Investing in a cloud ERP is one of the most important and substantial decisions a business can make for future success. But how do you know which software solution is right for your business? Find the answers you’ve been looking for as we compare Acumatica vs NetSuite, two of the top ERP vendors that claim they are built for the modern business with advanced functionally.
The Ultimate NetSuite vs Acumatica ERP Software Comparison
According to a 2020 Gartner report, 70% of all new midsize core financial management application projects will be public cloud implementations by 2024. As organizations continue to make the shift to the cloud, and the competition continues to rise in a rapidly growing and evolving digital environment, it has never been more important for businesses to make informed decisions.
In this blog post, we’re laying out the pros and cons of two software platforms – Oracle NetSuite and Acumatica – to make your decision easier. Enjoy the read!
What is NetSuite:
NetSuite was established in 1998 providing software solutions to manage the entire business process: operations, finances, and customer relations. NetSuite is customized for businesses of all sizes (small, medium, and large), with modules for ERP, CRM, PSA, and e-commerce.
Acquired by Oracle in 2016, NetSuite continues to push its competitive position in the cloud with technical advancements, capabilities, and bi-annual software updates to stay ahead of the cloud market. NetSuite has over 22,000 customers worldwide and is available in over 20 different languages.
What is Acumatica:
Acumatica was founded in 2008, providing cloud and web-based ERP software for small and medium sized businesses. Acumatica can be utilized on-premise, in the cloud, or in a data center.
As an ERP solution, Acumatica has over 6400 customers in 30 countries globally, operates mostly in English, and supports about a dozen additional languages through local partners.
NetSuite vs. Acumatica – A Comparison
- True cloud implementation
While both platforms offer considerable advantages over segmented software solutions for individual departments, the differences lie in the universality of reach.
With 22,000+ customers running on the same software version – same enhancements, features, and customizations – NetSuite demonstrates truly impressive cloud-hosting capabilities.
Acumatica’s definition of ‘true cloud’ is the ability to access business information through the internet browser and without additional software licensing or apps. Acumatica is an on-premise software with cloud-hosting capability.
- Advanced and integrated financial management
Both competitors are capable of advanced financial management tasks – from accounting, different currencies, billing, to forecasting, and more. This battle is fought in the details:
Acumatica is (still) 
reliant on batch processing, a fact that inevitable reduces accuracy, productivity, and real-time visibility in KPI (Key Performance Indicators), reports, and its dashboards. Although the company says it’s working on introducing real-time reporting capabilities, NetSuite takes home the win thanks to its expertise in live updates and extraordinary reporting capabilities.
- Industry-specific Leading Practices – from day one.
The best example: NetSuite SuiteSuccess. This platform with 100+ pre-defined and personalized process flows offers industry-specific best practices, engineered and personalized from day one to benefit your business.
Acumatica does not have an equivalent to SuiteSuccess. Their implementation process starts fresh with every new implementation, without leading practices or pre-configured instances.
- NetSuite is the #1 software for business growth.
Acumatica’s pricing is based on a “pay what you use” model is popular for small businesses but doesn’t work well for medium and large ones because it penalizes growth and is fraught with hidden costs. Furthermore, it remains unproven at supporting massive growth and/or complex large businesses.
NetSuite’s ability to scale remains a top choice for growing businesses. With proven results and user based flat-rate pricing, NetSuite continues to deliver the visibility and transparency businesses need to reduce costs and increase revenue with growth.
6 Tips to help your business select the right ERP system
Whatever stage of business growth you are in, it’s important that you keep in mind your company’s projected growth when you decide on an ERP because you need to make sure that your software solution of choice will be able to keep up with your plans for years to come.
Here are six aspects you should consider:
- Perform an analysis to determine your business strengths, requirements, and challenges to define your business capabilities and needs.
- Carefully evaluate potential software solutions that align with your current infrastructure and integrate with the systems in place to determine a realistic technology fit.
- Research the software that your direct competitors are using to stay ahead of the industry. Make sure to ask your potential software vendor for customer references within your industry.
- Make sure to select an ERP software that is easily adaptable to change and flexible for future growth. Ensure that the vendor is pushing technology towards the future.
- Determine a budget plan and select the system that is the best suited for your business. Finding software that immediately improves costs, increases visibility, and enhances the efficiency of your business far outweighs the cost.
- Select the right implementation partner for support processes, best practices, pricing, buying options, training, and more. Finding a reliable and experienced partner gives you direct access to experts – and that’s crucial to implementation success.
NetSuite vs. other ERPs
In a show-off between ERPs, the Gartner report is not subtle about who the winners are, and there are three good reason for it: scaleability, capability, scope. See for yourself:
Learn more about the Gartner’s 2020 Magic Quadrant and the reasons why Acumatica was dropped off the list.
Why NetSuite?
At this point, you might be asking yourself: Why NetSuite? The short answer: it's the biggest package with the best of all worlds – plus an extra scoop of real-life applicability.
- NetSuite is ranked as a top leader amongst a large market of competing software solutions.
- NetSuite is the only leader that serves businesses of all sizes across all regions.
- NetSuite has more customers using cloud financials than any other solution in the quadrant.
- NetSuite is extremely scalable and easily deployed with industry-leading practices, and over 22,000 customers – that’s a whole lot of market insights and experience included in the package!
- NetSuite has dedicated partners and service teams for support.
- User-based pricing keeps costs predictable through business change.
Growing Together
A recent IDC Marketscape study named NetSuite the worldwide leader in the category of Saas and Cloud-Enabled Midmarket ERP. As global adoption of the cloud is accelerating, NetSuite continues its success in delivering the best cloud ERP/financials suites to businesses around the world, enabling them to significantly lower IT costs while simultaneously increasing productivity.
We are a professional ERP Solutions provider and since 2014, we have worked with over 120 B2B organizations on their digital transformation journey as their reliable support and implementation partner. With our expertise, we are confident that we can help you with your ERP project and let you benefit from full digital transformation and the reap the ROI.
Why are we different?
We are not just another System integrator. We know NetSuite Oracle like the back of our hand. We will work with you to build a custom business case study, understand your objective, and determine your ideal technology stack to integrate with NetSuite – whether it’s an existing Marketing solution (e.g. HubSpot) or a CMS platform.
With our broad portfolio, we can build you a full Commerce platform: we offer business consultation, optimize your ERP and business strategy, support you throughout the implementation phase from start to finish, and conduct training for your team.
Let us know how we can help you with your ERP. Let's talk Business Growth.