NetSuite adds HR to SaaS offering

NetSuite has rolled out Employee Resource Management (ERM) to enable workers to perform project-related chores, and access human resource-related documents.

The new capabilities are part of the NetSuite Employee Centre, a self-service portal integrated within NetSuite's overall software-as-a-service platform, which also includes enterprise resource planning, customer-relationship management and e-commerce applications.
“NetSuite’s new ERM capabilities make it as easy to manage employees as it is to manage the rest of your business, such as customer and vendor transactions,” said Zach Nelson, CEO of NetSuite.

“In the past, HR departments required complex integrations between their HRIS system and their financial system. Now, they can empower their employees and managers with self-service and integrated expense reporting, as well as eliminating the red tape and cost of administering purchase management, time tracking and payroll through disparate applications.”

The new services enable employees to track time by project, and enter expense reports and purchase requests, which managers can approve online. HR can also use the service to provide employees with documents on benefits, job performance and reviews, company policies, new hire information, company holiday schedules and other information. Managers can approve employee time and expenses, and relevant data flows automatically to payroll, billing, and the general ledger — greatly improving efficiency and accuracy.

According to a recent Forrester research report, HR and ERP have the highest adoption rates of all types of software-as- a-service (SaaS) applications. Among enterprises that use or are piloting SaaS applications, adoption of HR applications at 54 percent and ERP at 40 percent are top of the list, followed by CRM at 38 percent.

Specific functions are:

– Expense Reporting: Employees can fill out expense reports, bill items to clients or projects, and route their reports automatically to supervisors. Supervisors, in turn, can approve the reports from their dashboards with one click. Approved expense reports are reflected automatically on the next payroll run.

– Purchase Requests: Employees can easily make purchase requests which are then routed to supervisors for approval. Once approved, the accounting department can convert purchase requests into purchase orders with just one click.

– Time and Billing: With NetSuite, users can track time and billing for an unlimited number of customers, and projects, and assign billable time to individual jobs, departments, and/or classes automatically. Time can also be entered for payroll purposes such as personal time off, vacation, sick time or unpaid leave.

– Document Management: NetSuite’s document management system electronically organizes and stores content, supporting publishing both internally through the corporate intranet. This allows HR to publish information pertinent to employees regarding job reviews, company policies, employee handbook, company holiday schedules, benefits information and 401K details.