Baz: Hi everybody! Welcome and thank you for registering to today’s webinar. This is LatamZone where you can get our monthly webinars on NetSuite about LatamReady and our localization solution. Today’s webinar is called NetSuite and Mexico: what to expect. Everything you need to know about NetSuite and Mexico is found here in today’s webinar. Additionally you can also check our website latamready.com, log in to LatamDojo where you can get free usernames and passwords and you can get all the information you need about our localization solutions for Latin America.
This includes Mexico, Brazil, Argentina and Colombia. Again that’s LatamDojo you can find it on our website latamready.com. Let’s begin! My name is Baz, I’m the marketing manager here at LatamReady and today I have here with me the usual suspects that you know and love! Carlos and Glenn hello and welcome! How are you feeling today gentlemen?
Carlos: Fantastic! We’ll be talking about our favorite countries!
Glenn: Personally very excited! Mexico is something we get a lot of questions about. A lot of people need our help in Mexico so we’re excited about talking about this topic and see what kind of questions we get for our viewers and how we can help them out.
Baz: It’s one of our favorite countries to work in!
Carlos: It’s a huge market for NetSuite. In the Oracle office you’ll find people working for NetSuite selling and supporting customers
Glenn: There are two very big markets! There’s the local market where Mexican local companies are ready to adapt themselves to cloud based software and you also those multinational companies that decide to expand to Latin America. The logical step for them is to open a subsidiary in Mexico mostly for those companies based in the US.
Carlos: These are the main topics for this Latamzone webinar. How to successfully start a new subsidiary in Mexico, how to expand to Mexico and what to expect when implementing NetSuite at their Mexican subsidiary
Baz: I hear that Mexico is becoming the Silicon Valley of Latin America, right?
Carlos: The city of Guadalajara is getting to that point. You’ll find HP, IBM working locally there. Now there are software factories based in the city of Guadalajara.
Baz: That great news! You have a big smile on your face Glenn! You seem very excited about this!
Glenn: It’s a happy time for us in Mexico! We have a lot of clients this year in Mexico. We close about one or two new clients every month in Mexico. It’s definitely a hot topic.
Carlos: Let’s talk about the options that our customers have in Mexico.
Baz: What’s available for our customers in Mexico for NetSuite?
Carlos: First of all, you’ll find a standard SuiteApp for Mexico developed by NetSuite, right Glenn?
Glenn: NetSuite already has a native solution for Mexico. If you decide to implement NetSuite for your company and you decide to expand to Mexico, or if you already have a subsidiary there you’ll notice that there is a native solution, which comes with advantages and disadvantages. There will always be certain requirements that clients need to meet that NetSuite has a native solution for.
Carlos: We could say that NetSuite covers the basics for a localization package in Mexico. Am I correct?
Glenn: Exactly. The problem is that the region is so dynamic, not only Mexico but the whole region. That’s why it’s so difficult for an ERP software like NetSuite to develop a solution themselves. That’s not the difficult part. The difficult part is keeping it up to date with the local government’s compliance requirements which are changing all the time.
Carlos: We have just received this new requirement called comprobante de pago in Mexico. It’s a new type of document for electronic invoicing. We are able to react with the help of our developing team because we are very close to the market. Those are the kinds of challenges that NetSuite has because they work remotely with different parts of the world.
Glenn: It’s an interesting topic because a lot of the clients who reach out to us always ask why is it that a company like LatamReady has localization solutions, while NetSuite has a native solution. And that’s exactly the answer. The answer is the strategy that NetSuite is using: trusting in certified partners like LatamReady to compliment what they already have, and in that way providing full compliance. That’s where NetSuite differentiates themselves from other ERPs like SAP, Microsoft or many others.
Carlos: Big players like Oracle are doing that. They’re developing or supporting a basic level of compliance and then partners like us come in. You’ll find different partners in different countries working on the localization side of an ERP. The main difference is that NetSuite’s technology is allowing us as a partner to offer a SuiteApp, the same way an App works in an iPhone.
Glenn: We develop something inside of NetSuite. For the user there is no difference between what NetSuite is and what the LatamReady SuiteApp is. It’s a development certified by NetSuite. Technically we’re speaking about any other module on the NetSuite pricing list. The only difference is LatamReady is not on the NetSuite pricing list. It’s a product owned by ourselves. Technically it’s exactly the same thing.
Carlos: Let’s say that a new feature is required in Mexico, like comprobante de pago, we’ll just update our SuiteApp in the same way NetSuite updates its own product.
