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Every year, the Deltek Clarity A&E Industry Study gives architecture and engineering firms something concrete to work with: real data from real firms about what's working, what's stalling, and where the industry is heading. The 47th edition surveyed 896 firms of all sizes and types, and the throughline is clear. This isn't a market that rewards guessing or going through the motions. The firms pulling ahead are the ones making intentional, disciplined decisions at every level of the business.

Project management is where that intentionality either shows up or doesn't. And this year's data makes clear that firms are choosing to show up.

Firms are investing in project managers on purpose

When firms were asked to name their greatest growth opportunity for the coming year, investing in project managers and project management ranked first, at 27%. That's not a small signal. It means firms are looking at their own performance and concluding that the fastest path to better outcomes isn't more headcount or more tools — it's a stronger PM function.

You can see that intentionality showing up in the numbers. Formal project management training climbed four percentage points this year, with 44% of firms now training at least half of their project leaders. Use of clearly defined PM processes held steady, with 68% of firms applying a formal process to at least half their work. These aren't dramatic leaps, but they're directional, and they matter because they attack the problem at its root.

That root problem has a name: competing priorities. For the sixth consecutive year, competing priorities tops the list of PM challenges, cited by 53% of firms. Project managers are being asked to balance delivery with business development, client management, and internal initiatives — often without any added structure to help them manage the load. Training solves part of this. So does giving PMs real visibility and the right tools. But the biggest lever might be the simplest one: role clarity. When a PM knows exactly what they own and what they don't, competing priorities stop competing quite so hard.

This is a place where a well-configured Deltek Vantagepoint setup earns its keep. Resource planning and project planning tools that reflect how your firm actually works — not just how the system shipped out of the box — give PMs the visibility to prioritize with confidence instead of guessing. If your current setup feels more like a filing cabinet than a decision-making tool, that's a configuration problem, not a Vantagepoint problem, and it's exactly the kind of thing our consulting team works through with firms every day.

You can't manage what you can't see

Project managers are also being asked to stay ahead of issues they often can't fully see. The Study asked firms to rate their visibility into key project metrics, and the split is telling. Visibility into cost variance and project-specific KPIs improved this year, with 56% and 55% of firms respectively reporting high or very high visibility. Schedule variance and client satisfaction visibility told a different story: only 31% of firms report strong visibility into schedule variance, and just 24% into client satisfaction.

That gap matters because schedule issues and client dissatisfaction rarely announce themselves. They build quietly, and by the time they're visible without good data, they've usually already compounded. Firms that give PMs clearer, earlier visibility into schedule status create room to course-correct before a small slip becomes a missed milestone. The same logic applies to client feedback: firms building structured feedback loops into the project lifecycle, rather than treating client check-ins as an afterthought, are better positioned to catch friction early and strengthen the relationship instead of just reacting to a complaint.

The good news is that this is measurably improving. The share of firms measuring client satisfaction rose to 41.6% this year, up 2.5 points, and more of that measurement is happening across all projects rather than just strategic ones. That's a shift toward treating feedback as a standard part of delivery, not a selective courtesy.

Closing this visibility gap is exactly what tools like Deltek Vantagepoint's reporting capabilities,paired with a platform like Informer, are built for. Dashboards that surface schedule and KPI data in real time — instead of buried in a spreadsheet someone updates once a month — give PMs the early warning system they need to actually act on a problem instead of just documenting it after the fact.

No accountability without metrics

For the first time, establishing PM accountability metrics debuted as the #1 initiative firms plan to pursue, chosen by 33% of firms. That's worth sitting with for a moment. Accountability has always mattered in project delivery. What's new is firms formally naming it as their top priority — which tells you that a lot of firms have been running the PMO without a clear, agreed-upon way to measure whether it's working.

You genuinely can't hold anyone accountable to a standard that doesn't exist in measurable form. That's where AI and other data-forward technologies earn their place in this conversation — not as a replacement for good management, but as the engine that surfaces the data and the story behind the data clearly enough to actually change behavior. A dashboard that just shows a red number doesn't move anyone. A tool that shows a PM why their schedule variance crept up, and what pattern is driving it across their whole portfolio, gives them something to act on.

This is the kind of gap Deltek's own AI orchestrator, Dela, is aimed at closing — surfacing those insights across the project lifecycle so accountability metrics come with some context, not just a number on a report. 

This is also where firms need to be honest about sequencing. Incorporating AI into project management debuted as a top-three PM challenge this year at 32% — a striking result for a brand-new option. Firms recognize AI's potential, but they're also recognizing that clean data and consistent processes have to come first. AI applied to messy inputs just produces confident-sounding noise faster. Get the fundamentals in place, and AI becomes a real productivity lever instead of another tool competing for a PM's attention.

Shared processes protect consistency

If accountability is the destination, consistent information management is the road that gets you there. When firms were asked about their top challenges managing project information, maintaining consistency and managing quality of deliverables tied for the top spot, each cited by 49% of firms. Administrative workload followed closely at 35%, and project document workflows, deliverable collaboration, and managing submittals and RFIs each landed at 28%.

Look at that list as a group instead of as isolated line items, and the pattern is obvious: consistency suffers when administrative workload is heavy and document workflows aren't built to handle it. A PM buried in manual file-sharing, redundant status updates, and scattered version control doesn't have the bandwidth left to maintain consistent standards, no matter how good their intentions are.

This is squarely a shared-process problem, and it's exactly the kind of gap FSP's consulting team is built to close — configuring Vantagepoint so document workflows, submittals, and project information actually live where they should, instead of in a dozen inboxes and shared drives. For firms syncing project data with outside systems, the Blackbox Connector platform removes another layer of manual administrative work by moving that data automatically instead of by hand. Every hour a PM doesn't spend chasing down a file is an hour they get back for the parts of the job that actually require judgment.

The human element still wins

For all the emphasis on data, tools, and accountability, it's worth pointing out what firms say they already do well: managing client relationships remains the top project management strength for the fourth consecutive year, cited by 80% of firms. Collaboration and communication held steady in second at 60%.

That's a meaningful data point in a conversation so focused on metrics and technology. It confirms there will always be a human element to this business, and that's not something firms should want to engineer away. The goal of better tools and cleaner data isn't to replace the relationship-building that PMs are clearly good at — it's to free up the time and mental space that's currently being eaten by administrative friction, so PMs can spend more of it on the relationships and judgment calls that actually move projects forward. It's the same logic that shows up in business development and marketing: automate the repetitive, reactive work so people can spend more time on the strategic work only they can do.

The bottom line

Training and metrics are the throughline in this year's Project Management data. Firms are training more project leaders, formalizing more processes, and — for the first time — naming accountability as their top initiative. The firms getting the most out of that shift are the ones giving PMs real visibility into schedules, costs, and client feedback, and pairing that visibility with metrics people are actually held to.

None of this replaces good project managers. It supports them — with the role clarity, the data, and the tools to do the human parts of the job better.

Catch up on the series so far: Technology Trends | Business Development | Financial Management

Next up: Human Capital Management — we'll close out the series with what the data says about turnover, training, and the people side of firm performance.

Every year, the Deltek Clarity A&E Industry Study gives architecture and engineering firms something concrete to work with: real data from real firms about what's working, what's stalling, and where the industry is heading. The 47th edition surveyed 896 firms of all sizes and types, and the throughline is clear. This isn't a market that rewards guessing or going through the motions. The firms pulling ahead are the ones making intentional, disciplined decisions at every level of the business.

Nowhere is that shift more visible — or more urgent — than in the Financial Management data.

