It is a frequent AP problem that you have in all probability seen earlier than – in terms of shopping for items and providers, no two individuals (or firms) will use the identical language.
Whilst you can create uniform merchandise codes and UPCs (Common Product Codes) in your NetSuite atmosphere, your distributors all have a thoughts of their very own – and can hardly ever (if ever) comply with the identical terminology.
If the identical stock gadgets are procured from a number of suppliers, or in case your buying division is sourcing from a number of places – it provides to the complexity.
Fortunately, there may be a couple of means out.
On this information, we’ll stroll by means of alternative ways you possibly can map vendor-specific merchandise codes to your NetSuite gadgets. We’ll particularly take a look at:
- Mapping A number of Vendor Codes to One Merchandise Code
- Mapping a Single Vendor Code to an Merchandise Code
- Utilizing CSV Imports for Bulk Mapping
- Storing SKU Mappings Outdoors NetSuite (for eg. whenever you’re utilizing OCR)
- Utilizing Workflow Automation to mix one of the best components of options 1 – 4
These options will differ a bit – some are extra handbook whereas some options are extremely automated and good for scale. You possibly can decide what’s greatest for your online business relying in your scale of operations.
Mapping A number of Distributors to One Merchandise
Steps:
In case you solely work with one vendor per merchandise, utilizing a customized area or an Merchandise Alias is an easier methodology. This lets you retailer the seller’s SKU code immediately within the merchandise document.
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That is extra helpful in eventualities when the merchandise can solely be sourced from one explicit vendor – an instance is automotive components or digital chips that may normally be bought immediately from OEMs (Authentic Tools Producers) like Apple or Tesla.
Here is the right way to implement this mapping:
Steps:
- Create a Customized Discipline:
- Navigate to
Customization > Lists, Data, & Fields > Merchandise Fields > New
. - Create a customized area referred to as Vendor SKU Code (Textual content area sort).
- Add this area to your merchandise data.
- Navigate to
- Enter Vendor SKU Code:
- Go to every merchandise document and populate the Vendor SKU Code area with the respective vendor’s SKU.
- Use the Vendor SKU in Transactions:
- As soon as added, this tradition area can be utilized in transactions like buy orders and payments to point out the seller SKU subsequent to your inside merchandise code.
- Show the Vendor SKU on Types:
- If you need the seller SKU to point out up on printed buy orders or vendor payments, you possibly can customise the transaction types to incorporate this tradition area.
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For single-vendor gadgets, you would possibly need to think about using UPCs (Common Product Codes). A UPC quantity permits you to determine particular person items of stock – for example, you would possibly need to observe serial numbers of things like laptops or cell phones.
Utilizing CSV Imports for Bulk Mapping
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It is a one-time fast repair if you do not have a really advanced stock setup on NetSuite – you might discover it tough to do that repeatedly.
When you’ve got a lot of gadgets and distributors, manually coming into every SKU code might be time-consuming. On this case, you should use NetSuite’s CSV Import function to bulk replace vendor SKU codes in your gadgets.
Steps:
- Put together the CSV File:
- Create a CSV file with columns for
Merchandise Identify/ID
,Vendor Identify
, andVendor SKU Code
.
- Create a CSV file with columns for
- Go to CSV Import Software:
- Navigate to
Setup > Import/Export > Import CSV Data
. - Select Merchandise because the document sort and comply with the prompts to add your CSV file.
- Navigate to
- Map the Fields:
- Through the import course of, make sure that the CSV columns are accurately mapped to the suitable fields in NetSuite (Merchandise, Vendor, and Vendor SKU Code).
- Run the Import:
- After mapping, run the import to replace all of your merchandise data with the seller SKU codes in a single go.
Storing SKU Mappings Externally
In case you’re utilizing an exterior instrument to course of invoices — equivalent to OCR (Optical Character Recognition) or AP Automation software program — you would possibly choose to retailer the SKU mappings in an exterior system or CSV file relatively than in NetSuite.
This methodology is beneficial whenever you use an OCR/AP answer and need to map vendor codes to your inside merchandise codes on the time of coding an bill, BEFORE it’s imported into NetSuite.
