This article is relevant if you are seeking to move files between your bank and NetSuite using the Electronic Bank Payments bundle.

Background

NetSuite offers an Electronic Banks Payments bundle (at the time of this writing, offered under bundle ID 339110) to facilitate the generation of bank files that are used to produce instructions for incoming and outgoing funds transfers. The bundle effectively enhances your NetSuite account to produce a batch orientation to consolidate approved payments so that you can work with your bank (or multiple banks) to request them to move funds.

The tools are offered in a free (Standard) NetSuite add-in module as well as a paid (Licensed) module to allow you more freedom in shaping the file that is generated with the bank. Some of our clients have worked with my firm to extend the free add-in module to get control over the file generated.

Yet, once the file is generated, you need to take care of the distribution.

Moving NetSuite Electronic Bank Payment Files

While NetSuite is currently making significant enhancements in general bank integration for daily transaction and statement downloads, similar to what users of QuickBooks and other tools have enjoyed for years, when it comes to payments, which may include ACH, SEPA, Wires, and other forms, NetSuite leaves it up to you to address the movement of files.

When we work with our clients on an Electronic Bank Payments implementation, we generally inform them that it will take some time to work with their bank of choice to coordinate the back-and-forth required to ensure that the files meet the proper specifications and the transaction payment types are stable. During the testing, it is natural to manually transmit files to the bank’s related professional for verification.

While most banks offer a secure portal for the accounting department’s approved staff to upload and download files, all of our clients seek to automate the file transmission. Many, appropriately, are worried that a rogue employee may modify the automated generated file and then transmit that to the bank.

Securely Automating the Bank File Transmission

Most US based banks offer a secure mechanism to transmit bank files electronically. In recent Wells Fargo, Citi Bank, and Silicon Valley Bank integrations, they all supported an sFTP method to transmit files.

In these cases, NetSuite offers up an API library, called n/sftp, to script the file transmission. My firm has made this process very easy because we built a license-free utility, called the Prolecto sFTP Connector which leverages all the capacities of n/sftp — the result? It gives a NetSuite administrator a point-and-click configuration over an sFTP setup without programming.

Note, we have seen cases where banks do not host their own sFTP servers.  In this model, the bank expects you to have an sFTP server that can act as a place to hand off files. NetSuite’s n/sftp library does not support hosting such a server. When we are in a situation where the n/sftp library is insufficient, we opt to go with our license-free Apache Camel Framework which can be configured to host an sFTP server. This framework can take on any other transmission type, such as FTP, HTTP, or other to move files securely and in a high-performance fashion. See my 2015 article, Link NetSuite to FTP via Open Source Middleware, which is just as applicable today as ever.

While these tools produce a hands-free mechanism to move the files to the bank, some clients want even more protection. In those situations, we work to secure the Electronic Bank Payment Bundle folder so that employees can not get to the file system to touch the file(s).

File Transmission Coordination

In the most simple case, the NetSuite Electronic Bank Payments Bundle will generate the bank instruction set. Under NetSuite’s paradigm, once this file is sent to the bank, the work is complete. However, we advise our clients to think more carefully about transaction coordination:

1. Transmit Batch Files: we want to transmit the file containing the batch of transactions and confirm the bank’s server system accepted it. Thus, we need to know the transmission, from our perspective, went as expected.
2. Acknowledgment: it takes more effort, but we want acknowledgment of the transmitted file.  In this case, we want to see the bank opened the file and processed every transaction instruction without an issue. We suggest that the bank return a file indicating the status of every transaction transmitted.  This way, we can see if there are any issues with each transaction within the original batch.
3. Positive Pay: some clients implement bank industry “Positive Pay” to help minimize liability using fraud detection techniques to match the account, check number, and the dollar amount that has been previously authorized. This information can be automated via file transmission services.
4. Beneficiary Set Up: some banks have features to ensure that parties are set up in the banking system before they can participate. These too are candidates for file and other NetSuite based integration.

Ultimately, we build status into transactions to produce more assurance and control that the process is running smoothly. For clients that want ultimate scalability, we couple our Record State Manager framework to the process. See my 2017 article, Learn how to Manage any NetSuite Record by Exception.

Working with Professionals for NetSuite Bank System Integrations

When it comes to moving funds with NetSuite, there are options. There are an array of third parties that will sit between NetSuite and your bank to help produce bank and payment integration. For many US companies, especially start-up companies that have assembled a plethora of cloud systems to make their businesses run, they will often utilize Bill.com, or other similar companies, to “get them going”.

While these options are viable, I often think they overlap with NetSuite’s built-in business processing capacities. With NetSuite’s tools and implementation, we can generally eliminate the transactional and recurring costs that are incurred with these third parties. Yet, as with anything where you eliminate a party to a business process, you also become more responsible for the ongoing care of that practice.

Ultimately, to succeed in a model where you lower your ongoing costs, it’s important to possess the talent to set up, test, and train on the use of NetSuite provided tools. Our competency lies in the intersection of strong accounting knowledge, deep tactical software development, and NetSuite leadership. Our license-free tools are artifacts of our concrete skills in this domain. As such, we recurrently produce success for our clients.

If this article was meaningful, feel free to receive notifications of new articles as I post them. If you have a situation with NetSuite’s Electronic Banks Payment module, let’s have a conversation.

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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