NetSuite Custom GL Plug-in: what is it, how to set it up and some practical examples

Introduction

In NetSuite, custom General Ledger (G/L) lines are used to enhance and customize the accounting entries generated by the system's standard processes.When posting transactions to the General Ledger, such as Item Shipments or Receipts, Invoices or Vendor Bills, Assembly Builds, Inventory Adjustments etc., NetSuite generates accounting impacts on accounts that are pre-defined, a.o. on Items and/or Customers and/or Vendors. These preconfigured postings are not always the desired ones for businesses that have to meet specific accounting standards, special regulatory or tax requirements, or business practices that are not addressed by NetSuite's default settings. The Custom GL Plug-in feature offers the possibility to customize those standard accounting impacts according to your company’s individual accounting needs.

Prerequisites

In order to use the Custom GL Plug-in option, you need to activate 2 features. Go to Setup > Company > Enable Features. Then, on the SuiteCloud subtab, enable the following features: Server Suite Script and Custom GL Lines.

Application

In this example, we need Custom GL Plug-ins on 3 types of transactions: item receipts, assembly builds and vendor bills. The standard GL impacts were not matching with the specific requirements of our NetSuite customer. Therefore, we have created specific GL impacts by means of the Custom GL Plug-in feature.

Item receipts

The calculations to be made by the Custom GL Plug-in are the following:

• Credit: quantity * rate on the item expense account (account number 609000 in this particular Belgian-style chart of accounts).
• Debit: quantity * rate on the item purchase account (600000). Note: the purchase account was created as a custom field on the Item record.

As an additional condition, the plug-in needed to only run on the item receipts that are not created from a transfer order. Here is an example of the final GL impacts on an item receipt recorded against a purchase order for the “bulk powder” item. Note that amounts are strictly hypothetical. The two last lines are calculated by a Custom GL Plug-in. This Custom GL Plugin leaves the standard G/L posting intact, but adds additional lines to make the end result compliant with the accounting standards as desired by our customer.

Note: amounts are hypothetical

Assembly builds

The calculations made by this particular Custom GL Plug-in are the following:

• Credit: quantity * rate on the COGS account of the final product (713000).
• Debit: quantity * rate on the COGS account of the raw materials (603000).
• Debit: quantity * rate on the COGS account of the manufacturing charges (609000).
• Credit: total amount of the manufacturing charges on account 444000 (static value).
• Debit: total amount of the manufacturing charges on account 603000 (static value).

Note: amounts are hypothetical

Vendor bills

The calculations made by this last Custom GL Plug-in on Vendor Bills are the following:

• Credit: total amount of the manufacturing charges on account 603000 (static value).
• Debit: total amount of the manufacturing charges on account 444000 (static value).

Note: amounts are hypothetical