Full Sail Partners Blog (47)

Is your firm ready for the inevitable year-end process? Sure, year-end is always a stressful time. However, it doesn’t have to be overwhelming if you make a plan, document your actions and prepare Deltek Vision.

Setting-up for a Successful Year-End

Don’t be a headless chicken running around trying to get through the year-end process. Let’s review some considerations and tips to make your year-end close just a little easier.

Communication | Communicate with the rest of the firm that year-end is approaching and provide the important dates that they should be aware of, such as final timesheet due date, final expense report due date, etc.

Create a Calendar | Develop a calendar noting key items you need to complete before the year-end. Your calendar should contain all of your year-end deadlines, such as:

• Final AP check run
• Final timesheet due date
• Final bank reconciliation

Develop a Year-End Checklist | Given that year-end procedures change very little from year to year, you should create a checklist. In addition to your firm’s specific year-end tasks, you may want include these steps in your list:

• Review the unbilled detail report and make sure the allowance for doubtful accounts is current
• Reconcile all sub-ledgers to the general ledger
• Update accrued vacation
• Calculate depreciation
• Complete bank reconciliations
• Create a budget for the new fiscal year

Reconcile Monthly | Stay on top of your monthly reconciliations. Nothing adds to the stress of year-end more than having to perform several months of reconciliations that could be have been done monthly.

Recurring Transaction Files | If there are yearly JE’s or other transactions that you only post once a year, consider creating a recurring transaction file. Each year those files will already be in place so you don’t have to re-create them from year to year.

Order Year-end Forms Early | Why wait until the last minute to order your 1099 and W-2 forms? By ordering your forms in advance, you know they are on hand when you are ready to use them.

Prepare Deltek Vision for 2017

In Vision, opening the 1^st period of your fiscal year also opens the new fiscal year. If your security role permits, you can still process in the prior fiscal year if needed.

There are a number of Initialization Utilities that need to be performed in Vision. Take note that these utilities need to be completed once per fiscal year. Vision will generate a posting log for the initialization utilities, which are available in the Transaction Center under the Posting Review Report. If your Vision Database is set up with Multi-company functionality, the Initialization Utilities need to run in each company.

There are also tax forms that will need to be processed in Vision:

• W-2s if you use Vision Payroll
• 1099s for vendors that require a 1099 form

As part of the year-end process, a new benefit year will need to be opened to roll over any PTO or vacation time into the next year and to start accruals for the new benefit year.

In addition to the information above, you can view the 2016 Year-End Vision guide in the Deltek Customer Care Connect Portal here.

Take note that Vision Year-End updates in 2016 will be provided for versions 7.4, 7.5 and 7.6. If your firm is running Vision 7.3 or older, you must upgrade to a supported version to receive a 2016 year-end update. Please refer to the Support Assurance Product Lifecycle for maintenance phase descriptions.

Is Your Firm Prepared for 2017?

Following the suggestions above should make for an efficient completion of the tasks required for 2016 year-end. Don’t forget to make sure your firm is using the latest version of Deltek Vision - 7.6. If you need any assistance with completing your year-end or moving your firm to version 7.6, just let us know!

Full Sail Partners, a Deltek Premier Partner, is pleased to announce that Tim Burns has joined the firm as a SQL Developer. With the hire of Mr. Burns, Full Sail Partners continues to strengthen its development team enabling the firm to meet its clients’ growing needs. In this role, Tim will work closely with clients and key stakeholders to ensure they have proper insight into the data that affects their businesses.

Tim brings his extensive experience in SQL development and database management to his new position with Full Sail Partners. Additionally, Tim has in-depth knowledge of how Deltek Vision supports the unique challenges of the professional services industry.

“Deltek is an amazing tool with the standard features. However, Vision’s true power is in the wide-ranging customization it allows,” said Tim Burns. “I truly enjoy working with clients to identify their unique business requirements to make Vision work for them.”

With an enormous skill set including programming, reporting, product development and process automation, Tim will be able to provide valuable expertise to Deltek Vision users by assisting them with workflows, SQL stored procedures, and custom reports and invoices.

“Tim has extensive experience as a developer, and also a natural affinity for translating complex business requirements into streamlined and automated routines,” said Pete Nuffer, Full Sail Partners’ Director of Product Development. “With Tim on board, we will significantly extend our ability to provide our clients greater efficiency in their operations surrounding Deltek Vision and their broader technology ecosystems.”

