NetSuite OpenAir: The PSA Platform for Professional Services

NetSuite OpenAir: what professional services firms actually need from an ERP

Professional services firms — consulting, IT services, marketing agencies, engineering firms, law-adjacent businesses — have a unique operational challenge. Your "inventory" is people's time. Your "manufacturing process" is project delivery. Your "cost of goods sold" is labor and subcontractor expense. Standard ERP modules built for companies that make or distribute physical products don't map well to this reality.

TL;DR: NetSuite OpenAir (officially rebranded to SuiteProjects Pro in February 2025) is a professional services automation (PSA) platform for firms with 30–500+ delivery staff that need skills-based resource management, project accounting, and integrated billing. It goes beyond NetSuite's native project module by adding utilization tracking, capacity planning, and real-time project profitability analysis. Pricing follows a base-plus-per-user model starting around $399/month base + $49/user/month. Implementation takes 8–16 weeks. The right choice when resource management is a strategic function rather than a spreadsheet exercise.

That's why NetSuite OpenAir exists. It's a professional services automation (PSA) platform that handles the operational side of running a services business: project management, resource planning, time and expense tracking, and project accounting. Combined with NetSuite's financial platform, it gives services firms a complete system for managing both delivery and finances.

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OpenAir is becoming SuiteProjects Pro

Oracle officially rebranded NetSuite OpenAir as SuiteProjects Pro on February 15, 2025. The domain changed from openair.com to netsuitesuiteprojectspro.com, and all legacy OpenAir URLs now redirect to the new SuiteProjects Pro sign-in page.

Here's what the transition means in practice:

• Functionality: SuiteProjects Pro retains all OpenAir capabilities. No features are being removed.
• Domain and URLs: All accounts migrated to the netsuitesuiteprojectspro.com domain. Legacy openair.com links redirect automatically.
• Interface: A modernized UI consistent with NetSuite's design language is rolling out in phases.
• Integration: Deeper native integration with NetSuite ERP — tighter data flows, shared authentication, and unified administration.
• Mobile: The mobile app is now branded as "NetSuite SuiteProjects Pro" on iOS and Android app stores.
• Sandbox: Sandbox accounts follow the format <company-id>.app.sandbox.netsuitesuiteprojectspro.com.

If you're evaluating OpenAir today, you're evaluating SuiteProjects Pro. The market still searches for "OpenAir" (the legacy name has strong recognition), and even Oracle's UK marketing pages still reference the old name. But the product roadmap is clearly SuiteProjects Pro.

For the rest of this guide, we'll use "OpenAir" since that's what most people still search for and what existing customers know.

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OpenAir vs. NetSuite's native project management

Before diving into OpenAir, it's worth understanding that NetSuite has its own native project management features. Projects module, time tracking, basic resource allocation — these come with certain NetSuite editions and handle simple project scenarios adequately.

The question is where your firm falls on the complexity spectrum:

Capability	NetSuite Projects (Native)	OpenAir / SuiteProjects Pro
Project tracking	Basic milestones and tasks	Multi-phase, multi-level WBS
Resource management	Simple assignment	Skills-based matching, capacity planning, utilization forecasting
Time tracking	Weekly timesheets	Timesheets with approval routing, non-billable categorization, mobile
Billing	Basic time-and-materials	T&M, fixed-fee, milestone, retainer, hybrid
Utilization reporting	Manual calculation	Real-time dashboards with drill-through
Revenue recognition	Basic schedules	Percentage of completion, milestone, integrated with ASC 606
Team size sweet spot	5–30 people	30–500+ people
Resource managers	Not needed	Dedicated role supported

The dividing line is usually resource management. If you can manage staffing decisions in a spreadsheet or with simple dashboards, native NetSuite is likely sufficient. If resource management is a strategic function — with dedicated resource managers, utilization targets, skill-based matching, and capacity planning — OpenAir provides the depth you need.

A small consultancy with 10 people running 5–10 active projects at a time? Native projects might work. A 200-person firm managing 50+ concurrent projects with complex resource allocation across skill sets, utilization targets, and multi-phase project structures? That's OpenAir territory.

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Core features

Project management

OpenAir approaches projects differently than general-purpose project management tools like Asana, Monday, or MS Project. Those tools manage tasks and timelines. OpenAir manages projects as financial entities — every project has a budget, a margin target, billing terms, and a relationship to your firm's revenue and profitability.

