Full Sail Partners Blog | Accounting

The necessity to turn in timesheets every two weeks is never at the forefront of your employees' minds. They are focused on their day-to-day tasks. Some employees stay ahead of the game and create their timesheets as they go. Others are swamped with their workload and struggle to keep them current and completed on time. However, it is essential in nearly every industry to keep the circle of business moving and income coming in. So features are needed to make the timesheet process seamless and most efficient.

Poor timesheet management inherently leads to inefficient processes later. Miscoding timesheets may cause imprecise reports and incorrect invoices. It could also require additional time to correct and transfer time to the proper projects. Most importantly, incorrect timesheet entry affects the cash flow of your company, due to delaying the processing of client invoices.

In Deltek Vantagepoint, the process has been simplified and made more user-friendly for the end user. To start, timesheets should be entered daily and submitted on time. Secondly, project managers must always ensure they are reviewing the timesheets. Timesheets should then be corrected before they are posted to the project.

Features of Timesheets in Deltek Vantagepoint to Improve Efficiency

Accurate and efficient timesheet management policies and procedures are necessary and should be incorporated into your culture. This, along with daily entries and strict deadlines for timesheet submissions. Fortunately, Deltek Vantagepoint has a variety of tools to help assist project managers in this process.

• Floor Checks can help you ensure that your employees complete their timesheet entries on time. You can do a floor check to review the status of time entries for your employees for a specific period or day. This will show the employees’ expected hours versus the actual hours that were entered. Additionally, there is email functionality available, so you can email your employees directly and let them know to complete their timesheets. You can enable notifications within the system or create email templates for the reminders.
• Unposted Labor Report is a standard project report that shows all timesheet data in unposted transaction entry files and all timesheets that are in progress, submitted, or approved but not posted. This enables project managers to see what has been charged to their projects before they are posted. It is preferred to correct the timesheets before they are charged to the projects.
• Project Reports with Unposted Time can be included in project reports by using the unposted time option. Project managers can then see the labor that is charged to their projects throughout the time period.
• Line-item Approval allows project managers to have control over their project labor costs to make sure labor is posted to the correct project. It allows project managers to only see their projects when in the approval stage. Vantagepoint will let you know if only part of the line items subject to line-item approval have been approved, yet others have not been approved or have been rejected.
• Timesheet Audit Trail allows you to see if there has been a change made to the timesheet after it has been saved or submitted. You can make timesheet comments required, or just track the change without additional explanation. Audit trails can be used to track billing transfers. You may find the timesheet audit trail in employee reporting.
• Copy from Prior Timesheet option allows you to copy projects you have previously or frequently charge time to. You can select this option once in your current timesheet. This option saves you from having to create your project list repeatedly for frequent projects. Timesheet comments are also saved in a drop-down box to select from. So, if you have used the same comment previously, you may select that option versus having to write the same thing repeatedly.
• Deltek Time & Expense for Vantagepoint app is now available to access your timesheets when you are on the go. Not in front of your computer? No problem. You can capture expenses from anywhere and upload receipts immediately. Approvers may also approve timesheets and send reminders to employees via the mobile app. Keeping up with your timesheets has never been easier!

Get Your Timesheets Done with Deltek Vantagepoint

With all of these amazing features in Deltek Vantagepoint at your fingertips, timesheet management is within your grasp. Keep the circle of business moving, and that income coming in. Start with daily timesheet reminders, and eventually, you will develop a plan that makes timesheet management best practices part of your firm’s culture.

Why are the month-end financials so vital to professional service firms? Why does the finance team have deadlines? Understanding the importance of accurate and timely financial reports across all roles in a professional service firm is vital to the organization's health. Let us understand the “what” behind the “why” of the deadlines imposed on us by our friendly finance and accounting professionals. Finance and accounting professionals are often the rule enforcers, the data junkies, and the last group of people we want to disrupt because their head might just pop off their necks. I know, because I was once in that hot seat, constantly “encouraged” to produce accurate reports and metrics, and close the books as soon as possible. Forget about taking a vacation during the first two weeks of the month. Anyone else with me?

So, before we dive into the tools available for our finance friends, I hope that non-finance team members will take a few minutes to read this article and have a better understanding of why monthly financials are so vital to everyone in an organization.  

