Aberdeen FC modernises finance operations with NetSuite ERP and Eureka Solutions

How one of Scotland’s leading football clubs moved from legacy finance systems, paper-based purchase orders and spreadsheet-heavy reporting to a more connected, cloud-based finance platform.

Executive Summary

Aberdeen Football Club needed to modernise its finance operation after parts of its legacy finance environment became unsupported. The immediate trigger was system risk, but the wider business case was driven by manual processing, slow reporting, limited visibility and a need to give non-finance teams more timely, meaningful information.

Working with Eureka Solutions, Aberdeen FC implemented NetSuite ERP to create a more structured, scalable finance platform. The project has helped the club move away from paper-based processes, improve asset management and enhance reporting capabilities, while establishing a stronger foundation for automation, department-level insight and future Salesforce integration.

For a professional sports organisation, the impact goes beyond finance. NetSuite now gives Aberdeen FC the ability to connect operational data, commercial insight and financial reporting in a way that better supports decisions across the club.

“It was mainly the amount of manual processing and the significant amount of time required to complete routine tasks.” – Annie Philip, Financial Controller, Aberdeen FC

About Aberdeen Football Club

Aberdeen Football Club, known as The Dons, is one of Scotland’s most established and recognisable professional football clubs. With four league titles, six Scottish League Cups, seven Scottish Cups and two European trophies, the club has a long history of success both in Scotland and in Europe.

The club has also been associated with progress off the pitch. Pittodrie was the first all-seated stadium in Britain, reflecting a culture of embracing change and modernisation. As the club continued to evolve, Aberdeen FC recognised that its back-office finance systems needed to support the same ambition.

The challenge: moving from legacy finance to modern sports finance management

Aberdeen FC’s ERP project was triggered when the club received confirmation that its existing finance system would no longer be supported. That created a clear need to act. As Annie Philip explained, the project moved from something the club would like to do to something it had to do.

The system risk was only one part of the challenge. The finance team was also dealing with a highly manual operating model. Processes worked, but they relied heavily on people, paper and time-consuming workarounds. The reporting process was resource-intensive and could delay the availability of management information.

When Annie joined the project, she recognised that some finance processes could benefit from modernisation to better align with current finance practices. Football clubs often invest heavily in first-team technology and sports science, but finance and commercial systems can sometimes lag behind other sectors. Aberdeen FC wanted to close that gap.

Before the move to NetSuite, the club faced challenges including:

• High levels of manual finance processing
• Delayed reporting and limited visibility for department heads
• A lack of structured month-end close discipline
• Handwritten, carbon-copy purchase order books
• Accounts payable teams manually chasing approvals and delivery confirmations
• Player-related fixed assets managed outside the main finance system
• Spreadsheet-heavy data preparation and reporting
• A need to support future integration with Salesforce and other business systems

Why the project was not just a system replacement

A critical part of the implementation was resisting the temptation to simply lift the old system and recreate it in NetSuite. Aberdeen FC recognised that this would defeat the purpose of investing in a modern cloud ERP platform. The project needed to review how finance should work, not just where the old data should sit.

That scoping stage was one of the most important parts of the project. Aberdeen FC’s finance department is long-established, with team members who have been with the club for many years. Their process knowledge was essential, but the project also needed systems experience to challenge old ways of working and design a finance platform that would support the club’s future.

Annie and the Financial Controller worked closely through the early months of the project to bring business knowledge and systems knowledge together. Eureka Solutions supported this by demonstrating how NetSuite could work in practice, helping the team move from theory to practical system design.

“We wouldn’t be able to live without it now. After working with multiple ERP systems over 20 years, NetSuite is the best I’ve worked with and it’s the one I would recommend.” – Annie Philip, Financial Controller, Aberdeen FC

Why NetSuite ERP was the right fit for Aberdeen FC

NetSuite was selected because it could support Aberdeen FC’s need for a more flexible, integrated and scalable finance platform. Rather than replicating legacy processes, the club could use NetSuite to adopt leading practice workflows, improve control and create better financial visibility from go-live.

NetSuite’s reporting capability was particularly important. The club needed more than traditional P&L or aged trial balance reporting. NetSuite allows the team to use allocations, statistical information and additional data points to create more meaningful reporting for finance users and non-finance stakeholders.

For Aberdeen FC, that means finance data can now support wider operational insight. For example, the club can analyse ticketing and match-related statistics such as attendance, then understand how those figures may influence future matches, commercial decisions or departmental planning. This takes reporting beyond finance and makes it more useful to the business as a whole.

NetSuite also provides a strong foundation for integration. Aberdeen FC is implementing Salesforce and plans to connect it to NetSuite, giving the club a pathway towards a more connected finance, CRM and commercial data environment.

Implementation: building structured workflows and managing change

Working with Eureka Solutions, Aberdeen FC moved key finance processes into NetSuite and began replacing paper-based workflows with digital, system-led processes. One of the clearest examples was purchase order management.

Previously, employees used carbon-copy PO books. The process moved through the business, but it created practical issues: handwritten forms could be difficult to read, approvals were hard to track, and finance had to spend time following up manually. NetSuite introduced a digital PO process where users log into the system, select what they are purchasing and move the request through a structured approval flow.

The change has affected a wide group of employees across the club. Some teams adapted faster than expected. Annie noted that the football department at Cormack Park “got straight on board” with the new approach and quickly began using the system. Other users took more time, which is natural in a business where some processes had been embedded for many years.