The mood has changed 

For the first time in several years, increasing profitability displaced finding and retaining qualified staff as the top financial challenge, named by 54% of firms. Talent pressures didn't go away — 49% still list them — but financial pressure moved to the front of the line. That's a meaningful signal. It tells us that firms have shifted from "how do we grow fast enough to meet demand" to "how do we protect what we built."

The numbers back it up. Operating profit on net revenue fell to 16.7%, down 4.7 percentage points year over year. Revenue backlogs contracted sharply — from 9.0 months to 6.3 months. Firms are still profitable by historical standards, but the conditions that produced record performance over the past two years are moderating. The margin for error is narrowing.

The firms navigating this best aren't chasing volume. They're being deliberate — about which projects to pursue, which clients to deepen, and how they price their work. That kind of intentionality doesn't happen by accident. It requires real-time visibility into the data that drives those decisions.

What the utilization number is actually telling you

The median utilization rate fell to 58.9%, down 2.2 percentage points from 61.1% the year before. That drop was felt across every firm segment, with large firms taking the steepest hit — falling from 62% to 58%.

Here's something important to understand about how Clarity measures utilization: it's calculated in dollars, not hours. Specifically, it's the cost of labor charged to projects divided by the total labor cost of the firm. That distinction matters — a lot.

A decline in utilization doesn't mean your people are doing less. It means a smaller share of your total labor spend is going toward billable work. The hours are still being logged — but more of them are landing in business development, internal initiatives, training, overhead, or other non-billable categories. When utilization drops, it's often a sign that the work mix inside the firm is shifting.

That shift is likely to accelerate. As AI tools compress the time required for technically complex but repeatable tasks — calculations, specifications, drawing revisions, report drafts — billable technical work gets done faster. That's good for delivery. But it also means more hours open up, and where those hours go matters enormously for the financial picture. If they flow into overhead and non-billable activity rather than additional billable scope, utilization drops further. If they flow into higher-value strategic work that commands better pricing, the firm comes out ahead.

The firms that will manage this well are the ones tracking it in real time. That means understanding their utilization not just at the firm level, but by project type, role, and team — and course-correcting before it shows up as a problem in the year-end numbers.

The compounding pressure of labor cost and overhead

Declining utilization doesn't exist in isolation — it connects directly to two other metrics that are moving in the wrong direction at the same time.

Total labor cost per employee rose to $119,511, up 3.6% from the prior year. Gross wages per full-time equivalent approached $100,000 for the first time, up 5.1%. Firms are spending more on their people — which makes sense in a competitive talent market — but they're converting less of that spend into billable work.

The result: the overhead rate hit a new 10-year high of 161.3%, up 1.3 percentage points. The math is straightforward. When fewer labor dollars are directed toward billable projects, more costs get absorbed into overhead. And higher overhead compresses the margin available for profit — even when pricing holds steady.

Together, these three metrics — utilization down, labor cost up, overhead up — describe a firm that is spending more to generate each billable dollar. The firms that recognize this dynamic early and act on it have options: adjust project selection, protect billable time more aggressively, improve pricing, or find ways to convert non-billable overhead hours into billable capacity. The firms that miss it until year-end have fewer.

Where firms see their greatest growth opportunities

Given the financial pressure, you might expect firms to be in retreat mode. The growth opportunity data tells a different story — but it's a story about targeted investment, not broad expansion.

Firms ranked investing in project managers and project management first, at 27%. Small and medium-sized firms leaned into this most heavily (30% and 28% respectively), which makes sense: PM capability directly drives project margins, billing accuracy, and client satisfaction. A financially literate PM who understands how scope changes affect profit is one of the highest-leverage investments a firm can make.

Growing your brand and optimizing resource allocation tied for second, each at 19%. Those aren't vanity goals — they reflect the strategic reality of a tighter market. Brand visibility matters more when you can't afford to chase every pursuit. Resource optimization matters more when you can't hire your way out of capacity constraints.

One divergence worth noting: large firms ranked mergers and acquisitions as their top growth opportunity at 33%. The strategic acquisition play is increasingly how larger firms expand without relying on organic growth alone — and the data on firm valuations supports it. The share of firms that completed a valuation in the past two years rose to 57%, up 6.5 percentage points, with large firms leading that trend significantly.

The throughline across firm sizes is doing more with what you have. That requires better data, tighter processes, and systems that give leaders the visibility to make smarter decisions faster.

Reading the revenue mix: clients, projects, and contracts

The revenue composition data in this year's Study is worth spending time on — it points to where the industry is moving and, by extension, where firms should be positioning.

On the client side, private-domestic clients remained the majority at 56% of revenue. The most notable shift was public-private partnerships, which rose six percentage points to 32% — continuing a multi-year trend as firms gravitate toward more stable, structured funding sources. Federal revenue declined four percentage points to 11%, consistent with broader uncertainty around federal funding priorities.

On the project side, transportation stayed at the top at 25%, while residential fell two percentage points and water/wastewater/stormwater declined five points. The real story is in the growth categories: energy and power rose to 18%, and data centers debuted as a new category at 10% — reflecting the surge in AI infrastructure investment driving demand across the country. For firms not yet active in these markets, the window to establish a track record is open but narrowing.

On the contract side, fixed-price contracts remain dominant at 57% of revenue, and the overall mix held remarkably stable. The Study flags an important nuance here: contract type is often driven by client preference, especially in public-sector work. But as cost pressures build, firms may want to evaluate whether their current contract mix adequately protects against the margin risks the data is surfacing. If fixed-price contracts are where the volume is, pricing discipline, resource planning and scope management become even more critical.
AI is reshaping the financial initiatives list — and that's a story worth telling.

The financial initiatives data includes something new this year: AI and technology adoption debuted as a response option and immediately tied for third, with 34% of firms naming it as a key financial initiative. That's a strong first-year showing, and it reflects the broader theme running through every section of this study — firms are increasingly treating technology as a direct lever for financial performance.
Here's what makes this interesting: several other initiatives declined in the same period. Streamlining billing processes dropped five percentage points. New financial system implementation also fell five points. These aren't coincidences.

When firms invest in AI and technology adoption as a financial initiative, they're often addressing the same underlying problems that "streamline billing processes" and "new financial system implementation" were trying to solve — just more comprehensively. Technology handles the heavy lifting; the initiative becomes less about the tool and more about the outcome.

For firms still running manual or semi-manual billing workflows, or managing financial data across disconnected systems, this is the moment to ask: are you building the foundation that lets technology deliver on its promise? Because the firms seeing real financial returns from technology investment are the ones who did the infrastructure work first — clean data, integrated systems, clearly defined workflows.
This is exactly where Full Sail Partners can help. Our custom development work addresses the gaps that off-the-shelf tools don't cover — the stored procedures, custom reports, and system-specific automations that make Deltek Vantagepoint work the way your firm actually works. If your billing process still requires manual intervention at key steps, or your financial reporting requires someone to manually pull and reconcile data, that's a solvable problem. We've helped dozens of A/E/C firms close those gaps.

We've also been building out educational resources specifically around accounting and financial operations in Vantagepoint. Our recent accounting webinars have covered topics like billing workflow optimization, invoice configuration, and month-end close — practical, scenario-based content designed for the people who actually run these processes. If you haven't attended one yet, keep an eye on our upcoming events.

What to do with all of this

The financial picture in this year's Clarity Study isn't a crisis — but it's a clear turning point. Firms that thrived in the growth environment of the past few years will need to operate differently to sustain performance in a more constrained one.

The most important thing is visibility. You can't protect margins you can't see, and you can't improve utilization you're not tracking in the right way. Firms that have real-time access to the metrics that matter — utilization by role, overhead trends, project profitability, billing velocity — are better positioned to respond early rather than react late.