We plan our lives; we plan our projects but how do we measure that success? It all comes down to the actuals. The actual results of our planning and hard work in every aspect of our lives are how we determine what decisions we are going to make in the future. Logically, the actual financial results of a firm will help drive future decisions, right? So, the next time your finance and accounting friends ask you to submit your timesheet, submit your expense report, review a subconsultant invoice for your project, and review a client invoice for submittal know that they are doing their part to prepare the data necessary for accurate and timely reporting for EVERYONE in the firm. The data gathered and reported on for that financial period may impact your future as well.  

Let us work together to find a better solution to close those books faster, provide better project metrics, and help the firm make quick and accurate decisions.  

Now, moving on to some tips and tricks for our finance friends to help them leverage the most of their Deltek Vantagepoint system. Part of the monthly close process is to ensure that one can document and justify the balances on the financial reports. If your process involves ticking and tying to a manual spreadsheet, STOP! Deltek has tools that can help you!  

To assist accounting departments at professional services firms with verifying commonly used balances, Deltek has created some useful tools. There are two such tools in Vantagepoint that accountants can use to monitor activity and know when to raise the red flag to address accounting problems. So, what do these tools look like and how do they benefit accounting?  

Financial Analysis Report

The File Reconciliation Report (Utilities/Analysis/GL Reconciliation/File Reconciliation Report) provides a big picture of the general ledger from the standpoint of the firm’s income statement and balance sheet vs. the supporting sub-ledger reports. Deltek Vantagepoint has implicit entries that happen automatically in transactions based on configurations as well as explicit entries that occur by user entry in the transactions.

For example, when entering an AP (Accounts Payable) voucher, the user selects the expense account (explicit entry) for the voucher but does not select the Accounts Payable account (implicit entry) – the Accounts Payable account is captured in the AP Liability code (which is set Settings/Cash Management/Accounts Payable/Liability Accounts).

The areas covered in the File Reconciliation Report are:

• YTD Revenue: Accounts (Set in Configuration/Accounting/System Settings) Settings/Accounting/Chart of Accounts/Type) = Office Earnings Report (My Stuff/Reporting/Office Earnings)
• YTD Reimbursable/Direct Expense: One report that can be used is the Project Detail to total direct and reimbursable expenses.
• YTD Indirect Expenses: One report that can be used is the Project Detail to total the indirect and expenses.
• Accounts Receivable: Accounts (Set in Settings/Billing/Accounts Receivable) = Open Accounts Receivable (My Stuff/Reporting/AR Aged)
• Accounts Payable:  Accounts (Set in Settings/Cash Management/Accounts Payable/Liability Accounts) = Open Vendor Balances (My Stuff/Reporting/Voucher Ledger or Voucher Schedule)
• Unbilled Revenue: Accounts (Set in Settings/Accounting/Revenue) = Office Earnings Report or Project Earnings Report (My Stuff/Reporting/Office Earnings or Project Earnings)

The reports listed above can be run to verify the balances of the sub-ledger, and the File Reconciliation Report will provide a professional services firm with a quick snapshot to know if there is a problem immediately. It is recommended to review this report as part of month-end processing, although it can be reviewed at any time during the month.

Upon viewing this report for the first time, looking for the differences in AR (Accounts Receivable), AP (Accounts Payable), Revenue, and Unbilled and when the out-of-balance initially began is the first step. There are several reasons an out-of-balance can occur - for example, making a journal entry directly to a GL account that is linked to an AP Liability Code. Once red-flagged by this report, working with a knowledgeable system consultant to determine which entries caused the out-of-balances and learning how to correct them is advisable.

Bank Reconciliation

Another critical month-end activity is reconciling the bank account. Depending on your financial department structure, you could choose to use the Bank Reconciliation tool more frequently than waiting until the month-end. If you do not have systems in place to prevent fraud in your bank accounts, it may be beneficial to review and use this tool weekly or daily. Vantagepoint allows a professional services firm to create ‘Bank Codes’ for every bank account used by the firm. Each ‘Bank Code’ is linked to a single general ledger account number to track and report transactions for the bank code.

The bank reconciliation process allows for the user to ‘clear’ transactions as they ‘clear’ in the bank. The transactions in the bank reconciliation are only those entered via a cash transaction type (Cash Receipt, AP Disbursement, Cash Disbursement, AP Vouchers, AP Payment Processing, or Expense Payment Processing). The reviewer will know if the transaction type is a ‘cash’ transaction type as they will be asked for a ‘bank code.’              

Any transaction entered against a General Ledger account that is linked to a Bank Account code that is not a cash transaction, for example, a journal entry, will not be available in the Bank Reconciliation feature and could cause a difference from the reconciled bank balance to the general ledger account balance if not added to the misc. tab of the bank rec.

