NetSuite Tutorial: Amortization — An Accountant’s Best Alternative to Microsoft Excel

From paper to computer, the life of an accountant is abundant with constant changes. As I look back to my accounting career, it brings back a lot of memories of preparing an amortization schedule, which includes things such as prepaid expenses.

One must be accurate and detail-oriented with each line of entry, and you must ensure each formula is just as precise as the other line. In situations where you might have many tasks and tight deadlines during closing, limiting this recipe for errors is key.

Here’s an example of what I used to do to keep track of my prepaid expenses, using Microsoft Excel as my primary platform:

This is my past life.

Then, I started to learn NetSuite functionalities, which allowed me to build an amortization schedule in NetSuite.

No spreadsheet

Compared to the Excel spreadsheet, I find this NetSuite feature to be useful in few ways.

1. No manual entry to amortization schedule

You can easily generate an amortization schedule when you enter a bill or a journal with just a few setups.

2. You can create an amortization journal entry for your prepaid expenses as part of your closing process.

The system allows you to review your journal before you create them, giving you the flexibility to create one, many, or all entries within this page.

3. You can track your total amortization amount and your remaining balance on the same page.

You can see your balance and amounts on your right.

4. It gives the date that you post the journal entry, along with journal entry numbers for easy reference.

Although this NetSuite solution does not completely alleviate an accountant’s need of Excel, this significantly improves the efficiency and effectiveness of an accountant’s daily work life.

With NetSuite amortization, accountants can focus on looking for reconciliation items rather than using up far too much time and energy setting up the prepaid schedule, ensuring the accuracy of the formula, and capturing all transactions in a convoluted effort in complete reconciliation.

Let me know if you would like to learn more about amortization.

Jacky