With NetSuite 2026.1 recently made available, a clearer picture is emerging of how the platform continues to evolve across finance, analytics and operational control, particularly in the way artificial intelligence is being embedded into everyday workflows.
To help you get on top of the changes, we’ve pulled out the key highlights from 2026.1 with a focus on practical advances that shape how finance work unfolds during the period, particularly around close management, cash visibility and system governance.
AI is becoming a part of how the close is managed
In NetSuite 2026.1, AI shows up more directly in the mechanics of month-end rather than sitting alongside it. Most of the changes are directed at making the whole process more visible, more structured and less dependent on manual coordination in spreadsheets, emails and side trackers.
Close Manager is becoming a real working layer
Close Manager is starting to function less like a report and more like a live working layer for month-end. It brings together close tasks, transaction activity and system signals into one coherent view, so teams can see what is complete, what is still open and where something looks off while the period is still in motion.
Built-in exception signals surface unusual movements and incomplete activity earlier than before, reducing the familiar end-of-month scramble and the back-and-forth that typically fills the last few days of close. Hyperlinks from Close Manager into underlying records then make it much easier to investigate issues without jumping between screens or rebuilding searches.
Reconciliations and cash processes get more AI assistance
Intelligent Payment Automation and improved bank matching have slightly shifted the texture of day-to-day reconciliation work. Payments are now easier to prepare across subsidiaries, which reduces the manual stitching together of different processes and brings more consistency to how bills are handled. At the same time, the updated matching logic is more tolerant and context-aware, so teams will find they spend less time clearing false positives and tidying up edge cases.
Running alongside this, payment date prediction on supplier invoices gives finance a more realistic sense of when cash will actually leave the business, rather than relying solely on contractual due dates, which makes cash conversations feel grounded in how the organisation really behaves.
Analytics become less “DIY” for finance teams
NetSuite Analytics Warehouse (NSAW) is doing more of the heavy lifting that finance teams have traditionally done themselves. Instead of users having to rebuild views, export data or stitch together multiple reports, AI-generated variance explanations now sit directly inside dashboards and workbooks, comparing actuals to budgets and forecasts and describing the main drivers of movement in plain, contextual language alongside the numbers. The system also takes a more proactive stance, flagging trends and anomalies across financial and operational datasets so unusual movements, emerging patterns and outliers surface without anyone needing to design additional analyses. Because these explanations are tied back to the underlying NSAW datasets, teams can trace insights to source records and validate them quickly, which gradually reduces the monthly cycle of manual diagnosis, especially in multi-entity or high-volume environments.
In NetSuite Planning and Budgeting (NSPB), analysis is becoming richer and more explainable at the same time. Forecasts can now be shaped by multiple inputs such as volume, pricing, seasonality, headcount or cost drivers, rather than leaning on single-variable assumptions that flatten real-world complexity. The Prediction Explanation Assistant then sits inside planning workflows, making visible why outputs have shifted when inputs change, so reviews are about substance rather than back-and-forth clarification. During approval cycles, reviewers can see both the numbers and the reasoning behind them in one place, which makes rolling forecasts and scenario reviews easier to interrogate and reduces the need to juggle separate models and reports.
Cash visibility becomes more realistic
Cash 360 gives you a working view of how money actually moves through the business. Support for sales orders with billing schedules means forecasts now reflect when revenue is genuinely expected to be billed and collected, rather than treating every order as if it will behave neatly on standard terms. This brings a useful dose of reality into cash planning, particularly for subscription, project or staged-billing businesses where timing matters as much as totals.
Bank feeds are also becoming more predictable to run. More flexible, customisable import schedules in Bank Feed Integration let teams align data refreshes with the way they work instead of contorting processes around the system’s defaults, while on-demand refreshes make it easier to see what’s actually happened in near real time. Layered on top of this, the improved AI-powered Bank Transaction Matching is better at interpreting messy, real-world bank data, which reduces repetitive clean-up and keeps reconciliations moving.
Finally, smarter Notification Management for bank imports gives teams more control over what lands in their inbox, so alerts surface when they genuinely matter rather than becoming background noise that everyone learns to ignore.