Project structures can be as simple or complex as your delivery model requires. A fixed-fee website redesign might be a single project with three phases: discovery, design, development. A multi-year IT outsourcing engagement might be a program with dozens of sub-projects, each with its own budget, timeline, and billing arrangement.

Within each project, you define tasks, assign resources, set budgets, and track progress. Actual time and expenses post against the project in real-time, so project managers can see where they stand financially at any point — not just whether milestones are hit, but whether the project is on budget.

Revenue recognition ties directly to project progress. For time-and-materials projects, revenue recognizes as time is logged. For fixed-fee projects, revenue can recognize based on percentage of completion, milestones, or other methods that align with ASC 606 and your firm's accounting policies.

Key project features:

• Work breakdown structure (WBS) with unlimited hierarchy depth
• Project templates for repeatable engagement types
• Gantt charts and timeline views
• Budget tracking (hours and dollars) with real-time burn-down
• Change order management
• Project health indicators (RAG status, margin alerts)
• Cross-project dependencies

Resource management

Resource management is where OpenAir earns its keep. For any services firm over about 30 people, getting the right people on the right projects at the right time is the single biggest driver of profitability. Under-utilize your consultants, and you're paying people to sit on the bench. Over-allocate them, and quality suffers and people burn out.

OpenAir's resource management starts with skills-based matching. Each resource has a profile: skills, certifications, location, cost rate, bill rate, and availability. When a project needs a senior Java developer in New York starting next month, you can search the resource pool and find matches instantly.

The resource planning view shows utilization forecasts across your entire team. You can see who's allocated at 120% (red flag), who's at 40% (bench risk), and who has capacity for new projects. This view, updated in real-time as projects change, is the information resource managers need to make good staffing decisions.

Requested vs. allocated vs. actual tracking gives visibility into the full resource lifecycle. A project manager requests resources with specific skills. The resource manager reviews availability and allocates people. Actual hours log against the allocation. Variances between planned and actual surface early, allowing adjustments before they impact the budget.

For firms with multiple offices or geographic markets, OpenAir handles cross-office resource sharing with transfer pricing considerations. A consultant from your Chicago office working on a New York client project can have different bill rates and cost allocations than a local resource.

Time and expense tracking

Time tracking in a PSA context is fundamentally different from "clocking in." Every hour your team logs needs to associate with a client, a project, a task, and a billing classification. It's the raw data that drives billing, revenue recognition, utilization reporting, and project accounting.

OpenAir's timesheet captures all of this in a weekly view that most consultants find manageable. Non-billable categories are configurable — PTO, internal meetings, training, business development — so your utilization metrics accurately reflect available billable time versus administrative overhead.

The approval workflow for timesheets routes through project managers, who verify the hours against their project budget, and then to finance, who confirms the billing implications. Rejected entries go back to the employee with notes. Approved entries flow into the billing and revenue pipeline.

Expense tracking follows a similar pattern. Consultants submit expenses with receipts, tagged to clients and projects. Approval workflows route through the appropriate managers. Approved expenses either bill to the client (per the engagement terms) or absorb as internal cost. The data flows to NetSuite for AP processing and reimbursement.

Mobile time and expense entry is available and matters for firms with field-based consultants. Logging time and snapping receipt photos from a phone is significantly more likely to produce timely, accurate data than asking people to remember their hours at the end of the week.

Project accounting and billing

The connection between OpenAir's project operations and NetSuite's financial platform is where the combined system really shines. Project data in OpenAir — hours worked, expenses incurred, milestones achieved — feeds directly into NetSuite's billing and accounting processes.

Billing models supported:

• Time and materials (T&M): Approved timesheets generate invoice lines based on the resource's bill rate and the project's billing terms. The invoice creates in NetSuite, posts to accounts receivable, and recognizes revenue simultaneously.
• Fixed fee: Billing milestones defined in OpenAir trigger invoice generation in NetSuite when marked complete. Revenue recognition follows percentage of completion or milestone-based methods.
• Retainer / recurring: Monthly retainer invoices generated automatically, with hours tracked against the retainer balance.
• Hybrid: A fixed-fee for deliverables with time-and-materials for change orders — handled through separate billing rules within the same project.
• Cap and collar: T&M with a maximum fee (cap) — common in government and regulatory work.