Glenn: So what are some of the biggest challenges that people run into in Mexico? Why do people reach out to us?
Carlos: Let’s start to answer that questions talking about electronic invoicing.
Glenn: Let’s explain to our viewers what electronic invoicing is. I’m pretty sure that’s a problem that a lot of our viewers are having, how to generate from within NetSuite that legal xml file that the tax agency is requiring.
Carlos: We could talk about what’s not electronic invoicing? It’s not just sending a PDF document. In Latin America electronic invoicing works like this. Every single customer must issue an xml file, specific document with a specific structure.
Glenn: It’s something that a human being can’t read
Carlos: Exactly! That file is the legal electronic invoice. You’ll find that providers like LatamReady also have a graphic representation, or PDF, which represents the xml file. What’s our approach for that Glenn?
Glenn: That’s a good question. In order for a company to send information to the tax agency, you need to be certified. LatamReady has built a direct integration with NetSuite through a certified local provider in Mexico. In the case of Mexico this is called Solucion Factible. There are many providers which all do the same thing, they make it possible to send electronic invoices to the tax agencies to get them approved and receive that information back approved with a digital standard.
Carlos: The way we choose a partner is following NetSuite’s security rules. The connection has to have the correct security level required by NetSuite in order to be established.
Glenn: Generally those local partners have very competitive pricing, it all depends on technical requirements, what is possible and who can connect to NetSuite.
Baz: Well, that’s electronic documents not invoicing, right?
Carlos: Yes! The correct definition for this is, in fact, electronic documents. We should be calling them that.
Baz: Because we’re not talking about one single document, there are others we also need to take into consideration
Glenn: We’re talking about credit memos, debit memos…
Carlos: And some countries also have way bills, for transportation of goods.
Glenn: Even when you’re issuing an invoice in the LatamReady NetSuite platform, you’ll see that the button says ‘create electronic document’. Once you press that button, the whole process that I was explaining before starts rolling.
Baz: So don’t be afraid if you don’t see the e-invoice button!
Carlos: Another question we receive very often is if NetSuite also offers an electronic invoicing SuiteApp. Glenn, how do we work with that?
Glenn: So NetSuite has a standard model that you will find in our pricing list called ‘NetSuite Electronic Invoicing’. The way we work, in order for us to have a certified SuiteApp, is that we always have to follow a specific development process. Any international customer that wants to have it, needs to have access to the NetSuite platform because we basically build on that.
Carlos: So it’s a prerequisite, technical requirement.
Glenn: Yes, and the cost can be found at the NetSuite platform. If you only need it for one country it is completely free.
Baz: What other challenges our clients are experiencing on Mexico?
Glenn: There’s a few, but we can start with local reporting.
Carlos: Yeah, in the Mexican scenario the local government asks every company to issue monthly reports, like the electronic accounting files, in order to understand what the companies are doing and how much money do they need to collect in taxes.
Glenn: Most US based companies that expand to Mexico are caught up by surprise when they find out that they need to declare, pay and report taxes monthly.
Baz: That’s a situation that happens all over latinamerica, requiring taxes reports monthly instead of yearly.
Glenn: It allows governments to be more in control
Carlos: Is the same approach as electronic invoicing. And that is the reason why, when we implement NetSuite, we always need to close -accounting speaking- the month.
Glenn: And that’s also why we tend to start implementing NetSuite on the first day of the month, because we need all the data in order to present a good report.
Carlos: We also receive requirements of electronic payments, right Glenn?
Glenn: Yeah, it’s not a legal requirement but is what a lot of clients ask about. They want to know if we can do massive payments, if we are in coordination with the banks in Mexico making easier to pay the duties, and the answer is yes. We use the electronic payments module to build on that and generate a solution for our clients.
Carlos: Currently we’re working with Santander, BBVA, Bancomer, HSBC. This basically applies for clients with a high volume of documents and payments, if the client has only one or two per month they can do it manually, which makes the process easier for them.
Glenn: It truly depends on what the customer wants. When a company wants to focus more on business and decides to leave the `work´ aside is when they implement these types of solutions.
Baz: So, what happens when a mexican company that is not using NetSuite needs to do the process you mentioned before? How do they do it?
Carlos: They usually hire an accounting firm, who will do the process with a local software, and then will transform it to a NetSuite platform, having to different ERPs and systems.
Glenn: And that’s why so many companies are reaching to us, they are tired of the double accounting, the double systems.
Carlos: We also get a lot of questions about multi booking, which nowadays is part of almost every project we see.
