The War Against Errors: How a Quality Data Validation Manager Can Save a Company Millions

Bad data doesn't have to wreck a perfectly good ERP system. With NetSuite, you can create custom validation rules to ensure your software runs on clean, reliable information.

What Is a Data Validation Manager?

A data validation manager is a feature or tool within a software platform that defines and enforces data validation rules. These rules ensure the system's information is accurate, complete, and consistent.

As risk management expert Sebastian Taylor explains in an article for the Corporate Finance Institute, companies using automated systems must ensure all system data is correct and well-formatted since it enters the system without human supervision.

“The data will be of little use if it is not entered properly and can create bigger downstream reporting issues,” he explains. “Unstructured data, even if entered correctly, will incur related costs for cleaning, transforming, and storage.”

Organizations can minimize errors, maintain data integrity, and boost their overall performance by implementing data validation rules. Experian’s 2022 Global Data Management Report says 75% of surveyed businesses that improved their data quality in the previous year exceeded annual goals. Therefore, it’s a critical system aspect you can’t overlook.

What Are Data Validation Rules?

A validation rule is a requirement that data must meet to be considered valid within a system or application. Validation rules are commonly used in database management systems, software applications, and web forms to ensure quality and consistency.

For example, let's say a company has set up its data validation manager to ensure all new vendor information gets added to the system correctly. As the software captures data, it checks the various aspects of that information against its validation rules. The system will notify its users if a vendor’s tax ID is in the wrong format or its address is invalid.

Validation rules can feature various criteria, including:

1. Data Type: Ensuring that the information entering a field matches the expected data type, such as text, numeric, date, or Boolean.
2. Format: Verifying that data adheres to a specific format or pattern, such as email addresses, phone numbers, or postal codes.
3. Range of Values: Validating that data falls within a predefined range of acceptable values, such as a minimum and maximum value for numeric fields.
4. Relationships: Checking for consistency and integrity between related data fields, such as ensuring that a customer's shipping address matches their billing address.
5. Completeness: Verifying that required fields are filled out and essential information is provided before data submission.

NetSuite’s Data Validation Manager allows users to create and manage validation rules across various data entry points, including fields in forms, records, and transactions. Data validation is critical to the platform’s core implementation, and SuiteDynamics experts integrate it into the system wherever it makes sense. You can learn more about the process during your free consultation with our team.

Why Is Data Validation Important?

Validation rules are critical in maintaining data quality, integrity, and consistency within a system. They help prevent errors, discrepancies, and inaccuracies that could impact business operations and decision-making.

“Businesses must have confidence in the data underpinning their marketing and sales strategies,” writes data and analytics provider Dun & Bradstreet. “With so many sources of information available to management, data quality is essential to reaching conclusions based on sound facts and figures. After all, your business analytics reports are only as good as the data that goes into them.”

NetSuite's Data Validation Manager offers many benefits that streamline processes and improve overall efficiency within the system. Its key advantages include:

1. Improved Data Quality: NetSuite's Data Validation Manager enforces rules that help prevent invalid or incomplete data from entering the system. It does this by prompting users to correct errors before submitting data so the platform only contains accurate and reliable information.
2. Customization: NetSuite allows users to define custom validation rules tailored to their business requirements. Therefore, organizations can enforce validation criteria catering to their unique data governance policies and compliance needs.
3. Streamlined Workflows: Monte Carlo research finds that data professionals spend up to 40% of their workdays correcting errors. That’s a significant inefficiency. Automatic data validation cuts wasted effort from workflows by reducing the need for manual verification. Consequently, it saves time and effort, allowing your team to focus on more strategic tasks.
4. Enhanced User Experience: NetSuite validation rules help create a more intuitive and user-friendly experience for your team. Its clear error messages and prompts guide you through the data entry process, minimizing frustration and improving overall satisfaction.
5. Compliance Assurance: Companies must comply with regulatory requirements and industry standards to operate in the modern business world. NetSuite's Data Validation Manager enforces validation rules that help you comply with relevant regulations and standards.
6. Real-Time Validation: NetSuite validates data in real-time, providing immediate feedback as information enters the system. Therefore, your team can identify and correct errors promptly, preventing data issues from spreading throughout the system.
7. Data Security: According to IBM, 82% of cybersecurity breaches involve cloud-stored data. Consequently, data validation managers are critical for maintaining confidentiality and software security. They ensure the system can process information correctly and protect it from “malicious” data.

NetSuite's Data Validation Manager improves data quality, streamlines workflows, and enhances user experience and compliance assurance within the platform. SuiteDynamics experts can help leverage these benefits and maximize your data value so your leadership has the information it needs to steer your company.

Tips for Writing Data Validation Rules in NetSuite

Think of validation rules as guardians against errors and inconsistencies. They help save your database from ruin, so they’ve got to be strong.

Follow these tips for creating clearly defined, helpful validation rules.

1. Start With Clear Objectives: Determine what you want to achieve before writing a rule. Do you want to ensure data accuracy, completeness, or regulatory compliance?
2. Understand Your Data: Take time to understand your data’s nature. What are the typical values, formats, and patterns? Do a little research about the information you need and learn how it should look.
3. Keep it Simple: Some find managing and understanding complex rules challenging. Keep yours simple and straightforward to avoid confusion.
4. Test Thoroughly: Before deploying your rules, test them in your sandbox with various scenarios and datasets to ensure they work.
5. Provide Clear Error Messages: NetSuite’s data validation manager allows you to customize error messages, so create informative and actionable ones. Clear communication helps your team understand what went wrong and how to correct it.
6. Document Your Rules: Record each validation rule along with its purpose, conditions, and expected behavior. You’ll find this documentation useful for future reference and maintenance.
7. Keep Rules Up to Date: Regularly review and update your rules so they adapt to changes in your data or business requirements.

SuiteDynamics can help your team define validation rules to ensure only the highest quality data enters your system. You can discuss them during your free consultation.

How to Define Data Validation Rules in NetSuite

1. To view and/or add new validation rules, type "data validation" in the global search bar and navigate to the Data Validation page.
2. Click New to create a new validation rule.
3. Specify the criteria that data must meet to pass validation. This may include conditions based on field values, data types, or relationships between fields.
4. Select the action to take if data fails validation, such as displaying an error message or preventing data entry.
5. Apply the validation rule to the desired fields or records within NetSuite.
6. Once the validation rule is defined, click Save to activate it within the system.

By following these steps, organizations can ensure their NetSuite ERP system runs on the best possible information and produces the best possible results. Schedule a free consultation with SuiteDynamics experts to learn about NetSuite software and how its data maintenance will help your company succeed.

Get a NetSuite ERP That Works

We know your staff has better things to do than correct data errors and inaccurate reports. SuiteDynamics experts can implement a NetSuite ERP for your company that automatically validates incoming data, so you don’t have to worry about it.

Schedule a free consultation with our team to discuss a NetSuite ERP system and how its automated features can increase your company’s efficiency and accuracy. We know you can rise in your industry, so let us show you how.

We pull information from NetSuite material, SuiteDynamics experts, and other reliable sources to compose our blog posts and educational pieces. We ensure they are as accurate as possible at the time of writing. However, software evolves quickly, and although we work to maintain these posts, some details may fall out of date. Contact SuiteDynamics experts for the latest information on NetSuite ERP systems.

Part of this text was generated using GPT-3, OpenAI’s large-scale language-generation model. After generating the draft language, our team edited, revised, and fact-checked it to ensure readability and accuracy. SuiteDynamics is ultimately responsible for the content of this blog post.