By Louis Balla, Chief Revenue Officer, Nuage. Updated October 2026.
Manufacturers choose NetSuite because production, inventory, purchasing and accounting run on the same item, bill of materials and cost records. A work order that consumes components and completes finished goods posts to the ledger that finance closes, so planners, buyers, supervisors and controllers work from one set of numbers instead of separate spreadsheets.
This guide follows one production day, then each role in it, then how work in process and cost are tracked. For the buying decision around suites and pricing, see our companion guide on manufacturing digital transformation suites.
Why do manufacturers choose NetSuite?
The reason that shows up in daily work is that the manufacturing records are part of the ERP. Oracle’s Manufacturing Overview lists assembly items and assembly work orders, advanced bills of materials with engineering change orders, manufacturing routing, work in process, outsourced manufacturing and the Manufacturing Mobile SuiteApp, which lets operators report shop floor data with mobile scanners. A plant that runs these in NetSuite does not reconcile a separate production system with the books each month, because production and accounting share items, locations and costs.
The extended manufacturing set is the Advanced Manufacturing SuiteApp, which adds a work bench, work instructions, planned start and end times, and downtime and loss tracking. Our NetSuite advanced manufacturing guide covers it in detail.
What does a production day look like in NetSuite?
Each step below uses a record NetSuite documents, and each has a person who works in it.
| Step | What happens | Record | Who works in it |
|---|---|---|---|
| Plan | Demand is projected from sales history or a sales forecast, and a supply plan suggests purchase orders and work orders | Item demand plan, supply plan | Production planner |
| Buy | Purchase orders are created from the plan’s suggestions, using lead times, safety stock and preferred vendors | Purchase order | Buyer |
| Receive | Components are received and stocked in a location and bin | Item receipt | Warehouse lead |
| Release | Work orders are created for the assemblies to build, with the bill of materials and routing | Assembly work order, bill of materials, routing | Planner, supervisor |
| Build | Components are issued to the work center, operations are recorded, and finished goods are completed into stock | Work order issue, work order completion | Shop floor supervisor |
| Close | The work order is closed and variances are reconciled | Work order close | Cost accountant |
| Ship and bill | The order is fulfilled from finished goods and invoiced | Item fulfillment, invoice | Order desk, finance |
The planning and purchasing steps follow Oracle’s Demand Planning documentation: demand plans come from sales history or from sales forecasts, and supply plans generated from them include lead times, safety stock and preferred vendors. For assembly items, the supply plan plans work orders for the sub-components and raw materials, and you create the purchase orders or work orders from it using the Order Items or Mass Create Work Orders pages. Oracle also states that its Supply Planning (MRP) solution replaces Time-Phased Planning, that new customers should use MRP, and that existing customers should plan to move to it (item record setup for demand planning). The table’s steps hold for either planning solution: a plan suggests orders, and the buyer and planner act on them. Our NetSuite demand planning guide covers the demand planning setup.
How does each role use NetSuite on the plant floor and in the office?
Production planner
The planner decides what to build and when. In NetSuite demand planning that means choosing a projection method for each item (linear regression, moving average, seasonal average or sales forecast), reviewing the demand plan and supply plan, and releasing work orders. The replenishment method is set item by item, so one plant can plan some items by reorder point and others on a time-phased plan. Because Oracle directs new customers to Supply Planning (MRP), a new account should confirm with its NetSuite team which planning solution it will use.
Buyer
The buyer turns the supply plan into purchase orders and watches lead time and safety stock. Oracle’s item setup lets lead time be entered by hand or calculated from the three most recent purchase orders, and safety stock is added to the calculated demand on the supply plan. Where replenishment rules live only in one person’s head, a stand-in has nothing to follow, so the rules are worth writing into reorder points and transfer logic.
Shop floor supervisor
The supervisor works from the work order. Routing records list the steps needed to build an assembly, and Oracle describes each routing as determining the work center, cost template, labor resources and machine resources used. Work centers group the people who perform a step. With the Manufacturing Mobile SuiteApp, operators can report from the floor with mobile scanners.
Warehouse and inventory lead
Inventory is the place where daily work and the books meet, and it is also where requests stay open longest. Inventory, warehouse and fulfillment work made up 167 of the 3,241 client requests Nuage classified (5.2%), covering counts, adjustments, bins, mobile picking, lot handling and returns to stock. Only 40 of those 167 had closed when we measured (24.0%), the lowest closing rate of any category, and the ones that closed took a median of 23.9 days. Inventory requests tend to stay open because they wait on a physical count, a warehouse partner or a rollout in progress, so we name the owner of each dependency at the start.