Project profitability reporting pulls together revenue (from billing), direct costs (labor at cost rates plus expenses), and overhead allocations to produce margin analysis by project, client, practice area, and engagement manager. This is the data services firms need to understand which work is profitable and which isn't.

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Integration with NetSuite ERP

The OpenAir-to-NetSuite integration is bidirectional and covers these data flows:

OpenAir → NetSuite

• Invoices: Approved billing data generates invoices in NetSuite AR
• Revenue recognition: Revenue schedules post to NetSuite GL based on project progress
• Expenses: Approved employee expenses create expense reports or vendor bills in NetSuite
• Project cost journals: Labor cost entries post to NetSuite GL by project, department, and class
• WIP entries: Work-in-progress accounting entries for unbilled revenue

NetSuite → OpenAir

• Employee data: New hires, terminations, and changes sync to OpenAir resource records
• Customer data: Customer records from NetSuite CRM available for project assignment
• Vendor bills: Subcontractor costs on projects sync back to project actuals
• Payment status: Invoice payment status visible in OpenAir for project managers

Integration configuration

The integration uses NetSuite's SuiteTalk API with a pre-built connector. Key configuration decisions:

• Sync frequency: Real-time vs. scheduled (most firms use scheduled — hourly or daily)
• Entity mapping: Which NetSuite fields map to which OpenAir fields
• GL account mapping: How project costs categorize in the NetSuite chart of accounts
• Multi-subsidiary: For OneWorld customers, which subsidiary each project posts to

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Utilization and performance metrics

Services firms live and die by a few key metrics, and OpenAir produces all of them.

Utilization rate is the headline number — what percentage of available time is billable. Most firms target 65–80% for delivery staff, with the range depending on seniority (senior people typically have lower utilization due to business development and management responsibilities) and firm type (body shops target higher; advisory firms tolerate lower).

Realization rate measures what you actually bill versus what you could bill at standard rates. If your consultants log 1,000 hours at $200/hour but you bill $180,000, your realization is 90%. Discounting, write-offs, and scope changes all reduce realization.

Project margin tracks profitability at the engagement level. Revenue minus direct labor cost minus direct expenses divided by revenue. This metric, more than any other, tells you which clients and project types are worth pursuing.

Backlog shows the value of signed-but-not-yet-started or in-progress work. Combined with pipeline data from CRM, backlog is what you use to forecast revenue and plan hiring.

Revenue per employee measures overall firm productivity. Total revenue divided by headcount. Trending this metric reveals whether the firm is scaling efficiently.

According to Oracle's published customer benchmarks, firms using OpenAir report an average 10% increase in annual revenue per employee, 4.3% higher billable utilization, and 1.1% lower employee attrition compared to pre-implementation baselines.

Effective bill rate calculates the actual average revenue per billable hour across the firm. Revenue ÷ total billable hours. Comparing this to standard rates shows the impact of discounting and write-offs.

OpenAir dashboards display all of these in real-time, with drill-through to underlying project and resource data. The CFO sees firm-wide margins. Practice leaders see their team's utilization. Resource managers see capacity and allocation. Project managers see their project health.

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Pricing

Oracle does not publish official OpenAir pricing on their website. Third-party sources like SoftwareAdvice report a base-plus-per-user model:

Published pricing (via SoftwareAdvice):

• Professional Suite (SMB): $399/month base + $49/user/month — includes project management, time and expense tracking, invoicing
• Enterprise Suite: $899/month base + $49/user/month — adds resource management and advanced features

These are list prices. Actual pricing depends on negotiation, contract length, and user count.

Module breakdown:

• Project Management: included in base
• Time & Expense Tracking: included in base
• Invoicing & Billing: included in base
• Resource Management: Enterprise tier or add-on
• Advanced Analytics: add-on module

Implementation costs:

• Small firm (30–50 users, simple structure): $20,000–40,000
• Mid-size firm (50–200 users, complex): $40,000–80,000
• Large firm (200+ users, multi-office, global): $80,000–150,000+

Total Year 1 cost example (50-user firm, Enterprise suite):

• Licensing: ($899 + $49 × 50) × 12 = ~$40,200/year
• Implementation: $40,000
• Total: ~$80,000 Year 1, ~$40,000/year ongoing

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OpenAir vs. alternatives

Kantata (formerly Mavenlink + Kimble)

Kantata is the main competitor in the mid-market PSA space. It offers strong resource management, project accounting, and a modern UI.