Glenn: For the people who don’t know what multibooking is, is a feature that allows you to set up as many accounting books as you want to avoid double accounting.
Carlos: For example, we receive a customer based in the US with an american chart of accounts who wants to expand to Mexico. In this scenario we give two options: to add the new mexican accounts to the corporate chart of accounts or to separate everything in two different books. Each approach has its own pros and cons. What we recommend is to have two different books, in different currencies, with different accounting rules.
Glenn: It gives the CFOs, CEOs from the headquarters a full visibility of what’s going on in the subsidiaries.
Baz: Great! So know I would like to ask our viewers if any has questions regarding NetSuite and Mexico or Latinamerica, please ask the experts about that!
Glenn: In the meantime, we want to introduce a special guest, one of our colleagues: Edgard Carpio, the expert on Mexico and electronic invoicing.
Carlos: Let’s talk about the implementation process here.
Edgard: Today I’ll show you how NetSuite works with the electronic invoicing model. Our solution takes information from the original invoice and the customer records in order to give the tax agency the proper data.
Carlos: Once LatamReady is installed, the proper fields for the subsidiary’s country will appear in the user’s platform. For example, we have clients that from one country check up the entire region. In this case, if I’m in Argentina but need to issue invoices from mexican clients the system will show me only the mexican fields.
Edgard: In the case of Mexico, I’ll give an example of the specific requirements. The first one is the ‘payment counterpart’, a new field Mexico’s government just added this year.
Baz: Great! So, what do you think the future looks like for NetSuite and Mexico? Is there anything new we should be expecting?
Carlos: Our SuiteApp is having new features for Mexico, we’re developing a new module that allow us to use inbound bills or invoices. This means that our customers are going to be able to receive e-documents from their suppliers, in the same that the issue them. This will avoid doing it manually, making the office work faster. Also, we’re adding new features to our SuiteApp.
Baz: Exactly, we actually had a webinar about that not to long ago. Just a quick comment to our viewers, if you wanna see that webinar or have a recorder version just email us!
Carlos: Also, all our training material is also available in LatamDojo, our learning platform, in two languages: english and spanish!
Glenn: LatamDojo is something we’re proud of! We get so many great comments from our clients, they’re impressed with the platform! You can find anything in our portal, from virtual demos to representations and online tutorials. It’s a beautiful and free platform!
Carlos: It’s great for both training and supporting the entire project. For example, we always receive emails with technical questions about the impact of installing LatamReady SuiteApp in a one world instance, the answer for this can be found there.
Baz: We ourselves use this platform for our own processes. Now, we just got the first question: regarding the electronic invoice bundle, is it from NetSuite or is it a development from us?
Glenn: First of all, they’re going to need access to the NetSuite electronic invoicing module, people can get that from their NetSuite representative or the NetSuite Partner they’ve implemented the instance with. On top of that, they will need to buy access to the LatamReady SuiteApp electronic invoicing feature for Mexico. So the answer to that question is you need both of them.
Baz: Next question! How is NetSuite going to compete with SPV-1, 4ms, Microsoft Dynamics, etc.
Carlos: Very good question!
Glenn: I think the answer to that is SuiteApp.com. The way NetSuite has a software structure today I can open a new subsidiary in my NetSuite environment in a click instead of configuring for weeks or months. On top of that, having access to a SuiteApp (an application that works inside of the environment) makes it easier that the companies can open a new subsidiary quick and make it comply with local requirements in a very successful way that is not currently in any other software.
Carlos: Exactly. For example, let’s say company A has its own version of ERP X and so is company B. Same thing happens with localizations; we’re talking about personalized developments.
Glenn: So, this is very hard to maintain. Especially when the government keeps adding new regulations. With NetSuite and LatamReady we do the upgrades universally, allowing multi latin american companies to be compliant.
Baz: Since we don’t have any more questions, any last comments before we end up the webinar for today?
Glenn: I think we shared a lot of information, I think people have a lot to think about. Also, to our viewers, feel completely free to reach out to us! Added to that, I really recommend to everyone to visit LatamDojo
Baz: Yes! Just a simple sing in and you’ll have access to all the information completely free of charge.
Glenn: I think it’s a perfect moment to end this and say goodbye to all of the viewers. I really enjoyed this webinar, Mexico is a topic on which we could talk for hours.
Baz: Very interesting, very informational. A lot of questions were answered! If you viewers enjoyed this webinar as well please feel free to send us an email, or give us a call for information!
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