For more information, please contact Full Sail Partners’ Marketing Communications Department. Interested in learning more about the Full Sail Partners' team? Check out our crew!

The Deltek Vision to Concur Connector allows both systems to work together seamlessly, automatically synchronizing finance data throughout the entire spending process, from pre-spend approval to reconciliation. Manage every expense and invoice transaction accurately and with ease, and get a complete view of your finances in one place. 

Gain Complete Visibility and Greater Control of Your Finances with the Deltek Vision to Concur Connector

The war for talent acquisition has experienced a major shift in recent years. Historically, the employer held all of the power and candidates vied for the opportunity to prove their worth to the employer. However, in recent years, this dynamic has changed. Human Resources leaders and executives around the globe are faced with both talent shortages and a lack of candidates who possess the required skills to fill critical roles. Whether we like it or not, we are now operating in a candidate-led hiring market.

In a world where demand exceeds supply, we must manage the war for talent. HR must learn how to fight and win this desirable talent through innovative strategies to attract, recruit and retain the skill sets that our businesses require. It’s time to refocus, to get creative and analytical, and to win this war.

Four Proven Strategies to Win the War for Talent

1. Build a Better Brand

Branding is typically thought of as a marketing function. However, what happens when companies apply the same branding principles to their recruiting tactics? It is simple, these companies effectively manage the market perception of what it is like to work for their organizations.

Successful firms stay aware of the perceived image that current and past employees have about their employment experience. Making sure the perceived image is on target involves evaluating specific details such as the company culture, employee benefits and work environment.

Building a strong and strategic employment brand will:

• Create a sense of excitement about working for your company
• Highlight the company mission and product/service offerings
• Provide clear and compelling reasons to work for your company
• Evoke feelings of attaining prestige and professional reward with your company

A strategic approach to employer branding requires a non-partisan examination of how your company attracts, engages and retains talent. It would be beneficial to undertake an employer brand audit. The results will hopefully inspire your leaders to invest time and effort into building a brand strategy to expand your talent recruitment pool.

Successful companies go above and beyond to create a great candidate experience during the talent acquisition process. Human Resources and Marketing can team up to create this great candidate experience by focusing on these tactics:

• Improve Your Application Process – When is the last time you reviewed your company’s application process? Most application forms are unnecessarily cumbersome and lead to a large portion of candidates not completing the process because of the time commitment involved. You can improve your candidate experience by keeping your application process to a minimum while meeting all of the firm’s essential requirements.
• Write More Compelling Job Advertisements – A marketing mindset can help improve one of the first touch points with a potential candidate, the job advertisement. When writing, focus on the job description and opportunity rather than stringing together a list of requirements and qualifications. The job description should be intriguing in order to elicit interest and make candidates want to take the next step in the recruitment process.

During the talent acquisition process, both Human Resources and Marketing should work together to emphasize the advantages of working for your company – the great company culture, the reasons your company is a great place to work and the benefits. Using these measures will ensure that those with the right cultural fit have a great candidate experience during recruitment.

3. Create a Culture of Developing Internal Talent

The offer of learning and development is vital for attracting new talent. So why don’t firms spend more time providing learning and development opportunities for their own internal talent? Current personnel can fill employment gaps fast if they are given the chance to pursue another direction in the firm. All internal staff should be given opportunities to learn new skills and develop alternate career paths within the firm. By providing development options to internal staff, the firm will have better longevity with its personnel and keep the skill sets internal.

4. Collect the Right Data to Support Talent Development

Relevant data is crucial to business leaders. Our financial metrics, KPIs and future growth reports are all dependent upon having access to quality data. Maintaining information on talent recruitment and retention are no different, and Human Resources Information Systems make this critical employee data much more accessible.

Just like the other areas of our businesses, we must first understand how to capture accurate information and then how to use this data within the context of our businesses. Before we concentrate on capturing this information, we must assess the accuracy of the data itself as well as find better ways of presenting the data.

Firms that remain competitive in the war for talent are able to contextually embed talent-related data within their business systems. For example, these firms are able to link their staff’s professional development and performance activities to project management and customer service goals and metrics. This data allows company leaders to see real results regarding talent development.

