If you’re a new user, you may be wondering how to set some of the NetSuite preference settings. Whether you’re new to NetSuite, or you’ve been a long-time user, double-checking these settings may help you get a little more from the system.

 

Where to Set Preferences

 

This is truly NetSuite 101, but you would be amazed at how many users I have worked with did not know they could change any of their basic settings. While some of it may dictated by your Administrator, there are still some things to change.

 

First, let’s hover over the home icon – yes, the little one shaped like a house on your NetSuite menu. Once you hover over that, you will see a link for Set Preferences. Click on this link and the Set Preferences page appears. You should see tabs for General, Appearance, Transactions, Analytics, Activities, Alerts, and Custom Preferences (if any). Still with me? Good. Let’s go over some settings that I think make life a little easier.

 

I’m not going to cover all of the settings – just some of the more common ones that I think make a little more sense this way. Yours may already be set this way, but if not, it’s a quick, easy fix.

 

NetSuite Preference Settings Tabs

 

General

• Nickname and From Email Address: Send from a different email address than your login? Want your name to look different than what is on your employee record? Well, here it is.
• Signature and Add Signature to Messages: Pretty self-explanatory, but something to do if you send a lot of emails from the system.
• Time Zone: wonder why your times aren’t lining up with someone else’s or what you see on records?
• Formatting: There are fields for date, time, number formats and more. These also come through to the reports you run, so if you’re constantly having to change formats in a report, this might be the easier way to make that happen.
• Show Internal IDs: If you do any scripting, workflows, or custom searches with formulas, this comes in very handy because you can now see the IDs right on the record. Plus, when you run searches, it always adds the Internal ID column.
• Submit Warnings: Tired of NetSuite reminding you that haven’t submitted yet? Uncheck this. But this is one to be cautious with – it’s there for a reason.
• Delay Loading of Sublists: If – for some strange reason – this is not checked, check it! NetSuite will run much faster when it only loads the subtabs you need as they are needed.
• Type-Ahead on List Fields and Require Exact Match on Item Type-Ahead: The first one should obviously be on. The second one depends on your situation. If you have a lot of items with similar names, turn this on, and you’ll find the one you’re looking for a bit faster. Otherwise, leave it off.

 

Appearance

• Color Theme: Make it your own! But beyond that, if you have multiple roles or sandbox accounts, change each one to a different theme. It will help give  you a visual cue as to which system you’re in. You’re welcome.
• Set Customer Dashboard as Default: Are you in sales? Do you never edit the Customer yourself? Use this to get a nice dashboard of the customer instead of the normal view by default.

 

Analytics

• Show List When Only One Result: Ever run a search, but then it automatically just goes to a record? This is why. If it is unchecked, it goes straight to that record. Most prefer this to be checked.
• Global Search Customer Prefix Includes Leads and Prospects: If you use the “Customer: ” trick in the Global Search bar but miss out on Leads and Prospects, check this box.

 

Restrict View

• Do you have separate roles for different subsidiaries, departments, locations, or classes, use this to filter what you see in each role to only the information you need.

 

For Admins – General NetSuite Preference Settings

 

Admins, if you go to Setup > Company > General Preferences, many of these can be managed from there. Others can even be controlled so that they cannot be overridden by the user. I would go into more detail about this, but you’re the Admin, right? I’m sure it will make sense.