The project also highlighted the importance of managing change within finance itself. Aberdeen FC had expected the wider employee base to be the biggest change management challenge, but some of the more detailed process questions only emerged once the finance team began using the system day to day. This reinforced the importance of early involvement, testing and practical demonstration for core finance users.

“Our AP person isn’t constantly chasing people to check if something’s been approved or delivered.” – Annie Philip, Financial Controller, Aberdeen FC

From manual effort to automation and efficiency

The benefits of the new system are becoming visible in everyday finance work. Tasks that previously depended on paper, printing and manual filing are now handled within NetSuite. One colleague who was initially concerned about the new system began to see the value once they could attach files digitally and avoid printing documents unnecessarily.

In some areas, the time saving has been significant. Annie described examples where tasks that previously took around an hour can now be completed in approximately 15 minutes. For a busy finance team, those incremental improvements add up quickly, freeing people to focus on higher-value work rather than manual administration.

The move to automation is also helping the club improve consistency. Processes are now more visible, easier to follow and better controlled, reducing dependency on informal knowledge or manual handovers.

Stronger reporting for finance and non-finance teams

A major objective for Aberdeen FC was to make reporting more timely, flexible and relevant. Under the previous system, it was challenging to produce timely information, which meant that reporting to departments and budget holders was less effective.

With NetSuite, the club has a more structured close process and can provide department heads with more current financial information. This gives non-finance teams better visibility of performance and supports more informed decisions around budgets, spend and operational planning.

The reporting improvements are particularly valuable in a football club environment, where finance, commercial, football operations, ticketing and departmental activity are closely connected. NetSuite gives Aberdeen FC a stronger platform to analyse how operational activity affects financial outcomes and to share insight with the people who need it.

Fixed assets and player amortisation brought into NetSuite

Aberdeen FC also implemented NetSuite fixed asset functionality, including for player-related assets. This represented a significant improvement on the previous approach, where fixed assets and player data sat outside the main finance system across older software and spreadsheets.

By bringing player assets into NetSuite, the club now has a more controlled and automated process. Once assets are set up correctly, amortisation can be processed automatically and reviewed by the finance team, rather than being calculated manually each month. This is a strong example of how NetSuite can support specialist finance requirements within professional sport. Football clubs need financial systems that can manage the realities of player contracts, amortisation, operational complexity and department-level reporting while keeping controls consistent and auditable.

Impact by finance role

The NetSuite ERP implementation supported daily users across accounts receivable, accounts payable, finance control and management accounting, while giving the Finance Director stronger reporting and leadership visibility. Rather than simply replacing the previous finance system, the project reviewed how each role worked day to day, identified where manual processes were slowing the team down, and redesigned those workflows in a more scalable way.

Overall outcome for the finance team

One of the biggest successes of the project was that Aberdeen FC did not simply replace its finance system. The club used the NetSuite implementation as an opportunity to modernise how finance works across the organisation, reduce dependency on manual knowledge and make financial processes more accessible to the wider business.

NetSuite has helped create a finance platform that is:

• Easier to use for daily finance users and wider business teams
• Easier to report from, with real-time dashboards and more meaningful management information
• More scalable for future finance, commercial and operational requirements
• Less reliant on spreadsheets, manual workarounds and individual process knowledge
• Better suited to controlled month-end, purchasing, approvals and leadership decision-making

The impact: a modern cloud ERP platform for a leading Scottish football club

Aberdeen FC now has a more connected finance platform that better supports the way the club operates. NetSuite has helped the club move away from manual, paper-based processes and towards structured digital workflows, improved reporting and better system visibility.

The implementation has affected more than the finance department. Anyone raising purchase orders, managing budgets, approving spend or relying on financial information is now part of a more consistent process. The club also has a clearer platform for future improvement, including expenses, mileage and Salesforce integration.

The project has also created a better foundation for continuous optimisation. Because the system was scoped around future needs rather than simply replicating the past, Aberdeen FC can continue to add functionality without needing to go back and redesign the core finance setup.

Key Outcomes

• Modern cloud ERP platform replacing unsupported legacy finance systems
• Formalised month-end close process and improved reporting rhythm
• More flexible NetSuite reporting for finance users and department heads
• Digital purchase order workflow replacing handwritten carbon-copy PO books
• Reduced manual chasing for accounts payable approvals and delivery confirmations
• Examples of finance tasks reducing from around one hour to around 15 minutes
• Player-related fixed assets brought into NetSuite with automated amortisation
• Reduced printing, spreadsheet dependency and legacy system reliance
• A stronger platform for Salesforce integration and future process improvements

Lessons for sports organisations considering ERP transformation

Aberdeen FC’s project highlights a common challenge for professional sports organisations. While clubs often invest heavily in performance technology, finance and commercial systems can sometimes remain behind the pace of the wider organisation.

The key lesson is that ERP implementation should not be treated as a direct system swap. Simply moving old processes into a new platform limits the value of the investment. The greatest benefit comes from reviewing what the organisation needs from finance, designing processes around future requirements and using the system to introduce better controls, automation and insight.

Change management is also essential. Demonstrating how NetSuite works in practice, involving experienced finance users and helping departments understand the benefits of new workflows can make adoption easier and more meaningful.

Working with Eureka Solutions

Eureka Solutions supported Aberdeen FC through its NetSuite implementation, helping the club move from legacy finance systems and manual processes to a more scalable, integrated ERP platform.

As a UK NetSuite implementation partner, Eureka Solutions works with organisations that need stronger financial management, better reporting, process automation and integration between core business systems. For Aberdeen FC, that support helped turn a necessary system replacement into a wider finance transformation project.