Learn More About the War for Talent

Want to learn more about staying competitive in the modern war for talent? Sign up for our upcoming webinar to learn how your firm can better attract and retain millennial talent for your professional services firm.

As the leaves change from a cool green to the burning hues of fall, you can almost hear the annual groan that emanates from marketing and business development departments everywhere as we ponder next year’s budgets. We’re feverishly cramming numbers into spreadsheets, struggling to get that final hit rate report from the ERP system, and perhaps even consulting with a local palm reader, all with the goal of accurately predicting the future - next year’s sales!

Review Your Professional Services Sales Vocabulary

Many of us in the professional services industry don’t approach our sales vocabulary as clearly as we should – or worse, it’s just that “s” word that nobody wants to talk about. Let’s quickly review some common numbers:

1. New Backlog. The rest of the world usually calls this number sales. It generally answers the question about the measured period, such as, how much NEW billable work did we book/contract/sell? You might sell the project one year, but could deliver it over several years.
2. Earned Revenue. This number values the work we actually did in the measured period, and is recognized as such, whether we billed for it or not. Learn more about earned value in this article.
3. Billings. This number is the total of all the invoices your firm sent in the measured period. Again, depending on how you count the beans, this number may or may not match Earned Revenue.

It’s imperative that that we clarify exactly which thing we’re budgeting. Most professional services firms have a theoretical limit to what they can deliver, based on staff size and utilization. But is there a limit to how much new work you can sell? Hmm.  

Mix Your Sales Sauce

Here’s the point – these numbers all work together, but marketing and business development departments are usually focused on “New Backlog” when discussing sales. So, where does New Backlog come from? It comes from the strategic combination of two variables: Stuff you sell and Clients. Your job is to figure out the best mix of these combos to achieve the firm’s overall growth plans. Easy right?

Let’s have a brief look at the different ways we can combine our New Backlog variables.

Combo 1 - Sell the same stuff to existing clients

Unless you offer bread, milk or toilet paper, this combo can only take you so far. If you sell a corporate headquarters design project to ACME, Inc., when will they buy the next one? Large retail rollout programs and compliance-required assessments/surveys/reviews are good exceptions to this challenge. Watch out for “better, faster, cheaper” competitors led by well-dressed daredevils focused on Combo 4.

Combo 2 - Sell the same stuff to new clients

We should always analyze how to position our core offerings to new clients – in new markets or new geographies. Most of us claim about 80% of our New Backlog is repeat work, so that means 20% has to come from this combo and Combo 4. Leverage your highly experienced professionals who like to build new relationships.

Combo 3 - Sell new stuff to existing clients

Maybe ACME, Inc. doesn’t need a corporate headquarters designed this year, but really needs help with a facilities management system. Here’s a little secret: Your existing clients trust you and would prefer to buy new stuff from you rather than from someone they don’t know. Build internal partnerships between your key relationship managers and the technical leader(s) of the new stuff. Watch out for experienced competitors focusing heavily on Combo 2.

Combo 4 - Sell new stuff to new clients

Break out the phone books and line up the cold calls! OK, that may be excessive, but this is definitely the final frontier in selling professional services. You’re convincing people who don’t know your firm to buy stuff for which you don’t have a track record. Totally possible, but not for the faint-hearted. This combo often requires strategic hires or acquisitions, which might be the only way to beat the competition in the other combos. You could get crazy and buy a new suit, but your competition in Combo 1 knows you’re coming.

Serving over Selling in Professional Services Industry

While we can’t completely avoid the annual budgeting process, we can look at it differently. You’re in the business of professionally serving others. Instead of simply looking for more projects, more offices, or more technical credentials, why not look for the best ways your firm can serve more people next year, and get paid for the value you created? Use the combinations above as a framework and correlate the targets for each to your firm’s overall strategic plan and annual business plan. Tada! Now you’ve got a growth target that everyone can embrace. Happy budgeting, and more importantly, happy serving!

For project-based firms, measuring current firm performance is the most significant indicator of future firm performance. Furthermore, by using trend data, firms can forecast cost and schedule variances in the early stage of a project. A preferred method by project managers to factor this trend data is the earned value management technique.     

Using Earned Value Management

Earned value management allows firms to evaluate cost and schedule variances in both dollars and percentages on projects. These factors are derived by considering planned value, actual cost and earned value over time.

