Avoid Address Errors on NetSuite OneWorld Orders

This article is relevant if you are working with NetSuite’s OneWorld ERP system for order management and you are importing transaction data from a third party system.

Background

As discussed in my other posts, NetSuite is a powerful platform for integration.  If you need to import order information from a third party system, you need to figure out your strategy for getting data into the environment. My general philosophy is to avoid integration where possible and use the built-in architecture of the system to avoid non-related third party applications. Yet, that premise is often not possible due to previous commitments to other business systems. So the need to get data to NetSuite becomes a conversation. NetSuite offers a built-in file import process based on comma separated values (CSV).  The process works generally well.  However, the way you import data may have implications on your subsequent transaction processing.

Ship To / Bill To Address Challenges

For a recent client that sought to quickly get data into their NetSuite environment from their proprietary eCommerce site, they didn’t want to invest in software integration.  As such, NetSuite’s CSV file import was the low cost way to solve the problem.

The standard method to get orders to NetSuite is as follows:

1. Customers: first import customer information to constitute the record.  Be sure to use unique IDs so cusdtomers can referenced on Orders.
2. Orders: next import order information with a pointer to the unique customer ID referenced in the previous step.

Optimized Order Import Practices for Sales Order Transaction Address Management

After some puzzling diagnostic attempts, we speculated that if we created an address record on the customer entity and then referenced it during the order import, it would solve issues.  And indeed it did!  It appears that NetSuite simply works better at having address information defined on the customer record and then used in subsequent transactions.  Behind the scenes, when subsequent transactions are generated (technically, transformed) from the Sales Order, a pointer to the address record is more reliable than copying over transaction level fields from each document structure.

Example Order Import References

Marty Zigman

Holding all three official certifications, Marty is regarded as the top NetSuite expert and leads a team of senior professionals at Prolecto Resources, Inc. He is a former Deloitte & Touche CPA and has held CTO roles. For over 30 years, Marty has produced leadership in ERP, CRM and eCommerce business systems. Contact Marty to set up a conversation.

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