System governance becomes quieter but stronger
These changes in 2026.1 will matter if you run an integrated NetSuite environment. The move to keyed journal line sublists is a good example, it improves line-level accuracy and reliability for integrations, workflows and custom logic that depend on stable identifiers. For teams with heavy automation or iPaaS connections, this reduces the risk of edge-case failures and makes long-running processes more dependable over time.
Alongside this, tighter authentication and OAuth controls and improved session management raise the security baseline without making everyday work more cumbersome. Multi-factor authentication is now more consistently applied, and integration credentials are better governed, which is particularly important for organisations juggling multiple systems, vendors and data flows. These updates don’t change how most users work, but they make the environment safer and less fragile in the background.
There’s also a broader platform shift that shows up beneath the surface. SuiteTalk REST APIs are moving closer to full parity with legacy SOAP, with new batch operations, create-form initialisation and attach/detach capabilities that make integrations simpler, faster and less brittle to maintain. At the same time, SuiteCloud Development Framework (SDF) enhancements such as pre-undeploy hooks and explicit file permissions give developers more control over lifecycle management, which translates into cleaner installs, fewer orphaned assets and smoother upgrades.
Finally, the continued rollout of Redwood UI to more pages makes day-to-day work feel more consistent and less fragmented, especially across banking, system notes and administrative workflows. It’s not a radical redesign, but the cumulative effect is a platform that feels steadier, more coherent and easier to live with as complexity grows.
Haven’t switched to Redwood yet?
For teams still on Classic, 2026.1 it’s probably a good time to switch. More banking, administration and record pages now default to Redwood, which means the gap between Classic and Redwood will only get wider over time. There can be a short period of adjustment as you relearn where familiar actions live, but that’s temporary, and the consistency of Redwood across modules will ultimately reduce cognitive load for all users.
Reconciliations become more guided
With NetSuite Account Reconciliation (NSAR), less of month-end is now about set-up and detective work. Instead of teams spending time assigning new accounts, choosing formats and setting risk ratings each period, an AI assistant now identifies newly created accounts, assigns them to appropriate preparers and applies the right attributes automatically, learning from prior cycles as it goes. This doesn’t remove the need for oversight, it simply takes a lot of the repetitive configuration work off accountants’ plates.
On the matching side, a new AI-powered assistant supplements traditional rules by uncovering less obvious relationships between transactions and suggesting likely matches with confidence scores. When material movements occur, GenAI flux analysis automatically drafts plain-language explanations based on financial and operational context, giving teams a coherent starting point rather than a blank page.
Project finance becomes less fiddly and more responsive
Project Management and Revenue Recognition allows users to recalculate revenue arrangements and plan directly from the project record, with immediate notifications after each revenue-generating action, which shortens the feedback loop when something needs correcting. Troubleshooting becomes faster because the system surfaces the impact of changes in context rather than forcing teams to jump between screens.
At the same time, revamped task functionality makes project set-up and maintenance smoother. Multiple tasks can be added at creation, and existing tasks can be edited quickly via an intuitive pop-up interface, with support for core fields and customisation. This makes day-to-day project finance less manual, less error-prone and easier to keep aligned with delivery reality.
A brief note on inventory and operations
Outside finance, AI inventory narratives bring more context directly into operational workflows by summarising what is happening on Location, Item and Dashboard pages and flagging risks such as low stock or valuation changes.
In the warehouse, updates to Warehouse Management and Ship Central focus on accuracy and efficiency, from smarter barcode handling and real-time shipment updates to better bulk processing and third-party billing configuration.
All up, a more operational, steadier NetSuite
Taken together, 2026.1 is less about one big breakthrough and more about a series of practical shifts that make close, cash and controls easier to run in a complex, integrated environment. AI is moving closer to the work, the platform is getting steadier underneath it, and everyday finance processes feel that little bit smoother as a result.
Preparing for NetSuite release 2026.1
If you want to hear directly from our team about what this actually means in practice and put your own questions on the table, register for our NetSuite 2026.1 release webinar.
Visit our NetSuite Release 2026.1 Hub to see how Annexa can help you interpret, test and prepare for the changes in a way that’s tailored to your environment.
Download the official NetSuite 2026.1 release notes