While Intuit offers a minimally-featured online version of QuickBooks that pales in comparison, NetSuite offers a complete online experience that doesn't ask you to trade a lack of features for the benefits of working online. The upgraded NetSuite package is virtually a model of what an online application can be.

Web-Based Advantages
NetSuite is a highly integrated application so there's no need to manually transfer data between its modules, for example, to move sales from the Web store to accounting, inventory and shipping. The program performs this automatically. A second advantage is that employees can access and work with the application from any Internet-enabled device. Here, the Internet acts as the ultimate network.

Upgrades and new features are automatically integrated as they become available. Businesses don't have to play a publisher's game and decide whether to roll the dice and upgrade each year. Upgrades are already built into the subscription price. Finally, NetSuite offers first-rate modules, powerful applications that perform the fundamental accounting functions and more.

Down By the eBay
NetSuite recently introduced new, optional sales capabilities that allow businesses to sell items on eBay just as they do on their own e-commerce Web sites. As with NetSuite's other online sales features, these capabilities integrate seamlessly with its inventory, warehouse management and accounting modules.

Products that are already listed in a NetSuite product catalog can be quickly listed on eBay and in eBay stores. The listings support eBay pricing ("Starting," "Reserve" and "Buy It Now"), "Chinese" and "Dutch" auction listings and accommodate scheduling, durations and promotions. From within NetSuite, sellers can view bidding status and customers can see product availability.

The E-Commerce Connection
Beyond eBay, NetSuite offers excellent e-commerce features that provide a secure shopping experience for customers. Web shop owners can quickly set up sites by choosing from a variety of layout styles and designs, or upload their own HTML files and allow NetSuite to host them.

NetSuite is logical and fairly easy to learn and use. Helpful summary screens called "dashboards" provide timely business information across all areas of a company. They're instant snapshots that may be customized for each user in a company and serve key performance benchmarks at a glance including: sales orders, commissions, accounts receivable, items to ship and more.

Paradise by the Dashboard Light: Summary screens provide a global picture of your site's user trends as well as basic business operations. (Click for larger image.)

Site elements such as headers, footers, tab bars, sidebars and content wrappers may be customized. Furthermore, smart tags allow you to place "hooks" into pages to display business data that can include item records, customer information or custom records.

NetSuite's e-commerce sites can display real-time inventory levels, verify whether items are out of stock and notify a business when inventory falls to a reorder point. NetSuite allows businesses to offer volume discounts, set different pricing levels, extend pricing offers to specific customers, create coupons and discounts that may be applied to certain items and automatically offer up-sell and cross-sell recommendations based on a customer's purchase and history.

Through a NetSuite Web store, businesses can sell gift certificates as well as accept them and market downloadable files. When a shopper buys a gift certificate, an e-mail is automatically sent to alert the recipient.

PayPal integration allows businesses to conveniently accept various forms of payments during checkout and there's support for multiple currencies. After a sale, NetSuite processes shipments through its built-in UPS and FedEx shipping tools that provide real-time shipping rates. It also validates addresses and prints shipping labels. And once merchandise is out the door, customers can view their order shipping status.

Detailed reports serve timely information on transactions and customer activities. There's also built-in support for customers so they may view order histories, request refunds, submit trouble tickets, review responses to previous inquiries or research a published knowledge base. NetSuite's e-commerce capabilities are thorough and useful.

Covering All the Bases
Excellent e-commerce features are simply one aspect of a powerful, all-inclusive application. NetSuite indeed covers the accounting bases with its capabilities for invoicing, sales management and handling payroll, accounts receivables and payables and more.

For many businesses managing payroll is a chore. To help, NetSuite's payroll features calculate salaries, tips, hourly pay and employee commissions and accommodate vacation and sick time and flexible pay periods. It also prints checks and features integrated federal and state tax tables to calculate earnings and deductions.

Exceptional CRM (customer relationship management) features, which are available as an add-on service, allow a business to manage clients and track sales and payments. And If a business needs to manage service hours, solid time-tracking features manage and organize jobs and sub jobs that are linked to customers and record non-reimbursable and reimbursable hours.

Sophisticated sales force automation (SFA) capabilities can oversee and manage the entire selling process that includes sales order entry, post-sale follow-up and support and up-sell opportunities. Team selling features allow a business to track sales and calculate and pay commissions to multiple sales reps on a deal, as well as track the revenue earned by all members on a sales team.

The Bottom Line: Accounting for Everything
While much of the focus in the small business accounting world remains on QuickBooks, Peachtree and Microsoft Office Accounting, NetSuite offers a powerful online application that seamlessly integrates data, allows for the easy sharing of data among users, serves compelling features that make it easy to make sales on the Web and on eBay and excellent accounting modules. Small businesses will be well served by NetSuite.

NetSuite Small Business starts at $99 per month per company plus $49 per month for each user. NetSuite starts at $499 per month per company and $99 per user per month. The NetSuite eBay integration is available as an add-on module for both NetSuite Small Business and NetSuite and starts at $99 per month. NetSuite CRM starts at $79/month for each user. For a relative comparison of features, please view this page.