When working through the bank reconciliation process each accounting period it is recommended to compare the “reconciled GL balance” on the printout of the bank reconciliation to the balance sheet GL account that is tied to the bank code. The calculations on the bank reconciliation report are:

Beginning Balance (which should agree to the Bank Statement ending balance from the prior month.

• + Cleared Deposits
• - Cleared Payments
• Calculated Balance – this should agree to the Bank Statement ending balance
• + Uncleared Deposits
• - Uncleared Payments
• Reconciled GL Balance – This should agree to the GL account balance on the Trial Balance and Balance Sheet

If the reconciled GL balance does NOT tie to the trial balance, research is needed to find the entries that caused the out-of-balance and correct them.

An out-of-balance between the reconciled GL and balance sheet can happen and can still show that the bank reconciliation ties to what was deposited and paid from the bank. This is because the reconciled GL is a calculated balance of cash transaction types and not a balance from all transactions being entered against the GL account. Internal processes should be set up so that all cash-related transactions are entered via a cash transaction type.

Close Efficiently and Effectively

Accounting departments at professional services firms need to have efficiency in their month-end closings. Having a published monthly close calendar will help the entire organization stay on track with timely reporting both on a financial and project reporting level. With both the File Reconciliation Report and Bank Reconciliation tools offered in Deltek Vantagepoint, accountants can quickly identify red flags in their accounting processes.

For more tips and tricks on how to streamline your financial close reach out to one of our friendly financial consultants. One of the most valuable investments a firm can make is ensuring the entire firm gets the most out of its ERP system. Deltek Vantagepoint provides real-time data to help all members of an organization manage their projects, financials, opportunities, resources, and more. Give yourself a break, it is ok not to know what you do not know; Full Sail Partners is here to help!

Retainers play a crucial role in project-based financial management, especially for firms in the architecture, engineering, and environmental consulting industries. Properly managing these prepayments or overpayments can streamline billing processes and improve month-end reconciliation processes. Deltek Vantagepoint offers powerful tools to handle retainers efficiently. Here's an overview of how retainers can be managed within the system, illustrating key concepts and steps without delving too deeply into the technicalities.

Understanding Retainers

At its core, a retainer is a prepayment made by a client before the commencement of services. It can also include overpayments or duplicate payments. These funds need to be accurately recorded and managed to ensure they are applied to the correct projects so they can be applied appropriately to future invoices or refunded when necessary.

Preparing and Managing Retainer Invoices

In Deltek Vantagepoint, setting up a retainer involves a few strategic steps. It starts with enabling the necessary functions in Billing Settings. This ensures that retainers can be linked correctly and can be invoiced effectively. Additionally, a General Ledger account, typically a liability, should be utilized specifically for retainers.

Recording Retainer Payments

When a client makes a payment towards a retainer, it must be recorded accurately within the system. This involves entering the cash receipt details and linking them to the correct project. Whether it's an overpayment or a prepayment, these funds are added to the retainer bucket by selecting the retainer box. This box is the true link to the retainer feature making the amount available to be applied to future invoices.

Applying Retainers to Future Invoices

One of the key benefits of managing retainers in Deltek Vantagepoint is the ease with which they can be applied to future invoices. When invoicing for services rendered, all or a portion of the retainer can be applied to reduce the amount due. This is done in the “More Calculations” section of Billing Terms, under “Additional Fees.” Like Cash Receipts, when retainers are applied to future invoices, the trick is to select the retainer box in Add-ons and the corresponding General Ledger Account. This step helps maintain a clear and accurate financial record for both the firm and the client.

Refunding Retainers

There are scenarios where a retainer may need to be refunded. Perhaps the project was canceled, or the client overpaid significantly and there are not enough future billings to utilize the full amount. Deltek Vantagepoint allows for this by facilitating the removal of the retainer amount through Cash Receipts, utilizing the retainer check box, and then processing a refund through the accounts payable system. This ensures that all transactions are cleanly recorded, and the client's funds are returned appropriately.

Reporting Retainer Balances

Deltek Vantagepoint has several areas where a project-based firm can manage retainer balances, allowing for easy reconciliation of the retainer general ledger account, as well as a quick review for managers and billers to know how much retainer remains for a project. There is a standard report called “Retainer Ledger” that shows a comprehensive review of all transactions related to a project. Additionally, retainer balances can be shown on Project and AR-related dashparts, reports, or on the Invoices tab in the Project Hub.

