Key Considerations

Understand what you are getting into – implementing business automation software is complex.
Don’t assume the amount of time and/or money you need to budget is insignificant (if you have enough time, you may not need money).
Be clear on what you need the software to do and focus on the most important issues first.
Have the skills in-house (staff or volunteer) to understand and implement the software – or buy the skills in the form of consultants.

How Much?

NetSuite has a lot of functionality—implementation cost depends on what you want NetSuite to do. That said, here are some ballpark figures to help you plan:
Donor Management:
$5-20K or 80-200 hours
Accounting:
$5-15K or 80-120 hours
{InsertYourProcessHere}:
$10-20K or 80-200 hours

Is Help Avaliable?

Your product donation includes:

NetSuite Essentials Virtual Instructor-led Training class
NetSuite for Dummies book
Silver (phone) Support
NetSuite ONE Methodology
Online video training
Extensive online help

NetSuite software can effectively serve both very large and complex organizations and very small and simple organizations. Though the software may be free and deeply discounted, it still costs either time or money to implement it. For prospective grantees that are trying to figure out whether they have the capacity to implement NetSuite, here is a quick checklist:

Implementation Options

NetSuite, Inc. Deep expertise & extensive capabilities. Contact us at 1-877 NETSUITE.
NetSuite Channel Partners. Local geographic options.
Self-Implementation. Dedicate your time rather than your money.

The first decision is whether you are going to try to go it alone or hire a consultant. This is not a binary choice, but represents a continuum of possible implementation paths.

Self-Implementation

Scope. The scope of what you want to achieve is narrow and written down (e.g. one of: basic accounting or basic donor management or a single ecommerce store or employee time & expenses, etc.). You can always implement the next piece of functionality after you have been successful with the first one.

You can read and understand the NetSuite ONE implementation methodology.

Expertise. You have at least one internal staff member or reliable volunteer that has either implemented or worked extensively with financial or constituent relationship management software before (e.g. someone has set up or worked extensively with QuickBooks).

Time. You have at least eighty hours to dedicate to implementation. This includes 40 hours to take advantage of the NetSuite Essentials training course included in your product donation and at least 40 hours to actually set up the system and get things configured correctly.

Ongoing Expertise. At least one staff member in the organization will be the NetSuite administrator (e.g. they know enough about NetSuite to read and understand the help documentation and/or have a conversation with NetSuite support representatives).

Consultant-Implementation

Scope. The scope is clear and written down.

Your consultant uses the NetSuite ONE implementation methodology.

Expertise. You have at least one internal staff member that can work with the consultants and gain a basic understanding of how they are setting up NetSuite. (e.g. someone has set up or worked with QuickBooks or equivalent software).

Time. You have at least sixty hours to dedicate to implementation. This includes 40 hours to take advantage of the NetSuite Essentials training course included in your product donation and at least 20 hours to provide the consultant guidance as they implement your software.

Ongoing Expertise. At least one staff member in the organization will be the NetSuite administrator (e.g. they know enough about NetSuite to read and understand the help documentation and/or have a conversation with NetSuite support representatives).

Once you’ve decided you have the resources in place to implement NetSuite, getting a NetSuite.org product donation for a qualifying organization is as simple as filling out a short form at www.netsuite.org.

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