How Atlantia stopped running NetSuite reports by hand
Automating finance, procurement, and operations reporting at a 20-year-old national distributor — and unlocking a midnight inventory write-off workflow along the way.
Each one was delivered a different way:
- CSVs pulled by hand each morning
- Scheduled emails landing as attachments
- Spreadsheets compiled on demand
The reports got produced — but it was fragile. And the ones that needed midnight data, like inventory write-offs, couldn't be produced at all during business hours.
VCG rewrote the underlying Saved Searches, designed the reports with the people who use them, scheduled delivery through Outpost into Excel and the NetSuite File Cabinet, and used the reliable midnight export as the foundation for a brand-new inventory write-off workflow.
Rebuild the data foundation
VCG audited the existing Saved Searches. Some didn't return the right data; some returned it in a shape that made downstream analysis harder than it needed to be. Those were rewritten, and new Saved Searches were built where Atlantia didn't have what they needed.
Design the reports with the people who use them
Rather than automating whatever happened to be running, VCG sat with Finance and Operations stakeholders to figure out what they actually needed to see. Some reports got consolidated, some got split, a few got retired.
Schedule delivery through Outpost
Once the Saved Searches were right, Outpost handled the rest. Reports refresh on schedule and land in Excel workbooks for the analyst teams, and in the NetSuite File Cabinet where downstream processes pick them up. Nothing runs by hand.
Build downstream apps on top of the automated exports
Because Outpost could reliably pull the right data at midnight, VCG built an inventory write-off workflow that automates scenarios NetSuite couldn't handle natively and that weren't practical to do manually. The midnight export is the workflow's source of truth — the write-off process now runs without anyone logging in at midnight.
| Dimension | Before | After Outpost |
|---|---|---|
| Report delivery | Manual CSV exports, scheduled emails, ad-hoc spreadsheet pulls | Reports refresh on schedule into Excel and the NetSuite File Cabinet |
| Data freshness | Stale by the time anyone read it | Current numbers waiting where they're supposed to be each morning |
| Versioning | Finance and Procurement working off different copies | Every team looking at the same file at the same time |
| Inventory write-offs | Required pulling data at midnight — rarely happened | Automated workflow runs nightly off the midnight export |
| Coverage when owners are out | If the owner was on vacation, the report didn't happen | Schedules don't take vacation |
Maggie Zhang · Director of Finance and Systems, Atlantia
Why this worked
Outpost on its own would have automated the file delivery, and that alone would have saved time. The bigger leverage came from pairing the tool with VCG's development work on the Saved Searches themselves, and then using the reliable automated data as the foundation for a new application. The tool handled the plumbing. The team handled the design. The combination made possible something neither piece could have done alone.
That's the right shape of engagement for a finance team that has outgrown manual exports but isn't looking for a six-figure integration platform. Fix the data, automate the delivery, and the rest of the problems you've been living with start looking solvable. At Atlantia, one of those problems turned out to be a write-off process the team had been handling manually for years. The next one is probably already on somebody's list.
Running more manual exports than you should be?
We're NetSuite developers with deep roots in finance operations. Happy to talk through what fits your setup.