The second is intentionality. This word comes up again and again in this year's data, and it's by design. Being selective about which projects to pursue. Pricing work that reflects your actual cost structure. Investing in PM capability as a financial discipline, not just a delivery one. Building processes that protect billable time rather than eroding it.

Full Sail Partners works with A/E/C firms at every stage — from Vantagepoint implementations to ongoing optimization to custom development that closes the gaps your ERP can't. If you want to talk through what the Clarity data means for your firm's financial strategy specifically, we'd love to have that conversation.

Catch up on the series so far: Technology Trends | Business Development

Next up: Project Management — we'll dig into how firms are managing delivery pressure, what the data says about accountability and performance, and where AI is starting to change how work gets done.

Every year, the Deltek Clarity A&E Industry Study gives architecture and engineering firms something concrete to work with: real data from real firms about what's working, what's stalling, and where the industry is heading. The 47th edition surveyed 896 firms of all sizes and types, and the throughline is clear. This isn't a market that rewards guessing or going through the motions. The firms pulling ahead are the ones making intentional, disciplined decisions at every level of the business.

Over the next few weeks, we're breaking down each section of the report. This week: Business Development.

More work, less reward

Here's the headline: firms submitted 32% more proposals in 2025 than they did the year before. That sounds like momentum. But the median capture rate fell 3.8 percentage points to 44.4% — the lowest it's been since 2019 and the sharpest single-year decline in the nine-year trend.

BD activity is rising, but converting pursuits to projects is becoming harder and more complex. The win rate data adds some nuance — the median slipped to 49% industrywide, but architecture firms were the outlier, actually gaining five points to 45%, likely reflecting tighter pursuit selection in a market where design-led work is more relationship-dependent. Almost nobody got easier wins this year.

Capture rate — the dollar value of proposals awarded relative to the dollar value submitted — makes the picture even clearer. Large firms dropped six points to 34%. Medium firms fell three points. The gap between the top quarter of firms (61.3%) and the bottom quarter (30.2%) is 31 percentage points — a spread that has less to do with market conditions and everything to do with how intentionally firms are choosing which work to chase.

High performers bucked the trend entirely, with their capture rate rising 10 percentage points to 59% while everyone else's fell. Same market, same headwinds, meaningfully better returns. The difference isn't luck or firm size or sector mix. It's the discipline to pursue less and win more.

Some of the decline reflects a market shift toward smaller-value projects — the total value of proposals submitted grew 12% while the number grew 32%, pointing to a lower average project value per pursuit. And a lot of it reflects what happens when more firms are chasing the same work in an increasingly crowded market.

The market itself is changing

It's not just that competition is stiffer — it's that the market opportunity itself is evolving.

Data centers debuted as a new category in this year's study and immediately claimed the top spot: 72% of firms expect to grow their position in that sector over the next 18 months. Energy and power held at 57%. These are sectors that barely registered a few years ago and are now driving significant optimism. Meanwhile, transportation dropped nine percentage points and hospitality continues its post-pandemic retreat. The firms best positioned for this environment aren't waiting for their traditional sectors to rebound — they're building credibility in new ones, which takes time, intentional relationship-building, and a clear-eyed view of where the firm can actually win.

Economic uncertainty compounds all of this. It debuted in this year's survey as a new BD challenge and immediately ranked as the top first-choice concern at 19%. The response isn't to slow down — it's to build a deeper pipeline and invest in positioning now rather than reacting when conditions shift.

Go/no-go decisions have never mattered more

Eighty percent of firms say they use a go/no-go process — but how they use it is shifting. Use for strategic opportunities only grew two percentage points to 32%, and use for all opportunities edged up to 38%. Among firms not yet using the process, 49% are now considering adoption, up from 29% the prior year. That's a meaningful signal.

A well-executed go/no-go process isn't a gate to slow things down. It's a filter that protects the firm's most valuable resource: pursuit capacity. As Daphne Bryant of ACEC put it in the report, it does more than filter opportunities — it aligns the firm's resources, expertise, and relationships with the pursuits that are truly winnable and worth winning.

The key word is data. Go/no-go decisions need to be driven by data-based questions — probability of winning, existing relationships, delivery capacity, fit for the work — not instinct or individual preferences. That's where a well-configured Deltek Vantagepoint environment earns its keep: relationship history, prior win/loss patterns, pipeline load, and delivery capacity all in one place. If your team is still making these decisions off a spreadsheet or a whiteboard, we should talk.

Pre-pursuit intelligence is a competitive edge — and AI is changing how firms build it

One of the most interesting data points in this section: lack of intel to position for a win dropped 15 percentage points — the steepest decline on the entire chart. Firms are getting smarter about the information available to them before they pursue, and AI-assisted tools are a big part of why — BD teams and principals are using them to surface opportunities earlier, qualify pursuits faster, find strategic partners and gather more context before committing resources.

But pre-positioning only works if the administrative burden is low enough to make room for it. That's where tools like Informer and Power BI, connected to Deltek Vantagepoint, pay off — surfacing win rates by sector, capture rate trends, and pursuit stage velocity in dashboards BD leaders can actually use day to day. We helped RTM Engineering Consultants build exactly this kind of visibility into their Vantagepoint environment — read how they did it. When your data is connected, your team spends less time hunting for answers and more time acting on them.

Formalizing the process (without making it rigid)

The share of firms with a formal BD process dipped three percentage points to 46% — worth examining but but not panicking over. As the seller/doer model expands and project managers take on more BD responsibility, a rigid step-by-step process often doesn't fit how the work gets done. The goal is practical frameworks — flexible enough to work across different markets and client types, consistent enough to create real pipeline visibility.

Vantagepoint has the infrastructure to support all of this — opportunity stages, pipeline reporting, relationship tracking, proposal history — but most firms are only using a fraction of it because the system wasn't configured with their specific workflow in mind. Full Sail Partners consultants work through exactly this with firms. Check out this demonstration on CRM in Vantagepoint to get the ideas flowing, then let's talk about building it around how your firm actually works.

The seller/doer model is thriving — and putting real pressure on project managers

The blended seller/doer model leads at 48%, and the seller/doer-only model holds second at 40%. Among high performers, seller/doer adoption rose nine percentage points to 55% — the clearest signal that top-performing firms are integrating BD responsibility into technical roles rather than siloing it. The reason is straightforward: clients want to talk to the people who will actually do the work.

But the model comes with real tension. Project managers edged down five percentage points to 14% "almost always responsible" for BD — a pullback that likely reflects what the industry already knows: the demands on PMs are often unrealistic. Cross-training for BD ranked third among top initiatives at 36%, up four points — a positive investment, but training alone doesn't solve a capacity problem.

The firms getting this right build structured time for BD into the PM role. And they invest in reducing friction in the tools. Project managers who can log a contact, update an opportunity stage, or check pipeline status inside the same system where they manage projects are far more likely to actually do it. If your PMs find BD tasks burdensome, that's often a workflow problem more than a motivation one. Our team can help.

The bottom line

The 2026 Clarity data on Business Development tells a consistent story: the environment rewards discipline, not volume. What separates high performers is a sharper, more intentional approach — to which pursuits they chase, how they position for them, and how they deploy the people responsible for bringing work in.

But discipline doesn't come from willpower alone. It comes from having the right data in front of the right people at the right time. That's what a well-configured Deltek Vantagepoint environment delivers — not just a system of record, but a foundation for smarter decisions across the entire BD lifecycle.

