Technology Consultant
Job Function:
This past summer I worked with the technology consulting department at RSM, Philadelphia. RSM is an audit, tax, and consulting company that provides services to firms in the middle market. The team that I worked with with was responsible for implementing Oracle’s NetSuite ERP system for their clients. The NetSuite team at RSM consists of both accounting and technology professionals. As an accounting and MIS major at Temple University, I was excited to put what I had learned in class to work.
- RSM is one of the largest providers of Oracle NetSuite implementation, customization, and support.
- The Philadelphia NetSuite team is small but growing- started four years ago with two professionals and now has a team of 15 professionals.
- Team composed of both information technology and accounting professionals.
- Work with clients to understand their business challenges and goals- customize NetSuite ERP based on their needs.
- Large focus on life-science companies that are working to bring new drugs to market (one of our clients was purchased by Pfizer for $11 billion- implementation was placed on hold).
Projects:
- I have created customized automated financial statements (ex. balance sheet and income statement).
- Assisted in creating automated journal entries to eliminate intercompany profits and allocate revenues to subsidiaries.
- Conducted data comparisons to verify training environment data has been updated to live ERP environment.
- Research Philadelphia based life-science companies to determine if potential leads (analyze financial statements).
Experience Related to Major:
A lot of the things I have been doing at my internship relate to my Data Analytics course. Since I have been working with ERP implementation, I have been exposed to the ETL process. I have worked with the NetSuite team to upload CSV files to the new systems. These CSV files included the Chart of Accounts, Fixed Assets, and Journal Entries from legacy systems. I have also been exposed to workflows which are a similar concept to an ERD diagram. NetSuite is a relational database, and it was interesting to see this after studying ERDs and schemas. We ended our semesters in Data Analytics speaking about data visualization- I have found this to be useful in ERP implementation. For example, in NetSuite each user is given a role based on their job description. The data visible in their homepage/dashboard is often customized to provide each role with the exact information needed to complete their job description.
- Data-Centric Application Development: Oracle NetSuite runs on a browser and the program language is JavaScript.
- Data Analytics: The NetSuite team must create workflows which are like entity relationship diagrams. We must also perform ETL with data. The data is uploaded into NetSuite using CSV files.
- Advanced Accounting: Must create automated elimination journal entries when working with clients that have subsidiaries.
- Intermediate Accounting II: Create automated financial statements (balance sheet, income statement, statement of stockholder’s equity etc.).