How to use Saved Search in NetSuite

If you’re frustrated with seeing duplicate results or seeing blank spots in your rows there may be a quick fix. Here’s a primer to get you started.

1. What records are we searching?

Usually, I see NetSuite users are most often looking for a Transaction, Customer, or Item search. Transaction being the most complicated due to all the sub-types of transaction records. Keep in mind every searchable record in your NetSuite account is listed ( including custom records ) when you create a saved search.

2. What’s the criteria we’re looking for?

If it’s a transaction saved search then be sure to specify:

  • Main Line
    • set to True this shows you the “header” information as a row which means all of the information on the transaction except the line items.
    • set to False, it shows you just the line item information
  • Type
    • This is the transaction records you’re looking for e.g. Invoice, Sales Order, Credit Memo, etc.

3. What are the results we want to see?

Here we see the columns from the record. If you are still seeing duplicate results then usually it’s because you have a column that has multiple entries e.g. you have the Address or multi-select field as a column, and a Customer has multiple addresses so that customer is repeated on each row, with each row showing a different address.

For blanks it could be NetSuite is really showing you a null result meaning empty. In that case you may need to add a formula to say if we see a null or empty value then replace it with a zero as shown in this example for item quantities:

NVL({item.quantity},0)

Finally, sometimes you need to see information from another record. Such as you need to get some information about an item on certain transactions. Once you’ve narrowed down your transaction search, in your results look towards the bottom of the dropdown list of fields. You’ll start seeing the fields repeating again A-Z, but now with an ellipsis ( … ) after each field name. This is a “join” field, so for example, if we choose Item… then we could see fields on that item record from the transaction record we’re looking at.

For more complex reporting that involves business logic or combining Saved Searches please contact Robert@NetSuiteGuide.com for building a custom solution for your business.