Full Sail Partners works with A/E/C firms at every stage — from first-time Vantagepoint implementations to established practices looking to get more out of a system they've had for years. We've seen the full picture, and we know where the gaps tend to show up. If you're ready to make your data work harder for your BD team, let's talk.

Next up in the series: Project Management. We'll dig into how firms are managing delivery pressure, what the data says about the most challenging phases of the project lifecycle, and where technology is creating the biggest opportunities.

Every year, Deltek's Clarity A&E Industry Study gives us something rare: a clear, data-driven look at how architecture and engineering firms are actually running their businesses — what's working, what's not, and where the industry is headed. The 47th Annual Clarity Study surveyed 896 firms of all sizes and types across North America. And this year, one theme runs through every section of the report: intentionality.

Firms aren't just spending — they're choosing. They're not just adopting — they're evaluating. The industry is moving away from reactive decision-making and toward strategic allocation. Quality over quantity. Fit over FOMO. That shift shows up clearly in the Technology Trends section, which is where we're starting this blog series.

The Problem with Shiny

Before we get into the data, here's the reality check that frames everything else.

When firms were asked to identify their top technology challenges over the next three years, three rose to the top:

• Prioritizing applicable technology trends (61% of firms)
• Lack of time to invest in learning (51%, up from 43%)
• Cost of technology (48%)

Read those together and a clear picture emerges: it's not that firms don't want to engage with new technology. It's that the landscape has gotten so crowded — and so loud — that figuring out what actually fits your firm has become its own full-time job. And nobody has time for that full-time job, because everyone is too busy doing their actual full-time jobs.

Think about where we are with AI right now. Every tool is positioned as the solution to every problem. Every vendor is promising transformation. It's the same conversation we had when social media exploded — do we need to be on TikTok? Some firms jumped in anyway. Others asked, "what problem does this solve for us?" and moved on. The firms asking that second question are the ones getting real value from their technology investments today.

That's the discipline the 2026 Clarity Study is pointing to. There's no room to chase something that clearly isn't a fit. The cost — in time, budget, and organizational focus — is too high.

Intention Is the Strategy

The data backs this up directly. 67% of firms say creating a strategic plan for implementing technology is their top initiative. Not adopting more tools. Not keeping up with trends. Planning. That's a meaningful signal about where A&E firms are in their technology maturity.

And it makes sense, because every level of a firm is touched by technology rollouts — from principals making the investment decision to project managers using new platforms to admin staff handling training. Day-to-day responsibilities crowd out the time needed to learn something new, which is why that "lack of time to invest in learning" challenge jumped eight percentage points in a single year. The firms that carve out dedicated learning time tied to specific tools and business objectives are the ones converting adoption into results.

Why Digital Maturity Matters

One concept weaves through the entire Technology Trends section and connects every data point: digital maturity. It's not just a buzzword. It's the measure of how well a firm's business strategy and IT management actually work together — and it's the thing that determines whether AI adoption pays off.

Currently, 33% of firms classify themselves as mature or advanced — nearly double the share from four years ago. The largest group (42%) sits in the "applied" stage, where business and IT goals are aligned but digital initiatives haven't yet reached their full potential. That's actually a strong place to be: you have the alignment. The work is using it to drive measurable business impact.

The urgency is real. 42% of firms believe they risk losing market share without meaningful digital progress within the next two years — up nine percentage points year over year. That number rises every year because the firms that do build their digital foundation keep pulling further ahead.

AI in Practice

It's impossible to talk about technology in A&E right now without talking about AI. Usage jumped from 53% to 70% in a single year — that's a 17-percentage-point climb. Generative AI use climbed to 78%, with growth across every use case.

But here's the more interesting story: where firms are applying AI is shifting.

The leading use of AI is now business process automation — 34% of firms, up 10 percentage points from last year. Think autonomous, task-oriented applications. The second leading use is providing insight into operational performance at 28% (up 17 percentage points). Firms are moving past the novelty of generative AI and into applications that directly affect how the business runs. For those of us who work closely with Deltek tools, this aligns with what we're seeing in practice — the firms getting the most out of platforms like Deltek Vantagepoint are the ones using integrated data to drive decisions, not just generate content.

The report makes an important point about AI benefits: the ones lower on the list require firms to more fully embrace the AI capabilities already available to them across project and financial systems. And sitting beneath all of it is a prerequisite that can't be skipped — clean data and integrated systems. AI is only as good as the data it runs on. Firms that have invested in data hygiene and system integration are seeing real returns. Firms that haven't are still chasing them.

What's Driving the Field

When it comes to technology specifically tied to project delivery, Building Information Modeling (BIM) remains the clear leader. 45% of respondents say BIM is very important to their firm's project delivery — up slightly from 43% last year. That's not going anywhere anytime soon. BIM is embedded in core workflows; it's not a trend anymore, it's infrastructure.

What's moving is everything around it. Sustainability (23%) and data analytics (20%) both dipped year over year — not because they became less relevant, but because AI is gaining ground. AI agents and AI-based automation nearly doubled in perceived importance, from 6% to 11% of firms rating it very important. When combined "very" and "somewhat" important ratings are included, that share jumped 12 percentage points to 48%.

Also worth noting: computer vision made its debut in this year's survey. Computer vision is AI that can interpret and analyze visual information — photos, video, scans — the way a human eye would, but faster and at scale. In A&E, that looks like automatically extracting specs from drawings and RFP documents, detecting safety hazards from drone footage on job sites, or comparing as-built conditions against design drawings to flag clashes before they become field problems. It premiered at 10% — a number worth watching.

It's Not If — It's When

We won't spend much space here, but this number is worth sitting with: only 3% of firms reported no attempted cyber attacks over the past three years.

Cybersecurity isn't a line item to revisit during budget season. It's a baseline operational requirement — and it's directly connected to the same digital foundation that makes everything else in this section work. If your AI adoption strategy doesn't include a cybersecurity layer, it's not a complete strategy.

Still Stuck on Manual?

Here's a truth that doesn't get enough attention: 80% of firms still report complete to moderate reliance on manual processes in administrative and management functions. In accounting and finance specifically, that number is 75%.

The report puts it plainly: reducing manual data entry is not simply an efficiency initiative. It's one of the most concrete steps a firm can take toward digital maturity.

Those manual processes aren't just slow — they're blocking progress. Clean, connected data is the foundation of every AI benefit we talked about above. Firms addressing manual processes now aren't just solving a near-term operational problem. They're laying the groundwork for meaningful AI returns down the road.

Cloud Is No Longer Optional

We'll close with the data point that, in our view, deserves the most attention — especially for firms still running on-premise systems.

The 2026 Clarity Study makes this clear: cloud infrastructure has moved from competitive differentiator to baseline requirement. Here's what the numbers look like:

• More than half of firms (58%) now report that at least 60% of their infrastructure leverages cloud or SaaS — up from 52% last year
• 42% of firms report that 80% or more of their systems are cloud-based — up from 37% last year
• Only 14% of firms remain in the earliest stages of cloud adoption (fewer than 20% of systems in the cloud), down from 20% last year

That last number is the telling one. Even the most cautious firms are making the move. And why? Because the cloud isn't just about where your data lives. It's about what becomes possible when your systems are connected, scalable, and AI-ready. The integration, security, and scalability that modern tools depend on are built into cloud infrastructure. If you don't have that foundation, you're working twice as hard to get half the results.

At Full Sail Partners, we've been having this conversation with our on-premise clients proactively. The data from this report reinforces what we've been seeing firsthand: the transition is coming for every firm. The question isn't whether to move — it's whether you get ahead of it strategically or wait until you're forced to scramble.