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Keep in mind that many OCR/AP options will NOT deal with stock gadgets by default. You will have to retailer the mapping of vendor codes to inside merchandise codes in a separate location (like a Google Sheet or CSV) and write a customized integration to lookup from that database.
Find out how to Implement:
- Retailer Mappings in an Exterior CSV or Database:
- Preserve a CSV or database with the next columns:
Vendor SKU
,Inside SKU
,Vendor Identify
. - This may be saved in your native system or in a cloud-based storage like Google Sheets.
- Preserve a CSV or database with the next columns:
- OCR/AP Integration:
- When an bill is available in, use your OCR instrument to extract the seller’s SKU from the bill.
- Write a script or use an integration instrument (most OCR or AP instruments enable customized integrations with Python) to lookup the seller SKU in your exterior file and retrieve the corresponding inside SKU.
- When importing the info into NetSuite to create the Vendor Invoice, use the inner SKU code that you just simply fetched from the lookup in step #2.
Right here’s a easy Python script to match the seller SKU from a CSV file:
import csv
def get_internal_sku(vendor_sku, csv_file):
with open(csv_file, mode="r") as file:
reader = csv.DictReader(file)
for row in reader:
if row['Vendor SKU'] == vendor_sku:
return row['Internal SKU']
return None
# Instance Utilization
vendor_sku = 'ABC123'
internal_sku = get_internal_sku(vendor_sku, 'vendor_mapping.csv')
print(f'Inside SKU: {internal_sku}')
When processing vendor payments in NetSuite, now you can use the inner SKU returned by your script or integration to make sure the right merchandise is used.
- Keep in mind that you will in all probability nonetheless must do knowledge validation when coming into the seller payments into NetSuite (until your OCR/AP instrument already does this). Not doing this could imply damaged knowledge going into NetSuite.
Utilizing AI-Primarily based Workflow Automation
There’s one other means to do that that’s each faster + extra scaleable.
It entails utilizing an AI workflow builder like Nanonets, which lets you arrange the precise workflow wanted to match vendor merchandise codes together with your NetSuite merchandise codes, earlier than syncing it with NetSuite.
That is what a typical workflow will seem like:
- Use a Nanonets AI mannequin to extract knowledge from invoices and payments – this mannequin will extract vendor merchandise codes from every vendor invoice
- Arrange a NetSuite integration on this mannequin and create lookups to get the inner merchandise codes
- Nanonets then does the under for each vendor invoice that you just course of:
- Learn the seller merchandise code on the invoice
- Discover a matching inside merchandise code utilizing a mixture of AI studying from reinforcement + SuiteQL + pure language understanding
- If no match is discovered, then the mannequin will ask the person to pick an inside merchandise code, and study from that call
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Over time, this course of trains the AI mannequin to recollect 80-85% of all vendor merchandise codes. There’ll all the time be exceptions – nonetheless your AP group nonetheless finally ends up saving a giant chunk of time.
However why even do that?
Utilizing AI automation like Nanonets has vital benefits:
- You will find yourself saving greater than 80% of the time it takes to lookup vendor codes.
- Nanonets has in-built knowledge validation – for each bill that you just export into NetSuite, every area is validated and formatted to make sure consistency with object knowledge fashions in NetSuite.
- You get the benefit of the NetSuite API and SuiteQL within the backend, whereas additionally getting high-accuracy OCR and AI studying capabilities that enhance your workflow based mostly in your suggestions.
Excited about studying extra? A brief 15-minute intro name with an automation skilled is one of the simplest ways to get began.
Conclusion
Mapping vendor SKU codes to your inside merchandise codes in NetSuite might be dealt with in a number of methods, relying on your online business setup. You possibly can go for one thing that’s extra handbook and provides you extra management, or you possibly can absolutely automate it utilizing the API (with considerably greater effort and a few coding concerned).
By combining one of the best of each worlds utilizing a no-code answer like Nanonets, you possibly can confidently handle vendor merchandise codes, streamline knowledge entry, and cut back handbook errors, saving worthwhile time in your procurement and finance groups.
API/SuiteQL References: