NetSuite Custom Records Store and Reference Product Information

Introduction

NetSuite is designed to alleviate data silos. However, if not properly configured, it can instead exacerbate data issues. In my company's case, product information was stored in duplicate locations within NetSuite, causing all kinds of problems.

Project

My company sells sports-licensed phone cases. For example, an Otterbox Defender with an LA Lakers logo printed on the back. As we sell many different phone cases with many teams and designs, it is crucial that information not be duplicated and stored on different records.

A given product needs the following team information on its assembly item record:

  • Team Name: LA Lakers

  • Team ID: LAL

  • Team League: NBA

  • Team Licensor: NBA License

If all this information is stored at the assembly item level, it is very easy for different values to be stored on different records. For instance, if the team's name changed to the LA Basketballs, newly created products would have the correct name, whereas older products would have the old name

Therefore, fields that universally apply to all LA Lakers products should be stored in a team custom record that the assembly items reference:

Now that the team custom record is created for the LA Lakers, custom assembly item fields that once held information can instead be configured to simply reference the team's custom record:

Simply adding the team name in the first field auto-populates the remaining 3 fields:

By associating the team name with its custom record, team information no longer needs to be stored in the assembly item record. Now, if the team's name were to change, that field would only need to be updated on the team custom record which would then push the change to every LA Lakers assembly item. The advance and royalty % fields were excluded as this information is not relevant on assembly items.

Last Updated: 1/10/23