If your firm is ready to begin — or reengage in — the cloud conversion conversation, our team is here to help. Whether you're simply exploring timelines and considerations or actively planning your move, we can help you evaluate the right path forward. Reach out directly to your account manager or complete our contact form to start the conversation

The Bottom Line

The 2026 Deltek Clarity A&E Technology Trends section isn't telling firms to slow down on technology. It's telling them to aim better. The firms pulling ahead aren't adopting the most tools — they're using the right ones, built on a strong digital foundation, with a plan behind every decision.

Intentionality isn't a soft concept. It's a competitive advantage.

We'll be covering each section of the Clarity Study in this blog series — stay tuned as we dig into Business Development, Project Management, Human Capital Management, and Financial Management in the weeks ahead.

Want to talk through what the Clarity data means for your firm specifically? Contact us — we'd love to dig into it with you.

Reconciling credit card activity can eat up a lot of accounting time — especially when receipts are missing, transactions are delayed, or charges need to be split across multiple projects.

In the latest installment of our Powering Project Success with Deltek Vantagepoint series, our consultant Theresa Bowe walked through credit card reconciliation tips and tricks in Vantagepoint — from initial setup through statement close — and consultant Cindy Cates answered questions from attendees at the end.

Want the highlights? Here’s an overview of everything we covered.

Setting up credit cards in Vantagepoint

Everything starts in Settings > Cash Management > Credit Cards. Corporate cards link to a master account — such as American Express or a specific bank — and there's no limit to how many credit card programs your firm can configure. Individual cards go in as secondary credit cards, each linked directly to the expense user assigned to that card. One employee can carry more than one card, too — they'll see a dropdown in the credit card pane to choose which card's charges to pull from.

Importing transactions

The Import tab is where the time savings really start. It tells Vantagepoint how to read the transaction file from your bank — so when charges come in, most of the information is already populated. Less manual entry, fewer errors, cleaner data. Each card company formats its download file differently, so compare what's available from your bank when you set this up.

Ready to reconcile? Go to Cash Management > Credit Card Reconciliation and bring in charges — weekly or monthly, whichever fits your workflow. One statement period can hold multiple imports; just make sure all charges are in before you close it out. Every transaction in the import file also carries a unique identifier, so Vantagepoint recognizes charges it's already seen — duplicates don't import.

Under Settings > Expenses, you can also turn on reminders that alert employees when charges are ready to be added to a report. No more chasing people down at close.

Expense reports: web and mobile

Once charges are imported, employees can start building their expense reports right away — and this is where the workflow really comes together.

In the web interface, employees assigned to a credit card see a credit card charges pane directly on their expense report. It shows exactly how many transactions are waiting. They open the pane, select their charges, add them to the report, then fill in category, project, phase, task, and attach receipts — either from a network drive or by dragging and dropping.

Need to split a charge across two projects? After adding it to the report, an employee edits the dollar amount on that line. The remainder goes back to the credit card pane as a separate available charge — ready to be added as a second row on a different project. Clean split, no workarounds. It's also worth noting that imported charges can't be deleted from the system — an employee can remove a charge from their report, but it returns to the credit card pane. That keeps your reconciliation intact.

The mobile app handles the same workflow on the go. After logging in, employees see an alert for pending charges. They can start a new report or add to one already in progress, and the report syncs seamlessly between web and mobile. For firms with staff in the field, this is a meaningful difference at month-end.

Reconciling at month-end

When expense reports are posted, the reconciliation steps are straightforward. Under Cash Management > Credit Card Reconciliation:

• Enter the statement ending balance on the Summary tab
• Review total imported charges, what has cleared, and what remains uncleared
• On the Charges tab, click Clear All to mark all posted charges
• Return to the Summary tab — confirm the difference is zero
• Close the statement under Other Actions > Close Statement

Zero difference, closed statement. Clean, controlled, and fully documented.

The bottom line

Credit card reconciliation doesn't have to be a painful part of month-end close. Vantagepoint's built-in tools — import automation, the expense report integration, mobile access, and a straightforward reconciliation workflow — give your firm real control over company card activity without the manual effort. If you want to hear this process with more detail, check out the mini-demo recording.

We've helped firms of all sizes get more out of Vantagepoint's accounting features. If you want to dig into how this could work for your firm, reach out. 

Contact us at info@fullsailpartners.com — or follow Full Sail Partnerson LinkedIn to catch upcoming mini demos and events.

Over the past several months, our content themes have focused on something many firms don’t always make time for: stepping back.

We’ve talked about improving efficiency, sharpening focus, leveraging existing resources and data, and refining the systems and processes that support your business. Each of those conversations centered around understanding where your firm is today — what’s working, what’s underutilized, and where opportunities for improvement exist.

Breaking down each of the month’s themes, efficiency challenged firms to look at where time, energy, and effort were being lost in everyday operations. Focus encouraged teams to identify what truly deserved their attention instead of trying to improve everything at once. Leverage explored how firms could better use the systems, data, and expertise they already had in place or could bring in. Refine emphasized improving the quality of processes, reporting, and operational structure so systems could deliver clearer, more reliable results.

Taken together, those themes all share a common thread: awareness.

They encourage firms to pause long enough to understand where they are, where friction exists, and where opportunities for growth may already be sitting right in front of them.

But eventually, every organization reaches the same crossroads.

You can only evaluate and plan for so long before it’s time to actually begin.

That’s where this month’s theme, Adopt, comes in.

Adoption is where strategy turns into action. It’s the point where ideas stop living in planning documents, meeting notes, or “future initiative” conversations and start becoming part of daily operations. It’s the moment where firms begin testing new processes, using underutilized tools, modernizing workflows, and giving employees the support they need to move forward with confidence.

And while adoption often sounds exciting in theory, in reality, it can feel uncomfortable at first.

Because change — even good change — introduces uncertainty.

Why Adoption Is Often the Hardest Part

Most firms already know where some of their biggest operational challenges exist.

They know which reports require hours of manual cleanup every month. They know which workflows rely too heavily on spreadsheets, email chains, or institutional knowledge. They know where data inconsistencies create frustration or where processes have slowly become more complicated over time.

Teams typically don’t have a lack of awareness. They need the push to decide to move from “we should probably improve this someday” to “let’s start now.”

That transition can feel surprisingly difficult, especially because adoption affects people just as much as systems.

Some employees immediately embrace change. They enjoy learning new tools, experimenting with technology, and finding faster ways to work. Others prefer predictability and consistency. They may worry about making mistakes, slowing down productivity, or losing familiarity with processes they’ve relied on for years. Most teams include a mix of both perspectives.

And honestly, that’s normal.

Successful adoption is rarely about forcing people to instantly change the way they work. Instead, it’s about helping people understand why the change matters, how it benefits them, and what support exists to help them succeed along the way.

That’s one of the biggest misconceptions around implementation and operational improvement: technology alone does not create transformation.

People do.

A new system, dashboard, workflow, or automation only creates value if teams actually use it consistently and confidently. Without adoption, even the best technology investments can end up underutilized.

That’s why change management matters so much — especially in project-based firms where teams are already balancing deadlines, budgets, staffing pressures, and client expectations.

The goal is not to create disruption for the sake of disruption.

The goal is to remove friction, improve visibility, and make everyday work more manageable over time.

Adoption Rarely Happens All at Once

One of the reasons firms sometimes hesitate to move forward with change is because they assume adoption has to happen in one massive leap.

A complete overhaul.
A fully redesigned process.
An immediate shift in how everyone works.

But in reality, meaningful adoption is usually much smaller and more gradual than that.