A common way of looking at earned value is by using both the financial percent complete job to date (JTD) and the estimate too complete (ETC) by using the formula, JTD/(JTD + ETC) and the project managers reported physical percent complete. These two factors when equated provide a quick and easy comparison. For example, the financial percent complete on construction documents may be at 75% when the reported percent complete on construction documents is 50%. There are several possible explanations for these variances, such as:

• There were many revisions that were client driven and not in scope
• The complexity of the work was under estimated
• We have just been very inefficient

Keep in mind, there are a number of other scenarios that can also explain these factors as well.

Factoring Earned Value Management

Getting the information above is actually simple. It requires holding project managers to a high level of accountability. Project managers need to evaluate the amount of hours budgeted, hours burned (JTD), and the effort required to finish the scope of work (ETC).

As a result, this will produce the financial percent complete. Project managers then need to record where the project is from a physical percent complete, which should tie to progress on the project schedule.

Much like a crossover episode of two TV shows, this is where EVM crosses over with a previous blog about FASB 606. EVM will ultimately meet the requirements that in turn will keep the accounting team compliant with FASB 606.

Enter Deltek Vision

The Resource Planning module in Deltek Vision addresses EVM by:

• Allowing the financial percent complete to be calculated
• Providing a physical percent complete plan in the form of an EV%
• A default report in the Resource Planning module known as the Earned Value Chart, which represents the S Curve

By maintaining a project plan in the Resource Planning module, firms can be successful in developing a project report that shows cost and schedule variances in both the dollars and percent (CV, SV, CPI and SPI). If your firm has a benchmark or standard range, you can then compare the actual to that standard to identify anomalies in your projects performance.

The title of this blog is, “Why Your Firm Should Use Earned Value Management” and the answers are:

1. It’s an industry standard and proven method for project management and project accounting
2. It’s a common language among project managers across industries
3. It provides quick visibility into a projects performance
4. It brings firms closer to compliance with FASB 606

Learn more about Michael Kessler and his more than 30 years of experience of working in and around project-based accounting here.

Deltek is at it again! With the introduction of Deltek Vision version 7.6, professional services firms are now able to streamline their credit card processes thanks to several new key enhancements. Providing some background, the introduction of credit cards was one of the many improvements to Vision in version 7.3. When 7.3 was released, firms gained efficiency with employee expense reporting as employees could import charges from the credit card company. This feature allowed employees to associate those charges within their expense reports. Now, based on user feedback, credit card functionality has been expanded.

Review and Reconcile Credit Card Expenses with Ease

Deltek has enhanced the Credit Card Review application in Vision 7.6 which now allows users to easily review, filter and analyze credit card charges. This updated Credit Card Review offers additional information such as the expense report or voucher details and the General Ledger account number for each charge. Furthermore, any user-defined fields imported to help the employee categorize the charge can now be displayed in both the Credit Card Review and Credit Card Reconciliation screens.

More Functionality than just Company-Paid Credit Card 

When credit cards were initially introduced, the focus was on cards paid by the company. In Vision 7.6, purchases made by employee paid credit cards are now included. These charges are treated like typical expenses that are reimbursed to the employee.

As with the company paid credit cards, these charges can be uploaded and made available for the employee to associate with the matching expense within expense reports. Additionally, the Merchant/Description from the imported credit card charge now appears in the expense report description field. This option is available for selection when setting up credit cards in Vision.  

Do More with Deltek Vision 7.6 

Deltek has been listening to Vision users over the years. With each new version, Vision becomes more robust in order to meet the growing needs of professional services firms. If your firm is on Vision 7.6, make sure to activate Credit Cards and begin to streamline your expense report process.

In the Deltek world, the Blackbox Connector is the trending topic. From marketing professionals gaining insight within Deltek Vision from their Constant Contact mailers, to finance managing risk and controlling expenses through Concur, people are asking about getting more out of their Deltek Vision system. Have you heard the buzz surrounding the Blackbox Connector? If you haven’t, your first question might be, so “what is the Blackbox Connector?" If so, then this blog is for you!

What is the Blackbox Connector?

The Blackbox Connector is a no-code, low cost, integration solution for your Deltek Vision system with an easy to use API wizard. The purpose of the solution is to eliminate data silos by providing a better and more powerful way to create, update, reference and report on critical business intelligence across multiple platforms using Deltek Vision as your master record set. Our goal is to bring data together in a low cost, easy to maintain manner.

