Global Expansion Made Easy: NetSuite's Multi-Subsidiary Solutions

Managing a global operation isn’t easy, but the allure of serving customers beyond domestic horizons is very compelling for organisations that want to grow, expand and scale. Whether the growth happens organically (e.g., opening new locations overseas) or via mergers and acquisitions (M&A), there are some special considerations that go into establishing and maintaining cohesive operational infrastructure.

Companies expanding into new territories also have to think about:  

• Navigating diverse regulatory landscapes, including varying legal and compliance requirements across different countries, presents a significant hurdle.

• Managing disparate financial systems and reporting standards can create complexities in consolidating data and gaining a unified view of global performance.

• Language barriers, cultural differences in business practices and the logistical challenges of coordinating supply chains and communication across time zones.

• Complex international tax laws and varying tax rates across jurisdictions require careful planning and compliance to avoid penalties and optimise financial outcomes.

• And, ensuring consistent data management and security protocols across all global entities—while adhering to local data privacy regulations—is critical for maintaining operational integrity and customer trust.

These are just some of the key expansion challenges that global companies have to deal with. The good news is that NetSuite’s OneWorld offers a robust suite of features to support businesses in managing international operations—including multi-currency management, global financial consolidation and localisation, all of which support complex, multi-national structures across most industry sectors.

Helping Organisations Conquer the Global Business Environment

A comprehensive global business management platform, OneWorld offers a robust suite of features that streamline and simplify the complexities of managing international business operations. At its core, the platform provides sophisticated multi-currency management, allowing businesses to transact and report in numerous currencies, automating conversions and revaluations to mitigate exchange rate risks. OneWorld can also manage multi-currency bank accounts, facilitating seamless international payments and receipts.

Beyond currency, OneWorld excels in global accounting and consolidation, enabling the management of multiple subsidiaries with adherence to localised accounting standards. The platform also provides a unified, consolidated financial view at the parent level; automated intercompany eliminations; and multi-book accounting that further enhances accuracy and compliance across diverse regulatory environments.

“With NetSuite OneWorld, companies can manage multiple subsidiaries, business units and legal entities from a single, artificial intelligence-powered ERP,” NetSuite explains. OneWorld supports 27 languages and 190 currencies, making it easy to work with customers and suppliers around the world, while country-specific configurations help ensure compliance with local accounting, tax, and regulatory requirements. The platform also provides real-time visibility into operational and financial performance while standardising core processes, managing risk and controlling costs at all levels of the organisation.

Key OneWorld Capabilities

OneWorld also ensures consistency across the organisation by standardising core business processes and workflows, and manages real-time consolidation at local, regional, and global levels that improves the timeliness and accuracy of financial statements. The global business management platform’s other key capabilities include:

• Consolidated financial statements. OneWorld automatically posts each transaction at the local and headquarters level, simplifying the process of generating consolidated financial statements. NetSuite’s unified platform and multi-entity capabilities support a standardised general ledger structure at the corporate or headquarters level while giving regional business units or subsidiaries the flexibility to create custom charts of accounts.

• Indirect tax management. SuiteTax provides global tax management through a simple, easy-to-use system that automates the entire tax compliance process, saving time, reducing errors, and minimising costs. With preconfigured tax codes and localised reporting for more than 110 countries, NetSuite provides detailed, real-time analysis of financial transactions down to individual line-item tax details.

• Audit and compliance reporting. NetSuite’s Governance, Risk and Compliance (GRC) solutions help ensure compliance with international IT and security standards. An always-on audit trail, built-in analytics, access logs and automated workflows streamline documentation and reporting of systems, resources, risks and controls. NetSuite simplifies Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) and similar compliance obligations by supporting standardisation and consistent reporting across the entire organisation.

• Electronic payments. Companies can pay vendor bills and employee expenses across the globe directly from NetSuite, as well as take payments directly from customers. Automated processing puts payments or direct debits into each bank’s predefined file format, ready to import into banking software or submit to the bank online. This helps lower payment processing expenses by eliminating checks, postage and envelopes.

• A single, hierarchical structure. In OneWorld, each subsidiary is treated as a unique legal entity for taxation and regulation purposes, and has a specific nexus (tax jurisdiction) and a specific base currency. This base currency is the currency in which the subsidiary manages its financials. Subsidiary-specific data is available for reporting, and data for multiple subsidiaries can be rolled up into consolidated reports in the currency of a parent subsidiary.

• Streamlined customer relationship management (CRM). Companies can manage their sales organisation and customer relationships in one place. Sales quotas and forecasts span subsidiaries and sales organisations, which means sales reps can sell and be commissioned across subsidiaries (and marketing campaigns and the leads obtained could be shared by one or more subsidiaries).

These are just some of the top OneWorld capabilities that are helping organisations manage their global operations with ease. Partnering with a NetSuite expert like SANSA Solutions further amplifies these benefits. SANSA’s deep understanding of global business needs and NetSuite’s capabilities guarantees an ERP implementation that maximises efficiency, minimises risk and positions your organisation for sustained, profitable growth in the global marketplace.