Unlocking the Power of NetSuite CRM: How One Client Replaced a 10-Year Legacy Setup in Just Weeks

NetSuite CRM is one of the most overlooked and underutilized components of most accounts. If your organization pays for NetSuite but still relies on external CRM systems, there's a strong chance you're spending more time, money, and energy than you need to while your teams operate in silos.

Make the CRM your Company Already Pays for... Actually Work

For many organizations, Customer Relationship Management (CRM) has become a patchwork of tools layered over time—each with its own cost, complexity, and maintenance burden. But what happens when the CRM your team is already paying for has been underutilized or overlooked for years?

Recently, a long-time NetSuite customer reached out to us at Left Ledger Inc., asking for help migrating from ZOHO CRM into NetSuite's native CRM. Ten years earlier, the company had evaluated NetSuite CRM during their implementation, but a few functional blockers led them to adopt an external CRM and purchase an integration. Over time, that "temporary workaround" hardened into a permanent, costly structure.

Fast-forward a decade: their NetSuite account rep bundled in several dozen value-priced CRM licenses, and leadership decided it was finally time to 'make NetSuite CRM work." Since we are not a value-added reseller, and we don't sell software, we were hired for one simple mandate:

Make the CRM our team already pays for… actually work.

Step 1: Process Review, Simplification & Modernization

Working with their leadership group and process-owner team, we conducted a full review of their CRM processes:

• We identified outdated or redundant flows.
• We removed unnecessary exceptions.
• We mapped their existing ZOHO workflows directly into parallel NetSuite functionality.

One historical blocker had been the idea of "contact ownership."
This client had customers with many contacts, and sales reps wanted to own contacts directly, not just customers. Years ago, this was viewed as a limitation in NetSuite.

It wasn't.

We implemented a solution we've used many times:

• Add a custom "Sales Rep" field to the Contact record
• Create a button to spawn transactions directly from the Contact
• Auto-default the Contact + Sales Rep onto the Opportunity or Quote

This restored the exact workflow their sales team loved in ZOHO—without the cost, maintenance, or fragmentation.

The irony?

They spent ten years paying for ZOHO licenses and maintaining an integration… while the solution they needed was already inside NetSuite.

Step 2: Coaching the Team on a Modern Lead-to-Cash Process

Using the process swimlane diagram below, we coached leadership on how marketing, sales, and finance can operate together inside one unified system.

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We walked them through:

Marketing & Lead Generation

• Running campaigns directly in NetSuite. (calls, trade show... any banner of outreach effort for reporting & metric, etc)
• Generating Leads that populate the CRM automatically. KEY
• Tracking activity, engagement, and next steps

Sales Operations

• Converting Leads -> Prospects -> Customers
• Creating and managing Opportunities
• Spawning Quotes directly from the Opportunity or Contact record

Using NetSuite's iOS mobile app to view contacts, place calls, and log activity

Finance & Operations

• Seamlessly turning Quotes into Sales Orders
• Automatic Prospect -> Customer conversion
• Downstream alignment with fulfillment, invoicing, payments, and bank reconciliation

Everything the company needs from first touch to cash is already part of the platform they own.

The Result: A CRM Reset for 2026 and Beyond

This project was more than a technical migration. It became a strategic reset.

By consolidating into NetSuite CRM:

• They eliminated the cost of external CRM licenses.
• They removed a 10-year dependency on an integration that offered no strategic value.
• They streamlined the lead-to-cash process across Marketing, Sales, Operations, and Finance.

And they created a healthier, more collaborative team environment.
In 2026, they'll be operating with:

• A refreshed process
• Better data visibility
• Stronger cross-department alignment
• A native CRM that scales with the business

All inside NetSuite.

About Left Ledger Inc.

At Left Ledger, we're an independent NetSuite consultancy.
We don't resell licenses.
We don't collect commission.
We don't push implementations.

We help companies that already own NetSuite get more value out of it.

If your CRM, financials, operations, or reporting feel fragmented or if you simply want to modernize how your team uses NetSuite, let’s talk.

jack@leftledger.com
724-816-1000
LeftLedger.com