Why Partner with Full Sail Partners?

Navigating the complexities of Deltek Vantagepoint, especially when dealing with retainers, requires a thorough understanding of the system and its capabilities. This is where Full Sail Partners can be invaluable. Our team of experts provides personalized consulting services, guiding you through the intricacies of setting up, managing, and optimizing your retainer processes.

By partnering with Full Sail Partners, you can ensure that your financial management practices are streamlined and efficient, allowing you to focus on delivering exceptional services to your clients. Whether you need help with initial setup, ongoing management, or training your team, we are here to support you every step of the way.

Leverage the Full Capabilities of Deltek Vantagepoint

Managing retainers in Deltek Vantagepoint is essential for maintaining accurate financial records and ensuring smooth project execution. While this overview provides a glimpse into the process, the expertise of Full Sail Partners can help you fully leverage the capabilities of Deltek Vantagepoint, ensuring your firm's financial health and client satisfaction.

Reach out to Full Sail Partners today to learn more about how we can assist with your project-based firm’s Deltek Vantagepoint needs, from initial setup to advanced financial management and everything in between. Your success is our priority, and we are here to help you navigate the complexities of project-based financial management with confidence and ease.

Approval workflows in Deltek Vantagepoint streamline organizational processes, offering a comprehensive range of features that enhance efficiency and flexibility. From multi-tiered and multi-step approvals to flexible role-based assignments, these workflows cater to complex approval hierarchies and specific organizational needs. Let’s dive into the different features and uses of these workflows and explore how they can make your approval processes smoother and more efficient.

Approval Workflows

Since some readers might be new to approval workflows, let’s review the functions of approval workflows in Vantagepoint.

• Multi-tiered Approvals – Allows approval workflows to have the ability to assign one person or multiple people with approval responsibilities for a specific request.
• Multi-step Approvals – Allows additional steps to be added in an approval workflow.
• Flexible Assignments – Instead of assigning the approval to a person, make the approval assignment to a specific role or function within the organization.
• Reassignments – Quickly reassign an action to add additional approvers or reassign the approval assignment to another person.
• Conditions – Allows for the use condition when approval is required, such as a dollar amount for an expense.
• Actions – Send and receive notifications of an approval request by email or an alert.
• Validations – Allows for notifications when criteria are not met, such as requiring a receipt on an expense report.

Workflow Failure Notifications – Workflows are smart! They will notify the approval administrator if a terminated employee or a role with no employees has been assigned approval responsibilities.

Applications That Have Approval Workflows

Here are some examples of applications that you can apply workflows to:

• Expense Reports
  • Both Line-item approval and Whole Report approval
• Timesheet Approvals
  • Both Line-Item approval and Whole Report approval
• Absence Requests
• AP Invoice Approvals
• Billing Invoice Approvals
• Purchase Requisitions
• Request for Price Quotes
• Purchase Orders (PO’s, Change Orders, and Releases)
• Item Requests

For those of you transitioning from Vision to Vantagepoint and enjoying the flexibility of Expense Report approvals for both line items and the whole reports, you’re in luck because Vantagepoint allows more flexibility in the Timesheet approval process.

Timesheet and Timesheet Line Approval Workflows Overview

In Vantagepoint, with improved Timesheet and Timesheet Line Approval workflows, users can leverage some of the benefits outlined below:

• Approval Workflows that are multi-step and based on specific parameters to align the approval process with your organization’s operations.
• Send approval requests to specific employees or roles within your organization.
• Approve all lines of a timesheet or just approve a specific line.
• Set up notifications to alert people about the status of the approval process and let the approver know a request is pending.  

Are you ready to enable Timesheet and Timesheet Line approvals? If you are not sure, here are some things to think about.

• Does your organization have a defined process for timesheet approvals?
• Which roles and individuals need approval assignments?

Since Deltek has allowed more flexibility in Timesheet and Timesheet Line approvals your firm will benefit from revisiting your current approval process.

Billing Invoice Approvals

Have you evaluated your billing process lately? Are you still printing drafts on paper?

In Vantagepoint, Deltek has introduced a way to process your monthly client invoices through the system including a way to use markup tools on the draft invoice(s).

Starting in Vantagepoint 6.5, you can review multiple drafts up until the final acceptance of the invoice. This “in system” back and forth communication between the finance/billing team and the project manager could help streamline your current process. Reduce back-and-forth emails and get your invoices out faster. Update your approval workflow to send notifications to employees identified on the project records.

