Since implementing ExtendInsights, the accounting team at Islands Restaurants has shaved significant time off necessary NetSuite tasks.
Industry:
Hospitality
Headquarters:
North America
Products Used:
ExtendInsights for NetSuite
I can’t even begin to explain how much ExtendInsights has improved our day-to-day operations and our close process. It has completely streamlined how we do our accounting.
Principal, Senior Accountant, Islands Restaurant
About
Islands Restaurants, based in Southern California, was inspired by the friendly people and casual vibes of the traditional local beachside gathering spot. The burger chain combines a laid-back atmosphere with fine burgers and drinks, earning it a spot in the top Top Five on Yelp’s list of burger chains in the US. Originally opening in Southern California in 1982, Islands Restaurants has since expanded to 39 locations across California and Arizona.
Background
As the number of Islands Restaurants locations expanded, in addition to adding accounting complexities from DoorDash and Uber Eats orders, the accounting team knew it was time to upgrade their outdated accounting system. In 2023, the team made the final decision to move to NetSuite. “We were excited,” recalled Sharon Ramos, senior accountant. “We knew that NetSuite was powerful and customizable.”
The Challenge
After implementing NetSuite, the accounting team at Islands worked with the native data uploader to bring information into the system for reporting. “It just felt really clunky,” Sharon admitted. “We had to save multiple versions of the files because our uploads would fail for different reasons—and each reason came one at a time.” The team would upload a file, find an error, and fix the error. But on the next upload, a different error would occur, resulting in a more drawn-out upload process than the team had initially hoped for when moving to NetSuite. Additionally, the teams faced challenges with how the data showed up within NetSuite. “Once we got the data in, some of the things just weren’t lining up with what we expected,” Sharon said. With the team running multiple manual journal entries ranging from invoices to various cash receipts such as deposits, labor data, and payroll—on top of the month-end close process being largely comprised of uploading data directly to NetSuite—the team couldn’t maintain productivity without a process change. “We knew we needed something different,” Sharon said. “As great as NetSuite is, we knew there had to be a better way of doing things.”
Since using ExtendInsights, we’ve taken tasks that could take upward to an hour and literally cut them down to minutes. Our closing timeline has been cut in half. And that has been so instrumental for us as a team because it frees us up to do more.
Principal, Senior Accountant, Islands Restaurants
The Solution
Initially, the Islands team was unaware that NetSuite was pre-built to accept various integrations and add-ons to help further customize the user experience. Yet the accountants wanted to continue being able to work with their data in Excel. Sharon began to question if a solution existed that would allow the team to work in Excel and then upload immediately to NetSuite without the multi-step process they were doing at the outset. Fortunately, Sharon’s boss heard there was a program that would allow the team to do just that. And it was called ExtendInsights by CloudExtend.
The change they saw was almost immediate. “ExtendInsights has completely streamlined how we do accounting now,” Sharon said. The first example was receiving a bill. With 39 different locations across California and Arizona, the team would initially need to split the bill up according to the 39 different regions. This could easily be done in Excel with formulas, but what came next changed everything. “Before, we’d have to do the math, save the file, upload it to NetSuite, see if it worked. If it didn’t, we had to go back to the drawing board,” Sharon recalled. Now with ExtendInsights, the team simply clicks the upload button. “The data just goes right in. It’s incredibly efficient for us to just book something directly.” With the team pulling data into NetSuite in various ways due to vendors that send batches of invoices, or pulling reports from DoorDash and Uber Eats to see what needs to go into NetSuite, the accounting team can now compile everything in Excel and send it directly to NetSuite without any extra “middleman” work.
A newer change the team has added in the past year is the opportunity to see a more granular level of detail. “Our analysts wanted to take historical data and incoming data and add a level of detail,” Sharon said. “The CloudExtend team helped us set up custom segments in our Excel templates so we could provide the exact level of detail the analysts were looking for—I’m talking hundreds and thousand of lines of data. But using ExtendInsights, with just a few clicks we were able to get that more granular detail into NetSuite.” Prior to ExtendInsights, Sharon knew that sort of ask would have been too time-consuming to even consider. “It would have taken us hours just to come up with a game plan,” Sharon admitted. “With ExtendInsights, it was a matter of minutes to get it completely done.”
The Bottom Line
Since implementing ExtendInsights, the accounting team at Islands Restaurants has shaved significant time off necessary NetSuite tasks. “We’ve taken tasks that could take upward to an hour and literally cut them down to minutes,” Sharon said. In addition, closing timelines have been reduced by half, with ExtendInsights enabling the team to consolidate closing processes. These efficiency drivers have allowed the team to do more analysis and take on other projects.
“ExtendInsights not only saves us time, but it saves us worry too because we know it can handle what we need it to do,” Sharon concluded. “Since using ExtendInsights, our accounting team has this boost of confidence. If they hadn’t seen how efficient their jobs could be, they wouldn’t have this newfound spark and drive to learn more and keep growing their skills. And that, to me, is amazing.”
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