I sold and implemented both NetSuite and Intacct previously; both solutions will work if you are clear on what you need them to do and both will fail miserably if you go outside of their core capabilities. SaaS companies, and subscription based companies in general have unique challenges that all ERP systems (not just NetSuite and Intacct) will struggle with. You will really need to look at your systems holistically rather than focusing separately on ERP, CRM and provisioning/fulfillment.

Subscription based businesses are unique in that the line between the front office and back office is blurred. In traditional sales models, you sell a service or physical good, fulfill the product, invoice for the product, collect and then ideally sell more products/services to the customer. This model is very linear and allows the front office to be mostly separate from the back office. Salespeople can use their SFA tool (e.g. Salesforce) to sell products and services and the back office can use their ERP system for fulfillment, billing and collections.

However, in a subscription based business, the sales process is no longer linear. Ideally, your sales team is selling a good or service as a subscription. The linear part of the process break down when the subscription becomes a living object that evolves over time. For example, your customer may want to add on users or upgrade from a lower to higher tier in the middle of the subscription term. This amendment process is driven by sales, but has implications for your finance team which means neither your SFA nor ERP system can handle Subscription Billing on their own. (*I should note that both Intacct and NetSuite have Subscription modules but unless your sales team is also using NetSuite/Intacct, the process will still break down. NetSuite does have front office capabilities so theoretically you could use NetSuite for managing your entire business but salespeople in general hate NetSuite SFA.)

So what are the processes you need to look at when selecting your systems?

• Products and Pricing - My belief is that this should be primarily driven by sales and therefore the front office. In the end, sales is king and therefore the flexibility in pricing and packaging needs to be driven by your upfront processes.
• Quoting and Order creation - Clearly this will be a front office function and will leverage your front office solution.
• Provisioning and Fulfillment - Orders can be passed to a back office system including ERP or your in house SaaS product. Ideally, detail from the back office is passed back to the front office so your customer support team knows what is happening from a provisioning standpoint. Additionally, provisioning and fulfillment often has impacts on billing and revenue recognition.
• Rating and Billing - This is where you have a conundrum. Traditionally, this is clearly a back office function. This can remain a back office function if you follow the linear sales process. For example, if you sell an annual or monthly recurring subscription and do not anticipate any mid-term changes, your back office system will work fine and therefore both NetSuite and Intacct are viable options. However, if you anticipate any mid cycle changes (upgrades, add-ons, etc) that should be co-terminus, NetSuite and Intacct will not work. Your assisted sales team or self service process will need the ability up front to calculate the prorated amendment charges before the order is submitted which means NetSuite/Intacct are too far down the line to assist. Therefore, Billing and Rating needs to move to a front office system in a subscription business.
• Invoice Generation - The customer facing invoice document. You should be able to use either your front office billing system or your selected ERP application as both systems should have invoice detail.
• Payments and Collections - You need to ensure the system you select allows for electronic payments and can support automated recurring payments.
• Revenue Recognition - Both NetSuite and Intacct have revenue recognition capabilities but both will struggle with any mid-cycle changes. Many companies handle RevRec in something like Excel or move the function to a different system.
• Financial System of Record - Ultimately, NetSuite/Intacct must be your financial system of record. What is important to note here is that if you elect to move billing/invoices to a front office system you will still need to make sure account and invoice detail are loaded into NetSuite/Intacct or you will lose financial visibility at the account level.

So, if I were you I would start by drawing out existing systems and indicate the functions you expect each system to handle. Below is a simple diagram connecting the front office to the back. In addition to CRM and ERP you will likely want to include tax, payment gateways, provisioning, usage systems, etc.

All that being said, you asked which ERP system is better - NetSuite or Intacct. Once you nail down exactly what you want out of your ERP, I would go with the solution that checks all the boxes for the lowest price. Probably most important is your level of confidence in the team that will deliver your solution. It is rare that an implementation fails because the technology was truly bad. It is far more likely that the team implementing it did not have a clear direction or did not have executive sponsorship ensuring they focus on the big picture rather than minutiae.