Connecting your NetSuite account keeps your inventory, sales, and supplier data in sync with Tightly automatically: no manual exports, no spreadsheets to maintain. This is set up during your onboarding, on a short guided call with the Tightly team, so you're up and running from day one.
This guide walks you through how the connection works, what to expect during onboarding, and exactly what your NetSuite administrator will do on the call.
In this article:
What the connection does
What Tightly reads from NetSuite
How your data stays secure
You stay in control
What to expect during onboarding
The setup steps
What the Connection Does
Tightly connects directly to your NetSuite environment using Token-Based Authentication (TBA) — NetSuite's own native authentication framework — over the standard SuiteTalk REST Web Services interface.
The connection is direct and native: there's no third-party middleware or pass-through service sitting between Tightly and NetSuite. Your operational data flows straight from NetSuite into Tightly, where it powers your inventory insights, replenishment recommendations, and purchasing decisions.
What Tightly Reads from NetSuite
Tightly reads only the operational records it needs to do its job. Each one maps directly to a feature you use in Tightly:
Data | What's included | What it powers in Tightly |
Locations / Warehouses | Warehouse and fulfillment location names and addresses | Tracking stock by location |
Products / Items | Item names, SKUs, descriptions, pricing, item type, unit cost | Your product catalog and margin insights |
Inventory Levels | Quantity on hand per item, per location | Stockout and overstock detection |
Sales Orders | Order headers and line items — quantities, prices, customer reference, fulfillment status | Demand forecasting and replenishment |
Suppliers / Vendors | Vendor names, contact info, and lead times where recorded | Lead-time modeling and purchase planning |
Sales Channels / Subsidiaries | Channel and subsidiary structure | Segmenting inventory and sales by channel or entity |
Scoped access by design
Tightly's access is intentionally narrow: it's limited to the operational records above. The connection does not reach into your financial, HR, or accounting data. The following are entirely outside its scope:
General Ledger, journal entries, and chart of accounts
Accounts Receivable / Accounts Payable, invoices, bills, and payments
Payroll and compensation records
HR and employee records
Banking, reconciliations, and financial reports
Tax records and audit logs
These boundaries are enforced by NetSuite's own role-based permission model. The role assigned to your Tightly connection only carries the specific permissions it needs and no other access is possible through it.
How Your Data Stays Secure
Native authentication: the connection uses NetSuite's standard Token-Based Authentication. There's no shared password and no third-party login.
Encrypted in transit: all traffic between Tightly and NetSuite runs over HTTPS / TLS.
Encrypted at rest: your credentials are stored encrypted within Tightly's secure infrastructure.
No middleware: the connector is native to Tightly. Your data isn't routed through any outside integration platform.
💡 Need details for a security review? Our team can share specifics on cloud region and at-rest encryption standards on request.
You Stay in Control
You issue the credentials. Your NetSuite administrator generates the access token inside your own NetSuite account. Tightly never has admin access to your environment.
You can disconnect anytime. Access is governed entirely from within NetSuite; you can revoke the connection whenever you like.
Everything is auditable. All connection activity appears in NetSuite's standard logs, so you always have a record of what was accessed and when.
What to Expect During Onboarding
We connect NetSuite as part of your onboarding, so there's nothing to figure out on your own.
Before the call: a quick checklist
A few minutes of prep keeps the call short and smooth:
✅ Identify your NetSuite administrator — the person who'll perform the setup, with administrator access to NetSuite.
✅ Make sure they're logged in to NetSuite when the call starts.
✅ Confirm admin permissions — they'll need access to Setup → Enable Features, Manage Integrations, and Access Tokens.
✅ Have a way to note credentials securely — a couple of values are shown only once during setup, so your admin should be ready to capture them.
✅ (Optional) Invite IT or security — if your team wants to review the integration, bring them along; we're happy to answer their questions live.
Here's how the call flows:
Pick your NetSuite admin. Before the call, identify the person on your team with administrator access to NetSuite — they'll perform the setup steps.
Join the guided setup call (~30 minutes). A Tightly engineer walks your admin through each step live. We guide; your admin clicks. All actions happen inside your own NetSuite account — Tightly never takes actions in your environment for you.
We validate the connection. Once your credentials are entered, Tightly tests the connection and confirms everything is scoped correctly.
Your data syncs in the background. The initial sync starts automatically and runs without further input from your team.
By the end of onboarding, your NetSuite data is live across Tightly and ready to use.
💡 If your IT or security team wants to review the integration first, we're happy to join that call too. Just let your Tightly contact know.
The Setup Steps
These are the steps your administrator completes on the onboarding call. Setup takes about 20–30 minutes for an experienced NetSuite admin, with a Tightly engineer on the call throughout to answer questions and verify each step.
Your admin will create five values in NetSuite and enter them into Tightly:
Account ID (Realm) — your unique NetSuite tenant identifier
Consumer Key and Consumer Secret
Token ID and Token Secret
⚠️ The Consumer Secret and Token Secret are shown only once, at the moment you create them. Copy them right away.
Step 1: Enable the required NetSuite features
In NetSuite, go to Setup → Company → Enable Features and open the SuiteCloud tab. Enable:
Token-Based Authentication (under Manage Authentication)
REST Web Services (under SuiteCloud)
Save your changes. If these are already enabled, you're all set here.
Step 2: Configure the role
Assign the connection a role with access to the records listed above. Using the Administrator role is the simplest, most reliable option and ensures all subsidiaries are accessible.
If your security policy requires a dedicated role instead, create a custom role (e.g. "Tightly Integration Role") with only the operational permissions Tightly needs, and assign it to the user that will own the token. Reach out and we'll share the exact permission list.
Step 3: Create an integration record
Go to Setup → Integration → Manage Integrations → New and fill in:
Name: e.g. "Tightly Integration"
State: Enabled
On the Authentication tab, check Token-Based Authentication and click Save.
NetSuite will display the Consumer Key and Consumer Secret — copy both immediately.
Step 4: Create an access token
Go to Setup → Users/Roles → Access Tokens → New and fill in:
Application Name: the integration record from Step 3
User: the account that will own the token
Role: Administrator (recommended) or your custom role
Click Save. NetSuite will display the Token ID and Token Secret — copy both immediately.
Step 5: Find your Account ID
Go to Setup → Company → Company Information and copy the Account ID field (bottom-right of the page).
💡 Enter the Account ID exactly as shown — it's case-sensitive, and sandbox accounts include an underscore (e.g. 1234567_SB1).
Step 6: Enter your credentials in Tightly
In Tightly, go to Settings → Integrations → NetSuite and enter all five values.
Tightly tests the connection right away. Once it's valid, your initial data sync begins automatically.
✅ That's it — your NetSuite account is now connected to Tightly!
After Setup
Once your credentials are saved on the call, Tightly runs the initial sync to bring in your catalog, inventory, sales, and supplier data. Depending on your data volume, this can take anywhere from about 45 minutes to a day or so, and it runs in the background — no further action needed from your team.
When the sync completes, your NetSuite data is live across Tightly, ready for inventory insights, replenishment, and purchasing.
Questions about connecting NetSuite? Reach out to your Tightly contact or message us from the app — we're happy to help, and we can join your IT or security team's review call if that's useful.