It often begins with small, visible wins:

• One team testing a new workflow
• One department improving reporting visibility
• One repetitive task becoming automated
• One employee finding a faster way to work

Those moments matter because people tend to trust real experiences more than promises. Seeing a coworker successfully use a new process or tool often builds confidence faster than any rollout presentation ever could.

That’s why internal advocates are so important during adoption. When employees at different levels of the organization begin using new systems successfully — and sharing those successes with others — change starts feeling less intimidating and more achievable. Over time, what once felt unfamiliar simply becomes part of how the organization operates.

That’s something we discussed during our recent LinkedIn Live conversation with RTM Engineering Consultants, where we explored how their organization approached business intelligence and reporting using Power BI alongside Deltek Vantagepoint.

What stood out during the conversation wasn’t just the technology itself — it was how adoption evolved throughout the organization over time.

Some users immediately embraced the ability to access and visualize data differently. Others needed more context and exposure before they felt comfortable changing the way they interacted with reporting. But as teams became more familiar with the tools and began seeing the practical benefits firsthand, momentum started building naturally.

That progression is important because it reflects the reality of adoption inside most firms.

Very few organizations experience instant company-wide transformation overnight. More often, successful adoption happens through gradual trust-building, practical use cases, and visible wins that encourage additional engagement across teams.

Our recap blog, Turning Vantagepoint Data into Real Insight: What We Learned from RTM’s Power BI Journey, explores this process in more detail and highlights how thoughtful implementation and user adoption can completely change the way firms interact with their data.

Starting Small Is Still Progress

The same principle applies to one of the biggest conversations happening across nearly every industry right now: artificial intelligence.

For many firms, AI feels exciting and intimidating at the same time. Teams see the potential benefits, but they also worry about complexity, accuracy, learning curves, or simply not knowing where to begin.

But adoption doesn’t have to start with building custom AI tools or completely reinventing your business processes overnight.

In many cases, the easiest place to begin is with the AI functionality already being introduced into the systems your teams use every day. Tools like Dela within Deltek Vantagepoint are designed to help firms work more efficiently by surfacing insights, simplifying tasks, and making information easier to access within an existing workflow.

That’s part of what makes AI adoption feel more approachable for many organizations — it can start with small, practical improvements inside familiar systems rather than massive operational change.

Our recent LinkedIn Live, Adopting AI in Your Life and Business, explored this idea in more detail and emphasized an important takeaway: you do not need to become an expert overnight to begin benefiting from new technology.

Whether it’s experimenting with AI-assisted reporting, summarizing meeting notes, organizing action items, or simply becoming more comfortable interacting with new tools, adoption often starts with curiosity and small-scale experimentation.

For firms looking to better understand Dela and how AI capabilities are evolving within Deltek Vantagepoint, Deltek’s Dela Learning Hub is a great place to start exploring available resources and use cases.

Maybe AI helps summarize meeting notes after a long project discussion.
Maybe it assists with organizing action items.
Maybe it helps brainstorm ideas, improve communication, or simplify repetitive administrative tasks.

Those smaller use cases create familiarity and confidence without overwhelming employees with unrealistic expectations.

The same mindset applies across operational improvements in general.

Adoption does not require a dramatic overnight transformation. More often, it looks like incremental improvements that steadily reduce friction and help teams work more effectively over time.

That philosophy is also part of the thinking behind our Powering Project Success with Deltek Vantagepoint mini-demo series.

These short demonstrations are intentionally designed to help firms explore practical improvements in manageable ways. Instead of overwhelming teams with massive process overhauls, the mini-demos focus on specific workflows, tools, and real-world use cases firms can begin applying immediately.

Whether the topic involves:

• billing workflows
• CRM strategy
• reporting visibility
• project management tools
• financial processes
• contact segmentation
• dashboard improvements

…the goal is the same: make adoption feel approachable.

Sometimes all people need is a starting point.

The “Perfect Time” Usually Never Comes

One of the biggest barriers to adoption is the belief that firms need to have everything fully prepared before they begin making changes. And while preparation absolutely matters, waiting for perfect conditions often creates its own form of stagnation.

Because the truth is, many improvements become clearer only after implementation begins.

Teams learn through interaction.
Processes improve through repetition.
Confidence develops through experience.

In many ways, adoption is iterative.

You start with what you know.
You identify what works.
You adjust where needed.
You continue improving over time.

That process is often far more effective than endlessly planning for a “future version” of the organization that somehow has unlimited time, flawless data, and zero operational constraints.

The firms making the biggest strides today are not necessarily the firms with the largest budgets or the most aggressive technology strategies.

Often, they are simply the firms willing to take the first step.

They are willing to pilot a new process.
Experiment with a new reporting method.
Test a workflow improvement.
Give employees space to learn and adapt.

Most importantly, they understand that progress and perfection are not the same thing.

Adoption Is Ultimately About People

At its core, adoption is not really a technology conversation.

It’s a people conversation.

Successful adoption happens when employees feel supported instead of overwhelmed. It happens when leadership communicates clearly about why change matters and what success actually looks like. It happens when firms create environments where people feel comfortable asking questions, learning gradually, and improving over time.

That human side of implementation is easy to overlook, but it often determines whether a new process becomes fully integrated or quietly abandoned a few months later.

At Full Sail Partners, that’s a major part of how we approach consulting, implementation, and process improvement work. As your advisors, our passion is to help firms create sustainable operational improvements that people will actually use long after implementation is complete.

That means understanding how teams work, identifying where friction exists, and helping organizations introduce change in ways that feel practical and manageable instead of disruptive. Adoption is not about chasing every new trend or reacting to the loudest idea in the room. It’s about thoughtfully applying the insights, tools, and improvements that genuinely support your firm’s long-term goals.

You do not need every answer before you begin.
You do not need a perfect roadmap before taking the first step.
And you certainly do not need to change everything overnight.

You just have to be willing to start.

Between quarterly updates, opt-in features, and a steady stream of enhancements across finance, project management, and AI… it’s a lot. And most teams don’t have time to sift through every release note to figure out what actually matters.

That’s exactly why we recently hosted a webinar with Principal Consultant Terri Agnew—to distill the most impactful updates from versions 2025.4, 2026.1, and 2026.2 into something practical and usable. 

Here’s what stood out—and what’s actually worth your attention.

First, a Quick Reality Check: Not Everything Is “On” Yet

Before we get into features, one important reminder: Many of the newest capabilities in Vantagepoint are opt-in—which means if you’re not seeing them, they may not be enabled in your system yet. 

Some of those features also have timelines, where they’ll eventually be turned on automatically.
So if something here sounds useful and you’re not seeing it… there’s a good chance it’s just waiting to be enabled.

2025.4: Planning, Dashboards, and Everyday Usability

The 2025.4 release focuses on strengthening the foundation—how teams plan, how they see data, and how easily they can work inside the system day to day.

Scenario Planning Gets an Upgrade

One of the biggest additions is scenario planning, which allows teams to create and compare “what-if” versions of project plans. Instead of working off a single static plan, you can:

•    Test different staffing or timeline scenarios
•    Model potential change orders
•    Compare multiple versions side-by-side
•    Promote a scenario to your live plan when it’s approved

It’s a more flexible, realistic way to plan—especially when projects don’t follow a straight line.

