of employees is unlikely to grow as fast as the number of transactions.

Implementation and Support Services

Implementation and support are key considerations in any ERP purchasing decision, and this is another significant difference between NetSuite and Acumatica.

NetSuite offers implementation and support services through its professional services and support teams respectively, as well as through partners, which tend to be regional or specialists in specific industries. In either case, customers get around-the-clock support from NetSuite support services around the globe.

All of Acumatica’s implementation and support activities are channeled through its partners, a somewhat unusual practice in business software. This model offers advantages to its channel partners and spares Acumatica the expense of an in-house professional services team. However, customers do not have a direct relationship with the Acumatica itself. Because Acumatica does not directly implement its own software, it often has less insight into any problems that might arise with implementations and configurations.

NetSuite, on the other hand, has developed a specialized implementation and support methodology, called SuiteSuccess. SuiteSuccess is based on NetSuite’s two decades of experience implementing its software and working with more than 41,000 customers in a wide range of industries. SuiteSuccess incorporates best practices garnered from that experience, including industry- and role-based dashboards, workflows, and permissions. This approach can get a company up and running with an ERP system in as little as 90 days. NetSuite’s partners have also been trained on the SuiteSuccess methodology.

Acumatica has developed a similar program, but it is not in widespread use nor is it available across all their industry offerings.

Why You Should Choose NetSuite

When it comes to cloud-based ERP, NetSuite and Acumatica are frequently on the short list of applications under consideration. Companies that choose NetSuite over Acumatica often cite reporting, support, the ability of the software to scale with the customer, and the best practices garnered from the depth and breadth of its customer base as the reasons for the selection. Companies that choose Acumatica are often looking for an on-premises or hybrid option.