How hard could getting a report of sales by customer and vendor be in NetSuite? Ummm… Harder than you think!

You might look throught the list of standard reports and find this one.

… and you’ll find it a dead end!

Here’s how we solved this.

1. First Create a custom column in invoice line items to hold the vendor.
2. Then, you’ll need a “Before Save” event script on Invoices.
   • Look through your line items and find those with no vendor
   • Look up the preferred vendor for those items.
   • Set the custom vendor column to the item’s preferred vendor.

Now you are ready to report.

Here is the secret sauce. And note, if you try to use a “Calculated column”, one where the “Save Value” checkbox is unchecked and the field is sourced from the item’s preferred vendor… well… it won’t work. It simply isn’t an option to select in your report. So there is no getting around the custom field and event script solution at this time.