Counts show what that looks like on a plant floor. Ahead of its October 2026 physical inventory, a security hardware manufacturer found about 1,600 system-generated counts still open on its warehouse tablets. Its FP&A manager explained: “They did not keep up with the daily counts the system generated for them to complete.” The plan was to work through clearing them in the sandbox first, then clear production the weekend before the physical count, so that only the recounts assigned during the count would show on the tablets.
Cost accountant or controller
The controller needs production cost to land in the ledger on a schedule finance can rely on. The next section covers the mechanics. The number of production stages matters, because each stage that produces an intermediate carries its own work in process balance.
Order desk
The order desk fulfills finished goods against customer orders and invoices them, using the item fulfillment and invoice records from the production-day table. The order desk and finance agree which fields an invoice must carry before it can be saved, so that a rule at the point of entry can stop an error before it reaches the customer.
How does NetSuite track work in process and cost?
Oracle’s Manufacturing WIP documentation describes three records:
- Work order issue: moves raw materials to an assembly area.
- Work order completion: assembles the materials and stocks the finished goods.
- Work order close: reconciles variances. Oracle’s Entering Work Order Closes page says it reconciles the accounting by reviewing all issues and completions associated with that work order.
To use them you enable the WIP feature, set up items as WIP assemblies, set default WIP accounts and identify a WIP location, which has to match across the issue, completion and close transactions.
Production stages show up directly in the setup. A food manufacturer’s operations lead explained the first of its two production stages: “when they take those items together and create a batch, then you have a WIP inventory amount.” A second assembly then consumes that work in process with the packaging to make the finished good. We scoped the client’s work orders around those two stages, and its production accounting started clean in NetSuite on January 1, 2026, after earlier test-period production entries were cleared so nothing was booked twice.
How Nuage approaches manufacturing operations in NetSuite
Our team follows these steps on manufacturing accounts. The order changes with each plant.
- Walk the production day with each role. We sit with the planner, buyer, supervisor, warehouse lead and cost accountant to see where each one leaves the system.
- Map the production stages. We agree which stages create intermediates with their own work in process before anyone builds a work order.
- Write the replenishment rules down. We capture the buyer’s rules for lead time, safety stock and reorder points in the item records so that a stand-in can follow them.
- Clear stale counts before a physical inventory. We work through open system-generated counts in the sandbox first, then in production.
- Name an owner for each dependency. Counts, warehouse partners and outside systems each get one.
Nuage’s NetSuite experts do this work as part of NetSuite optimization and managed services.
Frequently asked questions
Is NetSuite a good fit for small and mid-sized manufacturers?
The manufacturing records are the same for a small plant and a large one: assembly items, work orders, bills of materials and routing. What changes is how many you configure and which optional SuiteApps you add. Start from the processes the plant runs today, make to stock, make to order or both, and decide which of the records above it needs in the first phase.
Does NetSuite handle work in process and production costing?
Yes. Oracle documents work in process with three records: work order issue, work order completion and work order close. The assembly item carries WIP accounts, and the close reconciles variances. Costing methods, including average, FIFO, standard and lot-numbered, are set on the item. Our guide to batch manufacturer accounting and finance covers how those choices affect cost reporting.
Can NetSuite handle made-to-order and specialty builds, such as jewelry, marine or shipyard work?
Assembly work orders can be created for stock or to fill orders, and the replenishment method is set per item, so built-to-stock and made-to-order items can follow different planning rules. Whether the standard records cover a one-off or project-based build depends on how the work is estimated and costed. Scope that with the production lead before choosing a configuration.
How does the shop floor connect to the financials in NetSuite?
Work order issues, completions and closes are NetSuite transactions, so they post to the same ledger finance uses. The Manufacturing Mobile SuiteApp lets operators report shop floor data with mobile scanners. Each assembly item needs WIP accounts set up first, which is why account setup comes before the first work order.
What should a manufacturer fix before go-live?
Clean the records every work order reads: items, units of measure, bills of materials, routings, locations and bins. Decide which production stages create intermediates with their own work in process, and settle the costing method for each item, since Oracle’s documentation says a costing method cannot be changed after it is saved on the item record.
About the author
Louis Balla is Chief Revenue Officer at Nuage, a NetSuite optimization partner that has served 250+ clients since 2011 and holds a 4.9 out of 5 rating on Clutch. The client work in this article is our team’s.