Do you need multiple steps in your billing approval process?

While this workflow is not as dynamic as the timesheet and expense workflows there are ways to leverage the comment fields to allow for multiple review steps. For some tips and tricks on this creative solution please contact your Full Sail Consultant.

Enhance Efficiency with Approval Workflows

Vantagepoint's approval workflows provide a comprehensive solution for enhancing efficiency across various organizational tasks. With capabilities like multi-tiered and multi-step approvals, role-based assignments, and real-time notifications, these workflows cater to diverse needs. They are applicable to numerous areas, including expense reports, timesheets, billing invoices, and more, helping streamline processes and improve overall functionality. By implementing these workflows, your organization can achieve smoother operations and better compliance, ultimately boosting productivity and reducing administrative hassle.

Want to see more about approvals? Take a look at our webinar on Deltek Vantagepoint’s Accounts Payable (AP) Invoice Approvals!

Without efficient document management, project-based firms would fall to pieces. The advent of advanced technologies, particularly in scanning and document processing, helped firms streamline this crucial aspect of their operations. Traditional scanning methods often fall short, only capturing document images without extracting crucial metadata such as client names, dates, or invoice amounts, unless manually inputted by associates.

What is OCR?

Optical Character Recognition (OCR) technology, also referred to as optical character reader, plays a pivotal role in modern document management systems. It involves the conversion of images containing typed, handwritten, or printed text into machine-encoded text. Various sources can be converted such as scanned documents, photographs of documents, scene photos capturing text on signs or billboards, or even subtitled text overlaid on images from television broadcasts.

OCR technology was developed by Emanuel Goldberg, making its debut in 1914. Initially, it was developed to aid the visually impaired in reading characters. Over time, OCR capabilities have evolved significantly, becoming useful in various everyday applications such as airport processes, mail handling, and banking.

Early iterations of OCR systems required training with images of individual characters and were limited to working with one font at a time. However, advancements in technology, and most notably in AI, have led to the development of sophisticated systems capable of achieving high accuracy across a wide range of fonts. Modern OCR systems can support various image file formats as inputs, enhancing their versatility and applicability.

Some OCR systems can even reproduce formatted output closely resembling the original document layout, including images, columns, and other non-textual components. This capability ensures that the digitized documents retain their visual integrity and readability, further enhancing the utility of OCR in document management and data processing tasks.

OCR engines have evolved into specialized software applications tailored to specific subjects such as receipts, invoices, checks, and legal billing documents. These applications offer a multitude of functionalities, including:

• Entering data for business documents like checks, invoices, and receipts
• Extracting business card information and integrating it into contact lists
• Creating digital versions of printed documents
• Enhancing document searchability by converting scanned documents into searchable PDFs

These applications show off the versatility and significance of OCR technology in modern-day document management. The adoption of OCR solutions is poised to become increasingly integral to firms’ operational workflows, driving efficiency, accuracy, and overall productivity.

What is ICR?

Intelligent Character Recognition (ICR) software goes a step further than OCR, recognizing various fonts and handwriting styles. This distinction is crucial for grasping the nuances of modern document processing. ICR swiftly extracts information from scanned paper documents, digitally storing it for analytical reporting and seamless integration into business processes. Its self-learning systems continuously update recognition databases, achieving accuracy rates exceeding 97% for structured forms.

An important application is Automated Forms Processing, pioneered in 1993, streamlining data extraction from real-world forms. While OCR focuses on machine-printed text, ICR excels in deciphering hand-printed characters, though it faces some challenges with cursive handwriting. As businesses embrace digital transformation, ICR's adoption promises enhanced efficiency and accuracy in document management, revolutionizing data processing workflows.

Benefits of ICR

While OCR remains a cost-effective solution for basic document management needs, ICR offers advanced features tailored to the requirements of project-based firms. Not only does the ability to decipher handwritten notes and diverse fonts expand its utility beyond OCR, but the automatic retrieval of relevant data mitigates the risk of human input errors, a common challenge with manual data entry processes.

ICR in Accounting

In the realm of accounting, ICR proves particularly invaluable, streamlining the processing of various financial documents such as accounts payable, invoices, purchase orders, and payroll forms. For larger firms handling a high volume of documents monthly, ICR significantly reduces the time and effort expended on manual data entry tasks, thereby enhancing operational efficiency.