What Makes Blackbox Different?

Historically, integrations meant ‘expensive’ and required a lot of technical involvement. Not anymore. So what are the key differences between a custom integration and the Blackbox Connector?

1. IT teams are no longer bogged down with costly development cycles or constant evolving maintenance updates.
2. Users can utilize Blackbox’s drag-and drop mapping wizard to link critical fields across systems to synchronize the two systems in a manner consistent with your business.
3. Data accuracy improves across your entire organization by eliminating manual imports and duplicated efforts because the integration is automatic.

The results? Providing a low, yearly cost that includes continued upgrade for both solutions and a seamless connection to Deltek Vision.

How Does the Blackbox Connector Work?

The Blackbox Connector’s API Wizard enables you to easily connect Deltek Vision to third-party software. The configuration is as easy as setting up your phone to your Outlook email. Users will need access and links to both solutions and in minutes your software is connected. IT is provided scripts and user documentation through our Blackbox Connector portal. Standard mapping is pre-configured and users can further configure their field mapping using Blackbox’s drag-and-drop mapping wizard. The Blackbox Connector portal handles the behind the scenes data processing, including advanced error handling and testing of your connectivity scenarios. 

The connections are all made over web secure communication channels using web services to feed data to and from Deltek Vision – whether you host your Vision system locally or in the cloud, the Blackbox Connector platform can help your firm bring data together.

Why Blackbox?

The Blackbox Connector is a critical game changer with how organizations work within their Deltek Vision system. Our programmers are continuing to invest in commonly requested integration programs and your feedback can impact the next solution. Combine the best features of Deltek Vision with your other critical business systems to save significant hours for your staff and provide them with the tools needed to make faster, more-informed decisions.

Learn More.

Could the Blackbox Connector bring data together for your firm? Check out our website or schedule a demo to see how Blackbox can help your firm save time and money, while improving your overall experience in Deltek Vision.

Knowing how your AE firm compares to your peers is critical for evaluating the health of your business. Fortunately, regularly monitoring your firm’s performance doesn’t have to be a challenge for Deltek Vision users. In this article, we’ll take a quick look at the background of the AE Clarity study and introduce the Vision Performance Management (VPM) interactive dashboard.

What is the Deltek AE Clarity Study?

Each year, Deltek works in conjunction with the American Counsel of Engineering Companies (ACEC), ACEC Canada and the Society for Marketing Professional Services (SMPS) to gather and benchmark key performance metrics for the AE industry. The study draws from over 250,000 data points provided by 386 US and Canadian AE firms of every shape and size.

As the oldest and longest running study of its kind, Deltek AE Clarity report is the authoritative industry standard and the 37^th annual Deltek AE Clarity Study is out and available for download. This report is a comprehensive summary of performance results for 2015.  Additionally, these results include several key statistics that are easy to calculate and monitor, plus allows you to compare your firm’s performance against your industry peers.

How Can Your AE Firm Use the Results?

Having measurable insight into the key performance metrics of your firm plays a vital role in strategic planning and decision-making. The Clarity report shows a number of measurements, and all are important items to track. However, every firm should track several key measures regularly such as:

• Operating Net Profit on Net Revenue
• Utilization Rate
• Net Labor Multiplier
• Total Payroll Multiplier
• Overhead Rate
• Net Revenue per Employee

Some of these statistics can be calculated in Vision, but they are not encapsulated into one comprehensive report without extracting individual measurements into a summary table like Excel. However, the spreadsheet will need to be a manual update for ultimate presentation to firm stakeholders. Surely, there’s got to be an easier way, right?

Introducing Deltek Vision Performance Management

With Deltek VPM, these statistics incorporate easily into an interactive Vision Dashboard. As a result, executives can simply view these vital statistics on the screen and use built in filters to “slice and dice” the numbers as shown below.

But wait, there’s more! With VPM, you also have interactive graphs to monitor performance. These graphs allow users to transform rows and columns into bars and colors. VPM will also enable users to see performance using visual metrics. In other words, Vision Performance Management is more like Visual Performance Management as demonstrated below.

