Analyzing Direct Cashflow with Power BI based on NetSuite Document flow

If you’re a CFO, this should sound familiar: 

You open your NetSuite, look at the cash flow statement, you see the numbers that are technically correct - but they don’t really explain much. 

In the cash outflow you see which vendor was paid. 

But you don’t see what actually drove the cash movement.  

For a simple question: 

“Why did cash burn increase last month?” - 

You suddenly need Excel, manual work, lots of investigations, lots of time and resources spent. 

Over the last years, I’ve worked with many CFOs - mostly in SaaS and high-tech companies - all facing the same cash flow analytics challenge, regardless of whether they use NetSuite or another ERP / Accounting system. 

Let’s break it down.

The Real Problem: Cash Flow Without Business Context  

From an accounting perspective, ERP Accounting module does their job well. 

From analytical perspective of a CFO, this is not enough. 

Take vendor payments - one of the biggest components of cash outflow. 

When a payment is recorded, the transaction usually looks like this: 

• Debit: Accounts Payable 

• Credit: Bank / Cash 

That’s it. 

So, you know WHOM you paid. 

But you don’t know WHY you paid. 

Was it for: 

• Cloud infrastructure? 

• SaaS subscriptions? 

• Professional services? 

• Hardware / CAPEX? 

• Travel? 

• A mix of all of the above? 

The business meaning of the payment is lost at the cash stage. 

Why This Happens? 

The important attributes are found in the earlier stages of the ERP document flow. 

At the Vendor Bill stage, we have a lot of useful information: 

• Expense accounts 

• Departments / Sites

• Projects 

• Sales tax / VAT 

• Prepaid vs. Expenses 

But Bill Payments often: 

• Cover multiple bills 

• Combine different expense types, different departments 

• Happen weeks later 

• Currency rate changes 

By the time cash actually leaves the bank account, the ERP no longer carries the business attributes CFOs care about. 

This is not unique to NetSuite. 

It’s how most ERPs’ accounting document flows are built. 

A Very Common Example I See in SaaS Companies 

Let’s take one real-life (anonymized) scenario I see all the time. 

A company pays one vendor that provides: 

• Cloud infrastructure 

• SaaS licenses 

• Professional services 

• Hardware 

• Services consumed by multiple departments 

But everything is paid in one payment. 

Many expense accounts. Multiple departments. 

In the Cash flow statement, it’s one cash-out number. 

For cash flow analysis, that’s not enough! 

Prepaid Expenses Make It Even Worse

Now add prepaids to the mix. 

A yearly software subscription is recorded as: 

• Debit: Prepaid Expenses 

• Credit: Accounts Payable 

The actual expense is amortized over time. 

But cash is paid upfront. 

So, what should a CFO see in cash flow analytics? 

From a business perspective, you want to see: 

• SaaS Expense (not Prepaid account) 

• By department 

• In the month the cash actually left the bank account 

Classic ERP cashflow reports don’t help here. 

Currency Exchange Rates Add Another Layer of Noise 

Another frequent issue I see: 

• Vendor bill and payment are in a certain currency 

• Your company’s Primary Books are in another 

• Exchange rate changes in between 

Suddenly: 

• Cash out in Primary Book ≠ Vendor Bill amount 

• The Currency Realized Gain/Loss Journal Entry is also created but it also has no useful attributes - departments, expense accounts, etc...

• CFOs need to explain FX differences manually

The accounting is correct, but cash flow analysis is unclear.

How to Solve This in Practice 

A common approach I see in practice - is adding a “Cash Flow Attribute” as a custom field on the vendor record in NetSuite and using it in cash flow reports to classify payments (Cloud, SaaS, Professional Services, etc.).

This is quick to implement but works only in simple cases.

In reality, many vendors provide multiple services - cloud infrastructure, SaaS licenses, professional services, hardware - and often across several departments. When all of this is paid in a single transaction, a vendor-level attribute can tell you who you paid, but not what you paid for.

As a result, cash outflows can’t be reliably broken down by expense type or department, and mixed OPEX, CAPEX, and prepaid scenarios remain unclear. Also, the VAT component is not shown separately using this approach.

From a CFO perspective, this still doesn’t explain what actually drove the cash movement.

What’s needed is a more robust approach - one that breaks cash outflows down by the same attributes that exist at the Vendor Bill stage: expense accounts, departments, VAT component...

Our Recommended Approach

After solving this challenge for multiple companies, helping CFOs and FP&A teams with Cashflow Analytics, here is our best practice:

We start from the cash transactions, take the exact Bill Payments recorded in the bank accounts and then apply backward engineering (based on the NetSuite document flow) to bring the useful attributes from the preceding Vendor Bill.

What does that mean? 

We take each cash payment and trace it back to Vendor bill lines: 

• Expense accounts 

• Departments 

• Sales tax / VAT 

Then we split the actual cashflow amount by the above bill lines attributes: departments, expense accounts, VAT, keeping the total cash outflow amount the same.

The result? 

Cash flow numbers that: 

• Match the Cashflow statement 100% - one version of the truth! 

• Are fully explained by business drivers 

• Can be analyzed by: 

  • Expense category 

  • Vendor 

  • Department 

This approach also solve: 

• Currency revaluation 

• Partial payments 

• Multiple bills per payment 

• Prepaid expenses 

All of this can be implemented directly in Power BI by leveraging NetSuite SuiteAnalytics Connect (ODBC) and the existing ERP document flow - without changing day-to-day operational or accounting processes.

The same logic applies not only to NetSuite, but to any ERP or accounting system that supports a structured document flow - SAP, Priority, SAP Business One, Oracle Application ERP, QuickBooks, etc...

What CFOs Get Out of This 

Once this structure is in place, CFOs finally get what they actually need: 

• Clear cash burn breakdown: 

  • by Accounts (CAPEX, OPEX, COGS, Cloud, SaaS, Professional Services, etc.) 

  • by Departments 

  • by Vendors (and Customers for Collection)

• Fast answers for management and investors 

• Trustworthy cash flow explanations – the exact numbers you see in the Cashflow statement 

• A solid base for cash forecasting 

• Less manual work, much less 

Final Thought 

 

Cash flow is not just an accounting statement. 

It’s a management tool for decision makers.

If your cash flow shows numbers but cannot explain the underlying drivers, it’s incomplete. 

From my experience with many companies - after this challenge is solved - the cash management and decision making become much more efficient. 

Michael Shparber 

CEO, Intelligent Business