Saving Money on NetSuite Licences

 
I have come across this subject a number of times with some of my clients. Commonly, they may allocate a "Full Access" licence which costs around £450 per annum to various users across the business to only perform small tasks like employee maintenance and order approvals. I say - why not just purchase an "Employee Center" licence which costs 90% less money than a full access licence? Sure, this type of licence has a limited selection of permissions but if it fits the needs of your business, you can achieve a huge cost saving potential. The following is a breakdown of the permissions available on an Employee Center role:

So - how can we add a link on the employee center dashboard for requisition approvals? This can easily be done using a Suitelet. The following code accommodates this:

Add the link on the script deployment page of your Suitelet.

​There are ways which you can still bypass the limitations of an employee center licence. If you architect a solution correctly, you can pretty much do anything! For instance: let's say you want a user to create sales orders (something as of 2018, an employee center role does not allow). Sure - opening a sales order record will not be possible, but why not create a CSV file of sales orders which can be uploaded to the filing cabinet? From there, a scheduled script could be used to pick up the CSV file and auto-create the sales order records.

To conclude: businesses can achieve a huge saving on their licence costs if they scope out the areas users truly need on NetSuite, and then strategically decide how licences are allocated. In the same breath, architect a solution carefully to make using an employee center a viable option.