Mobile Expense Retrieval with Deltek Vantagepoint

Leading ERP systems provider Deltek has embraced ICR technology within its flagship solution, Deltek Vantagepoint. Leveraging ICR capabilities, Vantagepoint's mobile expense feature enables users to capture receipts via photographs, with the software automatically extracting relevant text and populating fields. This eliminates the need for manual data entry, empowering accounting teams to track project budgets seamlessly throughout the project lifecycle.

Looking Ahead

As technology continues to evolve, Deltek remains at the forefront of innovation, exploring additional applications of ICR to further streamline business operations. Stay updated as Deltek continues to test and integrate ICR capabilities into various facets of its ERP system, promising even greater efficiency gains for project-based firms.

Revenue Generation is a feature in Deltek Vantagepoint that allows a professional services firm to define how a project should calculate revenue. This process is not turned on “out of the box” as firms can choose if and how they would like to utilize this feature. Vantagepoint’s default revenue method is “B,” meaning revenue is recognized only when a project is billed. Although this method works well for projects invoiced monthly for time & materials incurred, it doesn’t always align with all project types.

Additionally, utilizing the “B” method can restrict a firm from invoicing throughout the month as generally all costs should be posted and then invoiced to properly match revenue and expenses. Billing all at the end of the month can create a backlog and delay month-end closing processes. Therefore, if your projects are not billed monthly, the billing doesn’t match how the project should recognize revenue, or you don’t want to hold up your close process until all invoicing is completed, your firm should consider utilizing Revenue Generation.

Pursue Revenue Generation Methods

After deciding that revenue generation is right for your professional services firm, the next step is to decide on the revenue method(s) to be utilized for your projects. Revenue generation is flexible in the fact that methods can be different on different levels of a project’s work breakdown structure. Furthermore, your firm can create custom revenue methods if you feel one of Deltek Vantagepoint’s predefined methods doesn’t suit your needs.

Deltek Vantagepoint’s Standard Predefined Methods

The three most popular predefined methods are the Work In Progress (W), the Percent Complete Method (P), and the Multiplier (M) methods. See below the formulas and a brief discussion of when firms may choose to utilize these methods.

Work in Progress Method (W)

Job-to-Date Revenue = Job-to-Date Billings + Work-in-Progress @ Billing

Deltek Vantagepoint recognizes revenue as job-to-date billed plus work-in-progress at billing rates. This method works well for projects normally termed “hourly” or “time and materials.” One of the great features of this method is you can invoice anytime during the month and expenses posted after the invoice will still be recognized for that month and this method will match revenue and expenses. One disadvantage of this method is the formula has no limit set so if your project is “hourly to a max,” this method will not stop at the “max.”

Percent Complete Method (P)

Job-to-Date Revenue = (Percent Complete*Fee) + Job-to-Date Reimbursable Expenses

This method recognizes revenue based on a percent complete entered on the project times the compensation on the project, plus reimbursable expenses. This method does require the percent complete field to be entered, usually at the lowest level of the project where the revenue is to be recognized. The good news is there are several places to update this field – in Dashboards, in the Revenue Generation action bar, and the Project Review area. The bad news is that it does require updates regularly.

In general, this method works well when projects have milestone billings, often called “lump sum contracts” or “fixed fee” projects. On these types of projects, you may have a billing schedule that does not match your level of effort in a month. For example, if your milestones state that you can’t invoice until you have hit 25% complete, but this month you have completed 15%, you may want to recognize 15% now and not wait until you hit 25%. In this case, the percent complete field would need to be entered as 15%. In summary, this method produces revenue based on the percent completed, not invoiced, but that percent does need to be entered into the system with some “manual intervention.”

Multiplier Method (M)

Job-to-Date Revenue = (Job-to-Date Direct Labor x Multiplier) + Job-to-Date Reimbursable Expenses

The Multiplier Method recognizes revenue based on labor incurred times a multiplier identified on the project in the “Multiplier/Amount” field. This method can be used on projects that are billed hourly or percent completion-based. Usually, when using this method, the multiplier is set once and reviewed periodically but does not need to be updated as frequently as the P method. The pro of this method is that it requires less maintenance than the P method, but the con is that it may not be as accurate. The multiplier is project-specific, which allows flexibility.

User Defined Revenue Methods

If the above methods don’t meet your professional services firm’s needs, Deltek Vantagepoint has the flexibility to create as many revenue methods as needed.

For example, if you would like to use an hourly method, like W, but would like to add a maximum amount to the calculation, there is a “Subject to Max” option that can be utilized in a formula. Likewise, if you would like to compare two formulas and have the system recognize revenue based on the “lessor of” the two calculations, that is also an option. There are many fields available to create a User Defined Calculation from project fields such as budget or compensation fields, from billing terms such as rates or Add-Ons, or even from User Defined Fields on a project.