Start Monitoring Your AE Firm

Staying ahead of the competition requires knowing where your firm matches up in terms of these key performance indicators. Luckily, VPM allows Vision users to see where their firm stands on a regular basis.

Document management in the AEC Industry is more critical than most. Union Square can help your firm integrate all relevant data, allowing you to spend less time organizing and more time executing projects. Union Square enables your firm to store and access critical firm-wide and project information, including documents, financial information, drawings, images, and emails in one central repository. As a result, your firm has the ability to:

• Ensure team members are working on the most up-to-date files
• Eliminate inconsistent file structures or displaced files
• Keep drawings, correspondence, submittals and more in one central location
• Log incoming documents from any source
• Provide auto-matching suggestions to improve the quality of records
• Document register that gives you all the answers you might need about the state of the project from anywhere

Email

Email easily represents the greatest volume of documents and must be managed effectively or your firm will be left with an expensive archive full of duplicates, difficult if not impossible to retrieve information, and significantly slowing down your ability to send critical information to your clients. Union Square will ensure no email can ever be lost and there are no duplicates by allowing your firm to:

• Save emails from Outlook in just two clicks
• Save just one copy of an email and avoid duplication of email storage
• Store all project correspondence and attachments centrally and permanently
• Strip attachments from email and log appropriately

Document Management

Union Square, combined with Deltek, now offers truly the most integrated platform in the world, reducing operational risk and increasing efficiency.

Other solutions simply are not complete and cannot provide adequate risk reduction and efficiencies. With the varying documents involved in the AEC Industry, basic document sharing provided by SharePoint does not offer a construction issuing system and has no integration with industry design packages. Custom development can be costly and virtually impossible to manage and keep up with future upgrades. A DMS overlay doesn’t provide true risk reduction and access to emails, client reports or company finance all in one location. Union Square will do all of the above and more:

• Documents, emails, finance, and design files all cross-referenced for rapid retrieval
• Detailed document audit and full history
• Documents stored in their native file formats
• Cache services keep documents local to each office to give a single virtual office across the company without compromising performance

An interactive drawing register provides version control, including:

• Links that allow the issuing of process control and distribution of drawings throughout their lifecycle
• Read and write access that provides version control to users based on security permissions

External File Sharing 

The exponential growth in file sizes has made sharing drawing packages a time consuming exercise which lacks company transparency. Manually uploading files to a client extranet or third party file sharing location is slow and requires keeping both an internal and external record of the documents.

Union Square’s design register, issue sheets, document packages and official company records are all exemplar quality and ISO 9001 compliant, fully automated and recorded. The system is unimpeded by file size limits, and documents can be shared internally and externally from the same location with specific user rights for read and write access of only the files or folders chosen. No more worrying about setting up dated FTP sites or emailing large files. Everyone is finally on the same page with one version of the truth.

Contract Administration

Contracts should be easily traceable to reduce the risk of costly legal disputes. All emails, queries, questions and responses are all legally admissible in court. By bringing together the contract communications with the Document Management System, your firm has better visibility of project issues before they arise. Union Square provides enhanced foresight and project management, mitigates risk, and enables your firm to offer detailed status updates to your clients.

Remember, just because you may be required to use someone else’s external system on some projects, these are your client’s records and not your own! You own internal records will be necessary in any legal dispute.

Revit Integration

Union Square has developed a bridge to integrate with Revit. With the industry’s move towards BIM (Building Information Modelling), the way information is exchanged with clients and project partners has to change. Information sharing can sometimes include everything from the native model or IFC file, COBie file to traditional 2D formats like PDF, DWG, DDWF, DWFX and DGN.

Together with the Union Square drawing control system, the Revit integration will help your firm realize significant efficiency gains and see improvements in quality of output and practice-wide consistency with document production through to distribution. Included in the Revit integration is:

• Bi-directional drawing register
• Revision and versions management
• Document issuing and rendition management
• Hard copy batch print control

With Union Square, your firm will finally have synchronized model sheet information with a live drawing register and the ability to monitor approval/issue status at the click of a button.

More Mobility with Union Square 

No more clipboards! With on-site mobile technology, Union Square automates the process of site data capture, task management and reporting. You can finally achieve a bulletproof audit trail and strengthen your position in contract disputes. With Union Square you will have also have access to Mobile Custom Forms which you can customize to comply with quality assurance processes and integrate your site processes.