October 8, 2026 | By Rikard Burman Holmgren , Ari Karvola | 5 min read

PSA ERP in NetSuite: How AI Helps Professional Services Firms Plan Resources and Protect Margins

From a single question in Claude to a live resource planning dashboard in NetSuite in 30 minutes. Here’s what professional services firms can learn from Staria’s PSA ERP webinar about AI, project visibility and protecting margins.

For professional services firms, project performance is where profitability is won or lost. In Staria’s "Enterprise-Level PSA ERP in NetSuite with AI-Native, Agent-Supported Processes" webinar, Sales Executive Ari Karvola and Senior Solution Architect Rikard Burman Holmgren show how NetSuite brings projects, resources and financials into one system, and how AI can turn that data into tailored tools for project managers in minutes rather than months.

The webinar was held on 30 September 2026. Its most striking moment: Rikard went from a first question in Claude to a live resource allocation dashboard running inside NetSuite in around 30 minutes.

Key takeaways

NetSuite combines project structures, resource allocations, time tracking and financials in one platform, giving professional services firms a single view from planning to invoicing.
Connected to NetSuite through MCP, an AI assistant such as Claude can analyse resource allocations, build an interactive dashboard and write the script to run it live in NetSuite.
NetSuite Next and external AI tools are complementary: one is built in at no extra licence cost, the other is best of breed and works with your custom records today.

Watch the full webinar recording to see the live demos.

Why do professional services firms need PSA and ERP in one system?

The challenge for services organisations is connecting delivery, resourcing and financials in one clear view. When project plans, allocations, time entries and invoices live in separate tools, nobody sees the full picture, and margin problems surface too late.

PSA, or professional services automation, covers the tools services firms use to plan projects, manage resources and track time. NetSuite’s PSA capabilities keep tasks, milestones, resources, billing and revenue in the same system as the general ledger. Rikard, who has worked with NetSuite for more than 20 years and focused on PSA for the last five or six, sees two typical setups:

Smaller firms, up to a couple of hundred users, tend to run everything inside NetSuite.
Enterprise firms usually keep specialist tools such as Jira for tasks, Confluence for documentation, Float for resource planning and Salesforce or HubSpot for CRM, connected to NetSuite through prebuilt connectors.

Rikard expects AI to change that picture within the next six to twelve months. When building a tailored interface on top of NetSuite data takes minutes instead of months, the case for separate best-of-breed tools looks very different.

How can AI improve resource planning in NetSuite?

AI can find allocation problems in seconds and turn the analysis into a tool your project managers use every day. In the webinar, Rikard connected Claude to a NetSuite demo account through MCP (Model Context Protocol), an open standard that lets AI assistants work with data in business systems. Then he worked through five steps:

1. Ask for the data. He requested a list of one project manager’s ongoing projects, with invoiced amounts and planned, remaining and allocated hours.

2. Ask for an analysis. “Are we using our resources optimally?” Claude found allocations outside project dates, hours booked where no work was needed, and projects short of cover: 1,120 remaining hours against only 416 allocated.

3. Ask for a dashboard. Claude built an interactive dashboard with KPIs, weekly load per person, a project manager selector and a prioritised list of fixes.

4. Ask for a script. Claude wrote a NetSuite Suitelet script that runs the same analysis.

5. Deploy it. Rikard uploaded the script to NetSuite, and the dashboard now runs on live data for any user.

The whole process took around 30 minutes. With traditional development, Rikard estimates the same result would have taken days or weeks. Because Claude had already written the queries behind the analysis, the script reuses that logic directly, which brings the AI’s reasoning permanently into NetSuite.

Rikard also shared some practical advice. Test in a sandbox before production, and give the AI a read-only role wherever possible. Be explicit with your instructions too: AI coding assistants sometimes start building before you have asked them to.

NetSuite Next or Claude with MCP: which should you use?

Both. Rikard sees the two approaches as complementary rather than either/or.

	NetSuite Next	Claude + MCP
Cost	Included in the NetSuite licence	Not included in the NetSuite licence
Setup	Works out of the box on standard processes such as close, bank and AP	Requires your own development and maintenance
Custom records	Doesn’t automatically understand custom records	Can be built against your custom records today
Control	Built into NetSuite	Full visibility into which tools the agent can access, but an extra integration layer to secure
Pace	Still rolling out, with a 12-month horizon	Fast iteration, independent of Oracle’s roadmap

NetSuite Next brings Ask Oracle, agentic workflows and an AI canvas into NetSuite. It is already rolling out in North America but not yet in EMEA. Rikard has tested it through Staria’s partner access, and his view is that dedicated external AI tools will stay ahead on capability for now.

What PSA tools has Staria built on NetSuite?

In the second half of the webinar, Rikard shows two Staria-built PSA tools, both created with the help of AI and running on standard NetSuite data:

A project manager dashboard. Everything a project manager or project controller needs in one view: KPIs, a Gantt timeline, a drag-and-drop Kanban board, time awaiting approval, charges, billing and revenue. It also supports value-based revenue recognition, where firms adjust the value of delivered hours before recognising revenue.
A resource planner. A faster alternative to NetSuite’s built-in resource allocation grid, with filters, a spreadsheet-style quick entry mode and capacity charts. It shows public holidays and time off, including from an external HR system, so over-allocated people stand out immediately.

See both tools in action in the webinar recording.

Watch the Enterprise-Level PSA ERP in NetSuite webinar

Ari and Rikard show how professional services firms can use NetSuite and AI to improve project visibility, resource planning and profitability. You’ll see the full 30-minute journey from question to live dashboard, plus Staria’s project manager dashboard and resource planner. The webinar is for services leaders, project managers, finance teams and anyone responsible for project performance.

Frequently asked questions about PSA ERP in NetSuite

What is PSA ERP?

PSA (professional services automation) ERP combines project management, resource planning and time tracking with financials such as billing, revenue recognition and accounting. In NetSuite, these run on the same data, so delivery and finance work from one version of the truth.

Can NetSuite handle PSA for enterprise professional services firms?

Yes. Smaller firms often run everything in NetSuite, while enterprise firms typically connect specialist tools such as Jira, Confluence, Float, Salesforce or HubSpot through prebuilt connectors. Tailored dashboards and planners can be built on top of NetSuite data where the standard interface falls short.

Is it safe to connect an AI assistant to NetSuite?

It can be, with the right controls. AI tools connected through MCP operate within the permissions of their NetSuite role, and data cannot be deleted through the MCP connection. Rikard recommends testing in a sandbox first and using read-only access wherever possible.

Do I need NetSuite Next to use AI for project management?

No. You can connect AI assistants such as Claude to NetSuite through MCP today. NetSuite Next will add built-in AI, including Ask Oracle, but it is not yet available in EMEA.

What is value-based revenue recognition?

It is a method where revenue is recognised based on the value of what has been delivered, rather than percentage of completion or cost-to-cost. Firms can write the value of hours spent up or down before the revenue is posted to journal entries.

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