New Labor Costs Report With AI Insights for SuitePeople U.S. Payroll

Oracle has added a Labor Costs Report at Reports > Financial > Labor Costs Report that aggregates paycheck data into configurable labor-cost views. The report supports grouping by period, subsidiary, department, location, and class, and can generate AI summaries on demand.

What changed

New report: Labor Costs Report

• Located under Reports > Financial > Labor Costs Report.
• Draws from up to two years of paycheck data.
• Columns can be sliced by class, department, location, and time periods (week, month, quarter, year).
• By default only regularly-scheduled payroll runs are included. An Include off-cycle runs and payroll reversals and adjustments checkbox adds those records.
• A Generate Insight button produces AI-generated analysis with sections: Executive Summary, Key Metrics, Key Drivers, and Key Takeaways for Leadership.

New configuration record: Labor Costs Configuration

• Located at Setup > Accounting > Labor Costs Configuration.
• Each configuration has a Name and groups payroll elements into three categories: Earnings/Wages, Employer Payroll Taxes, and Employer Benefit Contributions.
• One configuration can be marked as the Default; the report's Configuration dropdown selects which grouping to apply at run time.
• Mappings between payroll items and the three categories are governed by the existing Payroll Mappings to Labor Cost Categories setup.

New permission

• A new permission called Labor Costs has been added. Set it to Full on any custom role that needs access.
• Standard roles that already have access to both financials and payroll (e.g., CFO) can see the report without changes.

Prerequisites

• Requires SuitePeople U.S. Payroll. The report is not available in accounts without this module.

What to do

1. Check module availability. Confirm your account has SuitePeople U.S. Payroll enabled. Without it the report and configuration page will not appear.
2. Set up configurations. Navigate to Setup > Accounting > Labor Costs Configuration and create at least one configuration, selecting the earnings, tax, and benefit-contribution elements relevant to your cost analysis. Mark one as Default.
3. Grant access to custom roles. For any custom role that needs the report, add the Labor Costs permission at the Full level. Standard financial/payroll roles (CFO, etc.) should already have access.
4. Review payroll mappings. Verify that your payroll items are correctly mapped under Payroll Mappings to Labor Cost Categories so the three cost buckets populate accurately.
5. Test the AI insight feature. Click Generate Insight on the report and evaluate the output. The source documentation does not specify which AI model is used, whether the data leaves the NetSuite boundary, or whether there are governance/token limits. If your organization has data-residency or AI-usage policies, confirm these details with Oracle support before enabling the feature for end users.

Note: The source page is a help-center article, not a versioned release note. No specific NetSuite release version is referenced. The feature may have been introduced in 2025.2, 2026.1, or a later release. Check your account's release notes under Setup > Company > Release Notes or the SuiteAnswers article for the exact version and any SuiteCloud dependencies.