Full Sail Partners Blog

According to PWC, “M&A activity accelerated sharply in the second quarter of 2015 with substantial increases relative to the prior quarter in both volume and value of transactions.” As consultants assisting firms with merging their databases, we have seen this up tick too and firms involved in mergers or acquisitions are finding great value out of Deltek Vision’s Multi-Company feature. Some firms don’t know that Multi-Company is included with their Vision Core Finance application. It just needs to be enabled and configured when your firm is ready to add another
company to your current Vision database. 

What is Multi-Company?

Vision Multi-Company allows a firm to manage multiple legal entities in a single Vision database.  There is no limit to the number of companies that can be maintained in Vision. Multi-Company streamlines the process of managing accounting functions between companies when resources are shared. Once Multi-Company is enabled, it is easy to switch between companies. Just like changing periods in Vision, a simple utility selection will move you between companies. 

Each company operates as a separate entity. Info Center records, such as clients and contacts, can be shared across the enterprise (the “enterprise” encompasses all companies managed in Vision). However, other Info Center records, such as employees, are company specific. Projects and phases can be owned by a single company or set up so that individual phases can be owned by different companies.  

Before Enabling Multi-Company

There are several factors to consider before enabling the Multi-Company feature.  One primary factor to consider is how your companies will interact with one another. When resources are shared, how will the company loaning their staff or paying expense on behalf of another company be compensated? This is done through intercompany billing. 

Definition: Intercompany billing is defined as, internal transactions between two associated companies who file a consolidated tax return or financial statement. 

There are several approaches to intercompany billing that should be a part of the planning discussion during the implementation process. These and other questions should be addressed during the planning process and will help you determine if Multi-Company is a good fit for your firm. 

Considerations When Setting Up a New Company in Deltek Vision

When acquiring a company to be added to your Vision database as a separate company, there are a number of enterprise-wide requirements to consider. For example, the fiscal calendar, work breakdown structure and organization structure must be the same across all companies, as well as, key formats such as project numbers, vendor numbers, employee numbers, etc. All of these items must be consistent across all companies.

After the initial planning meeting, if your firm determines that Multi-Company is not an option, you can always explore the alternative of using Organization reporting within Vision. Organization reporting gives you the ability to manage separate business units within a single company environment. The “maintain separate balance sheets” feature in Vision could also be used if needed, as well as, the labor cross charge feature to move revenue, labor and cost between organizations.

Final Thoughts

A well thought out, carefully planned implementation is essential to a successful Multi-Company implementation. Once the final implementation plan is in place, the creation of a test Multi-Company environment before the final configuration in your live Vision database will go a long way in preparing your finance staff and the rest of your employees for the new Multi-Company environment and all of the new features a Multi-Company database has to offer. For more information on Multi-Company check out this previous blog on how it works.