Dashboards That Actually Do More

This release also brought a meaningful set of dashboard & dashpart enhancements—less flashy than planning, but incredibly impactful in day-to-day use. Teams can now:

•    Add averages and targets directly into project, employee, and account dashboards
•    View multiple entities side-by-side in a single dashpart
•    Pull in grid-based data (like firm or employee details) without leaving the dashboard 

And then there are the quieter improvements that add up quickly:

•    Expanded Floor Check visibility, including regular and overtime hours
•    More flexibility with **user-defined fields in transaction types
•    Better access to the data teams actually need, without jumping between screens

Individually, these updates are small. Together, they make dashboards feel a lot more like a working tool—and a lot less like a static report.

More Functionality Moving to the Browser

Deltek also continues its steady move toward a browser-first experience, with more features now available outside of desktop tools. It’s not a dramatic shift overnight—but it’s clearly the direction things are heading.

2026.1: From Data to Insight (and a Little Help Along the Way)

If 2025.4 was about usability, 2026.1 starts to push into something bigger—helping teams actually interpret and act on their data.

Expanded Dela Capabilities

AI in Vantagepoint—through Dela—becomes much more tangible in this release.
One of the most practical use cases is the availability to upload a contract and ask Dela to summarize it or pull key details. Instead of digging through pages of content, you can ask direct questions and get focused answers. It’s simple—but it saves time in places that used to take a lot of it.

Insights That Surface Issues Earlier

Dela also introduces insights that flag potential issues before they turn into bigger problems. For example:

•    Timesheet anomalies based on historical patterns
•    Project financial signals, like revenue and spend being out of sync 

It’s not replacing review processes—but it’s giving teams a smarter starting point.

Dashboards Keep Getting Stronger

The dashboard story continues here, too—with enhancements that make them more usable in real workflows:

•    A new Project Schedules dashpart that visualizes timelines and dependencies
•    The ability to open records in a new tab, so you don’t lose your place
•    Improved navigation between dashboards and project data

These are the kinds of updates that don’t make headlines—but absolutely improve how people work every day.

Small Changes That Remove Friction

There are also a handful of operational improvements that quietly make things easier:

•    Preference management for setting up new users
•    More flexible absence tracking tied to time categories
•    Better email security controls around sender addresses 

Nothing flashy—but a lot less friction.

2026.2: Refinement, Automation, and a More Modern Experience

The 2026.2 release builds on everything before it—refining the experience, expanding automation, and continuing to evolve how teams interact with the system.

A New User Experience (Harmony UI)

The updated interface—called Harmony—introduces a cleaner, more modern look and feel. That includes:

•    Streamlined navigation and updated icons
•    A more flexible, fly-out style menu
•    A refreshed visual experience across the system 

It’s optional for now, but it’s clearly where things are heading.

AI That Moves Beyond Insight

Dela continues to evolve—not just analyzing data, but starting to take action. New capabilities include:

•    Updating contract amounts based on uploaded documents
•    Reviewing expense reports against company policy
•    Alerting admins when license limits are approaching 

It’s a shift from “helpful assistant” to something a bit more proactive.

Better Context in Dashboards

Dashboards also get another round of improvements—this time focused on context. You can now:

•    See who made a comment and when, directly in dashboards
•    Add and update comments without leaving the view
•    Pull in additional data points that make dashboards more actionable 

It’s all about reducing clicks—and increasing clarity.

The Bigger Picture: Where Vantagepoint Is Headed

Looking across these releases, a few patterns start to emerge:

•    Systems are becoming more intelligent
•    Interfaces are becoming more intuitive
•    Data is becoming more accessible and actionable
•    And workflows are becoming more connected and flexible

These releases continuing to allow firms to use Vantagepoint for storing information to using it more holistically. And sometimes, that starts with simply understanding what’s new from Deltek—and what’s worth turning on.

If something here caught your attention—or you’re not sure what’s enabled in your system—we’re always happy to help.

We recently hosted a webinar on the future of business intelligence with three of our BI specialists—Jake Lucas, Jason Kelly, and Sparsha Muppidi.

These are the people who spend their days deep in Vantagepoint data—building reports, troubleshooting gaps, and helping firms get more out of what they already have.

This session wasn’t theoretical. It was a practical look at what’s changing, what’s working, and what firms should be thinking about as reporting needs continue to evolve.

If you missed it (or just want the highlights), here’s a quick breakdown of what matters most.

Business Intelligence: Why It Matters Now

Most firms already have reporting in place. Dashboards exist. Data flows. Reports get built.

But as firms grow and questions get more specific, those tools don’t always keep up.

That’s where business intelligence comes in.

Modern BI isn’t about replacing Vantagepoint—it’s about making your data more usable in the moments it actually matters. And from what we see, that usually comes down to a few key things.

First, your data needs to be up to date. Decisions are time-sensitive, and what was true last week isn’t always helpful today.

Second, it needs to be accessible to the people who are accountable for it. If project managers, finance teams, or leadership have to go through someone else to get answers, reporting slows everything down.

Third, your data has to be presented in a way that makes sense. Not just tables and exports, but visuals that clearly show what’s happening and where attention is needed.

And finally, teams need the ability to explore that data on their own—filtering, drilling down, and answering follow-up questions without starting over or submitting a request. There’s also a piece that often gets overlooked: security. Strong BI tools respect your org structure, so the right people see the right data automatically. That’s what makes it possible to share dashboards more broadly without creating risk.

The reasoning to look into and invest in BI isn’t about more reports, it’s about being able to answer questions and interpret data faster—and with more confidence.

Informer: Structured, Fast, and Built for Self-Service

Informer is built around a simple idea: define your data once, use it everywhere.

Everything starts with a dataset—cleaned, structured, and calculated in one place, then reused across dashboards, reports, and exports.

From there, users can drill from high-level dashboards down to transaction detail, filter and explore data without breaking anything, and build dashboards quickly using drag-and-drop or AI-assisted tools.

The biggest benefit is consistency.

No duplicate reports. No conflicting numbers. No wondering which version is right.

And because everything stays within a governed environment, you avoid the usual “export to Excel and lose control” cycle.

Power BI: Flexible, Visual, and Built to Scale

Power BI shines when you need to look beyond a single system.

It can pull data from Vantagepoint, CRM platforms, HR systems, and more—bringing everything into one place.

That makes it a strong option for firms looking at cross-functional reporting.

On the front end, it offers highly visual, presentation-ready dashboards, interactive filtering and drill-through, and the ability to embed reports directly inside Vantagepoint so your team can access insights without changing how they work.

One key takeaway from the session: most firms don’t struggle with building reports—they struggle with structuring the data behind them.

That’s why starting with a clean, consistent data model makes all the difference.

Data Sources: How Everything Connects

Before any dashboard exists, your BI tool needs a reliable way to access your data.

For Vantagepoint users, that typically comes down to two options.

ODBC is a direct connection to your database. It refreshes a few times per day, provides full access to all tables, and is the most common and cost-effective setup for most firms.

DaaS, or Data as a Service, uses a cloud-based Snowflake layer. It refreshes more frequently—about every 30 minutes—and provides a more structured dataset, but comes at a higher investment and is typically better suited for larger firms.

The important thing is that this decision isn’t tied to Informer or Power BI—it applies to both. It’s really about your firm’s size, your reporting needs, and how current your data needs to be.

Where do you start?

Everything we’ve covered in this article and in the webinar is a conversation we’ve had with a client or a prospective client. This is the kind of guidance our team is providing and work they’re doing with firms every day. This path does not have a set starting or ending point – and each firm and their goals are very different. You don’t have to start from scratch, you could just need another perspective on refining what’s already there. Our BI experts are consistently cleaning up data, structuring it in a way that makes sense, and building reporting tools that people can actually use without overthinking it.

Because most teams don’t need more dashboards. They need clearer data, better visibility, and systems that support how they actually work.

