Managing Your NetSuite Account To Minimize Data Storage Overage Charges

NetSuite has started charging clients for excess data storage at a list rate of $1500/yr/GB after 10GB. We have seen the first renewals under this policy. This pricing has been in place for a long time but was not enforced by NetSuite as far as I am aware. As far as I know, this is NOT being enforced mid-license.

This can come as quite a shock for customers, particularly ecommerce customers, who have lots of transactional data even though NetSuite has specified the 10GB limit on all quotes for a number of years.

So the questions you should ask are:

1. Does this apply to me?
2. What can I do about it?

Does this apply to you?

It is simple to check your current usage within NetSuite by going to Setup>Company>Billing Information. You will see two lines showing your file cabinet size and your total data storage. However, to get the "true" number drill down into the billing information on the "Component Usage" subtab and sort by "Cumulative Quantity" in descending order. The top number should be Total Data Storage - if it's not, you are almost certainly over 10GB.

Unfortunately, there is no breakdown of what makes up this number. However, it is a reasonable assumption that it is predominantly transactional data.

What can you do about it?

There are a number of things you can do:

1. Ensure that your database is purged of all unused customizations - particularly column fields on transaction records. You have to be careful here to use best practices to avoid deleting valuable data.

2. Export and delete old non-transactional data (files, messages, activities, notes, inactive customers, leads etc.) - this can be done in theory without scripting put practically will require scripting. There are also some best practices that can be followed to minimize file storage use in the future.

3. Export and Delete Old Non-posting transactions (Opportunities, Estimates, Sales Orders). This requires scripting but should be relatively safe.

4. Export and Delete Old Posting Transactions - this is likely to be the lion's share of the data and will have to be very carefully performed in order to avoid violating the integrity of the system. As far as I know there is no commercially available tool for doing this, which I intend to rectify.

I am developing a working group of clients interested in this problem to share the cost of developing and testing these solutions. Let me know if you are interested. In the meantime, here's hoping that NetSuite has an archiving solution on the way.