Choose OpenAir when: You're already on NetSuite and want native integration. The OpenAir-NetSuite connector is maintained by Oracle and eliminates middleware.

Choose Kantata when: You don't use NetSuite, you prioritize UI/UX over integration depth, or you want built-in business intelligence that doesn't require SuiteAnalytics.

Replicon

Replicon focuses on time tracking and project costing with a strong emphasis on compliance and labor law adherence.

Choose OpenAir when: You need full PSA capabilities (resource management, billing, project accounting) in addition to time tracking.

Choose Replicon when: Your primary need is accurate, compliant time tracking across a large, distributed workforce, and you have simpler project management requirements.

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Project Operations

Microsoft's PSA offering, tightly integrated with the Dynamics ecosystem.

Choose OpenAir when: You're a NetSuite shop. Dynamics Project Operations makes sense if you're in the Microsoft/Dynamics ecosystem.

Choose Dynamics when: You're already on Dynamics 365 for finance and operations.

Standalone tools (Harvest, Toggl, Float)

Lightweight tools for time tracking and basic resource scheduling.

Choose OpenAir when: You need project accounting, billing integration, and firm-level profitability analysis — not just time tracking.

Choose standalone tools when: You're a small team (under 20) that needs simple time tracking without the complexity of a full PSA platform.

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Implementation approach

OpenAir implementations follow a structured process:

Phase 1: Discovery and design (2–3 weeks)

• Document your project types, billing models, and resource management processes
• Map your current workflows to OpenAir capabilities
• Define custom fields, approval workflows, and role permissions
• Design the NetSuite integration (GL mapping, entity mapping, sync rules)

Phase 2: Configuration (3–4 weeks)

• Configure project templates for each engagement type
• Set up resource profiles, skills taxonomy, and cost/bill rates
• Build timesheet categories and approval workflows
• Configure billing rules for each project type
• Set up the NetSuite integration connector

Phase 3: Data migration (1–2 weeks)

• Migrate active projects with current budgets and actuals
• Import resource profiles and skills data
• Load historical time data (if needed for trending)
• Set up customer and vendor records

Phase 4: Testing and training (2–3 weeks)

• End-to-end testing: project creation → time entry → approval → billing → NetSuite invoice
• User acceptance testing with each role (PM, resource manager, consultant, finance)
• Training sessions by role group
• Parallel run: operate OpenAir alongside current system for one billing cycle

Phase 5: Go-live and stabilization (2–4 weeks)

• Cut over to OpenAir as the system of record
• Monitor integration data flows daily
• Address edge cases and exceptions
• Fine-tune workflows based on real-world usage

Total timeline: 8–16 weeks depending on firm size and complexity.

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Who should consider OpenAir

OpenAir makes sense for professional services firms that have outgrown spreadsheet-based project management and basic time tracking. The typical profile:

Good fit:

• 30–500+ delivery staff
• Multiple concurrent projects with meaningful complexity
• Dedicated resource management function (or need for one)
• Project-based billing (T&M, fixed-fee, or hybrid)
• Need for integrated project accounting and profitability analysis
• Already on NetSuite for financials

Not the right fit:

• Fewer than 20 people with simple project structures
• Product companies that happen to do some services
• Firms where native NetSuite Projects covers the requirements
• Organizations not on NetSuite (consider Kantata or Dynamics instead)

If you're already on NetSuite for financials and running a services business, OpenAir is the natural extension. The alternative — using a separate PSA tool and integrating with NetSuite — works but adds the same integration complexity that running separate billing and ERP systems creates.

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Frequently Asked Questions

What is NetSuite OpenAir used for?expand_more

Is NetSuite OpenAir the same as SuiteProjects Pro?expand_more

What is the difference between NetSuite OpenAir and NetSuite Projects?expand_more

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What is a good utilization rate for a consulting firm?expand_more

Can NetSuite OpenAir handle fixed-fee and time-and-materials billing?expand_more

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