Choosing the Best Revenue Generation Method(s) for Your Professional Services Firm

As you consider the possibilities of revenue generation within Deltek Vantagepoint, it's crucial to refine your approach to ensure it aligns with your firm's unique project management and financial tracking needs. The flexibility offered by Vantagepoint enables a tailored revenue recognition process that can significantly enhance your financial accuracy and project oversight. To effectively implement and benefit from this feature, consider the following:

• Assess Project Requirements: Evaluate the specific needs of each project or project phase to select the most appropriate revenue generation method. This assessment should consider the billing schedule, project duration, and the nature of the work (e.g., hourly, fixed fee, or a combination).
• Implement a Hybrid Approach: Don’t hesitate to employ multiple revenue generation methods within a single project where necessary. This flexibility can accommodate diverse billing arrangements and project work phases, ensuring revenue is recognized in the most accurate manner across your portfolio.
• Create Your Own Calculations: Leverage the capability to create custom revenue calculations to address any specific challenges or goals your firm has. This customization can help in situations where predefined methods fall short, ensuring your revenue recognition practices precisely match your operational and financial strategies.
• Document and Standardize: Establish clear documentation of your chosen revenue recognition methods and the rationale behind them. This documentation will serve as a valuable reference for your team and ensure consistency in application across projects.
• Engage in Thorough Testing: Before fully integrating a new revenue generation method into your operations, conduct comprehensive testing. This testing should simulate various project scenarios to uncover any potential issues and ensure the method performs as expected under different conditions.
• Review and Refine Regularly: Adopt an iterative approach to your revenue generation strategies. Regular reviews allow you to adjust methods as your firm evolves and as projects present new challenges or opportunities for financial management optimization.

By thoughtfully selecting and applying revenue generation methods, your professional services firm can achieve a higher level of financial clarity and project management efficiency. Deltek Vantagepoint’s flexibility not only accommodates a wide range of project types but also empowers your firm to adapt and thrive in the dynamic professional services landscape. Embrace the opportunity to fine-tune your revenue recognition processes, ensuring they fully support your firm's strategic goals and project delivery success.

Strategize and Optimize: Revenue Solutions in Deltek

Maximize your Deltek Vantagepoint's Revenue Generation capabilities with Full Sail Partners' Navigational Analysis. Our service streamlines your processes, ensuring your ERP system aligns perfectly with your business objectives. From an initial assessment to a customized action plan, we guide your firm through optimizing system functionality to enhance operational efficiency and financial performance. Elevate your firm's potential—discover how our Navigational Analysis can transform your Deltek setup for optimal success by clicking the image below.

In a perfect world, professional services firms could invoice their clients for every charge to every project, and the clients would pay every invoice. However, in reality, nearly all professional services firms have write-offs. Write-offs can occur when your firm and your client agree that they don’t have to pay an invoice, when the client is unable to or refuses to pay an invoice, or when your firm is unable to bill all project charges to the client.

While writing-off charges is necessary sometimes, the good news is that each of these types of write-offs can be easily handled in Deltek Vantagepoint. Since write-offs impact the firm’s financial statements, it is crucial to have clear guidelines as to the accounting period in which they should be created/posted. In this blog, let’s talk a little bit about how to handle write-offs the “right” way to make the process as painless as possible.

Firm and Client Agree to a Reduction in an Invoice Amount

Did you accidentally invoice the client too much?  Did you send an invoice for a change order before it was fully approved? Or did the client argue about a portion of the invoice, and you agreed to a reduction in the invoice amount? 

When the client does not require a revised invoice, you may choose to do an invoice adjustment through the transaction center. It is recommended to use the original invoice number and date, and the WBS2/3 level from the original invoice. Doing so will result in the adjustment being applied to the original invoice, making receipt more efficient. One thing to consider when using this method is that if you keep invoices on file, the PDF invoice stored on the project will not show the adjustment. If the PDF invoice was later needed, it could be confusing that the total no longer matches the invoice amount that shows in the system.

If the client requires a revised invoice, or if you prefer to make sure the invoice on file matches the amount the system shows as billed, you may instead choose to void and reissue the invoice through Interactive Billing in Deltek Vantagepoint. Voiding an invoice reinstates the charges that were included with the invoice (which allows you the option to hold or write-off charges) and you would issue an invoice for the new amount. When voiding an invoice, it is best to post the void before running the revised one.