If you’re starting to feel friction in your reporting—or like your data should be more useful than it is, that’s exactly where our team comes in. If you want to talk through what that a BI solution could look like for your firm, we’d love to chat.

Watch the recording of the webinar to hear more of the specifics, or reach out to learn more about how Full Sail Partners can help you with your business intelligence goals.

The spray-and-pray era is officially over

There was a time when marketing could rely on volume.

Big lists. Broad messaging. Hope something sticks.

That approach doesn’t hold up anymore.

In 2026, relevance is what gets attention—and relevance starts with knowing exactly who you’re talking to.

This month’s theme is refinement. Not adding more tools or more data, but getting sharper with what’s already there. And for most firms, that starts inside the CRM.More contacts doesn’t mean better marketing. Most AEC firms already have a full database. Thousands of contacts. Years of history. Plenty of information. But when it’s time to actually use that data, things tend to break down:

• Lists get pulled manually
• Fields are inconsistent or incomplete
• Teams don’t fully trust what’s in the system

So people work around it.

They export data. Build one-off lists. Ask around internally.

At that point, the CRM isn’t driving strategy—it’s just holding information. As noted in the upcoming demo, when data isn’t structured in a way that’s easy to use, teams stop relying on it altogether.

What most firms are missing: a complete picture of their contacts

At its core, a CRM like Deltek Vantagepoint is designed to do more than store names and email addresses.

It’s meant to give your team a complete view of every relationship—from basic contact details to communication history to how that individual connects to your firm’s projects and pursuits.

When that information is all in one place, marketing and BD teams aren’t guessing anymore. They can see:

• Who a contact is
• What markets they’re tied to
• How your firm has interacted with them over time
• Where they fit into future opportunities

That level of visibility is what makes segmentation possible in the first place. ou’re not just filtering a list—you’re working from a system that actually understands your audience.

Refining your audience starts with refining your data

The shift happens when contact data is structured intentionally. When that’s in place, the CRM becomes something different:

• A way to quickly find the right people
• A way to segment by market, role, and location
• A way to build lists that are actually usable

Instead of pulling a massive list and hoping it works, teams can narrow in on the exact audience they’re trying to reach.

That’s where marketing starts to feel more targeted—and a lot more effective.

Segmentation isn’t just a tactic—it’s how campaigns get better

Segmentation tends to get treated like a feature.

In reality, it’s what makes campaigns work.

When contact data is clean and structured, teams can:

• Target specific industries or sectors
• Focus on decision-makers instead of generic contacts
• Build campaigns directly inside the CRM
• Connect those audiences to email platforms without extra steps

It removes a lot of the friction that slows teams down—and makes it easier to execute consistently.

Where inbound marketing fits in

Inbound marketing only works when the message actually feels relevant to the person receiving it.

That sounds obvious, but it’s where a lot of firms quietly miss the mark.

It’s easy to focus on creating more content—more insights, more thought leadership, more campaigns—and assume that’s the lever. But if that content is going to a broad, loosely defined audience, it starts to feel generic pretty quickly. When everything feels a little too general, people tune it out.

That’s usually not a content problem, but rather a targeting problem. Without clear segmentation, even strong content gets diluted. It reaches too many of the wrong people and not enough of the right ones. Over time, that’s when teams start questioning whether inbound is “working,” when really it was never set up to land the way it should.

When contact data is refined and structured, the dynamic changes. Messaging can be aligned to specific markets, roles, and audiences. Campaigns feel more intentional. And the content that teams are already creating starts to perform the way they expected it to in the first place.

That’s what makes inbound effective—not just visibility, but relevance that actually connects.

What this looks like in practice

In the upcoming mini demo, Wesley walks through how this works inside Deltek Vantagepoint.

The focus is practical:

• Structuring contact records so data stays clean
• Identifying which fields actually matter for segmentation
• Filtering contacts to build targeted lists
• Turning those lists into campaign audiences
• Connecting CRM data to email marketing tools

It’s not about adding complexity—it’s about making the system easier to use, so teams actually use it.

Final thought: refine first, then scale

There’s a natural instinct to try to improve marketing results by doing more.

More emails. More campaigns. More outreach.

But if the data behind those efforts isn’t in a good place, more activity doesn’t fix the problem—it just amplifies it.

That’s how teams end up working harder without seeing better results. Refinement can break that cycle.

When contact data is consistent, structured, and aligned with how the firm actually operates, everything downstream starts to click. Lists come together faster. Campaigns are more targeted. Messaging doesn’t feel like a guess. Instead of constantly rebuilding or questioning the data, teams can rely on it—and spend their time actually executing.

Because at a certain point, it’s not about doing more marketing.

It’s about doing it with enough precision that it finally works.

If your team is still working around your CRM instead of using it, our upcoming mini-demo will show a different way forward.

Register now to save your seat—and start getting more out of the data you already have.

Here’s the thing about finance in Vantagepoint:

When the basics are solid, everything works. When they’re not… everything feels harder than it should.

And most of the time, it’s not because teams are doing anything wrong. It’s because over time, processes evolve, workarounds get layered in, and the original foundation gets a little… fuzzy.

That’s exactly why we’ve spent the past few months revisiting the core financial workflows inside Deltek Vantagepoint—not from an advanced or technical lens, but from a practical one.

Because when you get the fundamentals right—project setup, time and expense, billing—everything downstream gets easier, clearer, and a whole lot more reliable.

It Starts with Structure: Projects, Contracts, and Budgets

One of the biggest drivers of financial clarity (or chaos) is how projects are set up from the beginning.

In this recent blog, we looked at how aligning project structures with contracts and budgets can directly impact billing accuracy and profitability.

Because here’s the reality—if your project setup isn’t right, everything downstream gets harder:

• Billing becomes more manual
• Revenue recognition gets murky
• Reporting loses credibility

And suddenly your finance team is spending more time fixing issues than analyzing performance.

The Day-to-Day: Time, Expense, and Transaction Entry

Once projects are in motion, the next challenge is execution.

This is where a lot of firms feel the friction—because these processes happen constantly.

Time entry. Expense tracking. Transaction posting.

Individually, they seem simple. Together, they either create a smooth flow… or a daily headache.

When these workflows are set up well inside Vantagepoint, they don’t just support accounting—they actively reduce rework and improve confidence in your data. Check out another recent post where we go over this.

The Features You’re Probably Not Using (But Should Be)

Then there’s the other side of the equation: functionality that’s already there… just underutilized. Jenny Labranche, one of our accounting gurus, shares some of those features in her blog.

This is where things get interesting, because many firms aren’t dealing with a lack of tools—they’re dealing with untapped potential.

Small adjustments—whether it’s automation, approvals, or billing workflows—can have a big impact on:

• Efficiency
• Accuracy
• Visibility

Sometimes refining your process isn’t about adding something new. It’s about finally using what you already have.

Billing Still Doing Too Much Heavy Lifting?

And of course… billing. Always billing. Take a look at this blog from last year where Cynthia Fuoco shared background on simplifying invoice processes.

Because billing is where everything converges:

Projects → Time → Expenses → Contracts → Client expectations

If any part of that chain is off, billing is usually where it shows up first.

So What Does “Good” Actually Look Like?

All of these topics point to the same bigger question:

What should finance actually look like inside a project-based ERP when it’s working well?

Not theoretically.

Not in pieces.

But as a connected, real-world workflow.

If you want to see what this actually looks like in practice, we’re walking through it live next week.

In our upcoming Finance Basics Showcase Demo, we’ll connect the dots across project setup, time and expense, billing, and reporting—so you can see how it all works together inside Deltek Vantagepoint.