The transition from legacy transactional models to complex subscription-based models requires a vital reimagining of the balance sheet for enterprise healthcare providers. Additionally, in an era where digital platforms, care management solutions, and recurring access to clinical intelligence drive the bottom line, the old manual revenue recognition process is slow and poses a compliance risk.
Recently, CloudPaths partnered with a global leader in healthcare information services to navigate this exact transformation. With a revenue stream exceeding $600 million and a portfolio expanded through aggressive acquisitions, the client faced a fragmented landscape. Challenges included:
- Disparate technology stacks
- Inconsistent accounting practices
- A legacy revenue module that could not keep pace with modern standards like ASC 606 and IFRS 15
Consolidation Over Chaos
However, the primary trigger for the project was a strategic need to harmonize multiple subsidiaries under a unified operational umbrella. These organizations were often running on different order management systems, CRMs, and software stacks, leading to significant manual overhead.
Vijay Tripathi, Vice President of CloudPaths’ SuitePaths practice, highlighted the operational friction this fragmentation caused: “Multiple small different divisions operating on their own order management systems were leading to a lot of inefficiencies because everybody was doing their own order management.”
He added that this led to multiple resources, different billing types, and different invoice formats. “The need was to consolidate to lead to better efficiencies and standardization,” Tripathi explained.
This is when the organization opted to implement NetSuite Advanced Revenue Management (ARM) through its NetSuite implementation partner, CloudPaths, to move from a reactive, manual posture to a proactive, system-driven capability. The logic behind choosing NetSuite ARM also included the fact that it would enable the company to manage multi-year contracts without the previous errors of breaking orders into yearly chunks.
A Strategic Pivot
Still, the implementation was not merely a technical, “flip of the switch,” as Tripathi noted. It required intense coordination across five distinct groups: Order Management, Sales, Billing, Accounting, and Financial Planning & Analysis (FP&A). This alignment ensured that revenue logic was embedded directly into the system, standardizing terms and pricing to reduce downstream rework.
Krishan Sharma, NetSuite Practice Lead at CloudPaths, explained the broader impact of the implementation and CloudPaths’ partnership on management confidence. “A good consultant brings product and industry experience that gives a lot of confidence to the management that they have the right team and the right systems in place,” he said. “Now, as soon as discussions about acquiring a new business come up, they are not challenged to the same extent as before.”
Measuring the Impact
The results of this transformation are evident in the organization’s newfound ability to scale without linear increases in headcount. Key improvements include:
- Order Processing Efficiency: By phasing out legacy systems, the team now seamlessly handles over 120 orders monthly from that source alone as they migrate fully to the NetSuite framework.
- Rapid Integration: During the peak transition months of November and December 2025, the system successfully absorbed approximately $20 million in order volume from merged entities.
- Operational Velocity: The company has achieved an increase in financial close speed and a reduction in manual journal entries, allowing the accounting team to shift from data entry to strategic analysis.
- Audit Readiness: The system now provides a clear audit trail for ASC 606 compliance, which is essential for companies operating in highly regulated healthcare environments.
And that is not all. Tripathi concluded that as the roadmap extends into 2028, the foundation is now in place for even more advanced capabilities, including SuiteBilling for automated upselling and AI-driven forecasting.
What This Means for ERP Insiders
Treat NetSuite ARM as an enterprise capability instead of a financial tool. Revenue recognition starts at the sales quote, not the invoice. According to Tripathi and Sharma, the success of this healthcare project hinged on standardizing terms and billing schedules across sales and operations early in the cycle. They also noted that if an organization’s Quote-to-Cash process is broken upstream, ARM will only highlight the errors more quickly, not fix them, something ERP Insiders must keep in mind as they embark on their own NetSuite transformation projects.
Transform NetSuite into the architect for an organization’s M&A playbook. For companies growing through acquisitions, like the healthcare company that CloudPaths partnered with, ARM should be a plug-and-play module. Therefore, by designing generic, rules-based revenue templates rather than hard-coding unique scenarios for every entity, organizations can integrate new subsidiaries into group reporting in weeks rather than months.
Plan for the post-live evolution. Implementation is just the beginning. The global healthcare landscape requires a system that evolves with new tax engines and storefront consolidations. To achieve this goal, organizations must ensure their ARM framework is flexible enough to handle what Tripathi termed as future “downsells, upsells, and cancellations” without requiring a total system overhaul.
