Largest Solar Manufacturing works with Bring IT to implement NetSuite to automate financial processes and bring flexibility to operations. Solar Manufacturing helps its customers achieve energy independence by selling renewable energy at prices below utility rates.



With the increased emphasis on using renewable energy sources to run everything from light bulbs to cars to entire office buildings across the U.S., the company is well positioned to help advance the world’s energy sustainability goals.

Key Challenges

• Reduce its month-end close time
  
• Fully automate its order-to-cash process
  
• Customer relationship manager Integration
  
• Enterprise resource planning to automate as many processes as possible
  

Time for a Switch

The company began using QuickBooks Enterprise Edition to manage its financials. When it started growing quickly, the entry level accounting software couldn’t keep up. For example, when it came time to process payroll only one person could manage the process at a time.

“The rest of the accounting department kind of shut down until payroll processing was done for 600 employees,” said James Carroll, whose team spoke frequently with the NetSuite partner to ensure all schedules and tasks were on track. The accounting function slowed further as the company hired more associates. “At that point, we knew it was time for a switch.”

Carroll said the company wanted an enterprise resource planning (ERP) platform that would integrate with its Salesforce customer relationship management (CRM) system and automate as many processes as possible. It spent 2-3 months evaluating its software options, interviewing companies, and getting demons of their products.

NetSuite was Largest Solar Manufacturing's ERP of choice thanks to its cloud-based delivery approach, flexible integrations with other applications, and ability to scale up as the growing company expand. 

“We made a conscientious decision to use NetSuite, which will be with us as long as we’re in business. NetSuite isn’t a static software program that can’t be changed once it’s in place, we can customize it the way we see fit and the way we want it to work for our business. That was the biggest driver behind our decision.” - James Carroll, Controller

NetSuite in Action

Once Largest Solar Manufacturing selected NetSuite, it took just three months for Bring IT, a Certified NetSuite Partner, to get the company live on the platform. Connected to the implementation partner through its NetSuite sales representative, Solar Manufacturing leaned on Bring IT to plan and orchestrate the implementation, develop customizations, and connect its existing Dell Boomi cloud integration platform to NetSuite. 

Reaping the Benefits of Automation

With NetSuite as its ERP system, Solar Manufacturing has been able to reduce the time it takes to perform month-end close from 28 days to five and fully automate its order-to-cash process. Transactions are created as Salesforce entries and delivered directly into NetSuite, which creates the invoice, generates a sales order and manages the revenue recognition. 



The increased automation has helped Solar Manufacturing grow with the same six person accounting team it had in 2017. “All we have to do at the end of the month is reconcile what we're showing in NetSuite with our CRM sync ups and makes sure everything is posting properly,” Carroll said. “Being able to dramatically cut our close time has been the biggest strength and contribution we’ve received from NetSuite.”

Significant Growth Ahead

As Solar Manufacturing continues its growth trajectory, NetSuite will scale up right along with it. The company plans to use more of the ERP system´s reporting functionality and other untapped capabilities. “I'm pleased with the way everything has gone to this day,” said Carroll.

“The system is providing everything that I could have asked for.” On track to post about $1 billion in revenues for 2022, the company is operating in 15 states and has its eye on new market opportunities. 

“Our growth is based on both internal expansion and the expansion of our footprint,” said Carroll, who added that Solar Manufacturing entered Georgia and Texas in early-2021 and wants to add another location by September.