It is important to note that voiding an invoice will affect the financial statements, so be sure to void in a current, open accounting period. Another consideration with issuing a revised invoice is what invoice date to use. If it is agreed that the payment terms can start on the date of the original invoice, you can change the invoice date in the billing session options.

A Client is Unable to or Refuses to Pay an Invoice

Did your client go out of business? Did a portion of your work fail to meet expectations? And, did it result in the client refusing to pay?

Many professional services firms track an Allowance for Bad Debts against Accounts Receivable. When a client cannot or will not pay an invoice, it is likely that you will want to put the write-off against the allowance. The most efficient way to do this is to process a zero-dollar cash receipt. Select the invoice as though you are paying it, then enter an additional line in the cash receipt and select either the bad debt contra-asset or expense account.

Many firms use an indirect account for a bad debt expense. But, if your firm prefers bad debt expense to be a direct expense, you could set up a project as a regular charge type and a direct expense account to be used exclusively for recording bad debt.

If your firm reports on a cash basis, and you do not want to show any revenue or expense, Deltek Vantagepoint can accommodate that as well. In AR Mapping accounts, set up your Allowance for Bad Debts as an invoicing account (leave all other fields blank unless you also want a separate AR column). Then when you need to write off an AR invoice, process a negative invoice transaction using the original invoice number, WBS level(s), invoice section(s), and the Allowance for Bad Debts account.

If you do not have a bad debt allowance, you can void the invoice as explained previously and write off the transactions (explained in the next section). You could also choose to do a credit memo. The credit memo function reverses the invoice but does not reinstate the charges to Interactive Billing.

The Firm is Unable to Bill All Project Charges to the Client

There are several reasons you may not be able to bill all the charges on a project to the client including inefficiencies during work performance, going over budget, training new staff, and resource turnover. GAAP guidelines indicate that potential losses are to be recognized as soon as known. When it is known that charges cannot be billed to the client, use the write-off function in Interactive Billing.

This function will cause the items to be excluded from invoicing, thereby not recording revenue. If your professional services firm uses revenue generation, then to exclude write-offs, make sure the formula is set up accordingly. Using the write-off function for charges will not remove the charges from project reporting, except in cases where you choose to exclude charges to be written off such as on the Unbilled Summary report.

On reports where you can select to show the billing status of charges, items that have been marked for write-off have a status of W, and items that have been written-off have a status of X. If tracking/reporting of write-offs is desired, you could choose to use the project detail report. Then on the options tab, only include charges with the X or W status.

Visibility Around Write-Off Amounts

Using Deltek Vantagepoint, there is visibility around write-offs. As mentioned, to see the specific items written off, you can use a report such as a project detail and include only items with the X or W status. Since typically no revenue is recognized for written-off items, there are other areas that you can see write-offs and their impact as well:

• As negative profit on the Project Earnings and Office Earnings reports when run at cost
• As a negative variance on the Project Earnings and Office Earnings reports when run at billing
• In Project Review at cost and billing in the profit/variance box

Use Deltek Vantagepoint to Manage Write-Offs

As discussed, there are several reasons that professional services firms experience write-offs. When write-offs are necessary, know that Deltek Vantagepoint can be set up and used to process them the “right” way, while also providing visibility so that your firm has a handle on its financial statements. If your professional services firm needs assistance in this area, don’t hesitate to contact us for more details.

As we approach the end of 2023, there is no time like the present to prepare for the year-end close which marks the final accounting process to wrap up the fiscal year. Advanced planning and organization can significantly ease this process for your accounting team, assuring a seamless transition into the new year. In this blog, let’s go over some of the most important items to help ensure a smooth transition to the new fiscal year in Deltek Vantagepoint and Vision.  

Document and Organize Your Procedures

Start by meticulously documenting your year-end procedures, encompassing not only tasks performed in Deltek Vantagepoint and Vision but all accounting functions. This comprehensive reference guide will not only assist your team this year but also in the years to come. Additionally, when creating your accounting calendar, ensure that it covers a wide spectrum of financial activities, not just limited to year-end tasks. This holistic approach is key to ensuring that all aspects of your financial management are well organized. It is also essential to share the accounting calendar with the entire staff so that they understand expectations. This is particularly necessary, especially surrounding timesheet and expense report deadlines.

Common Year-End Tasks

Year-end tasks are crucial for maintaining financial integrity. Here are some common practices among professional services firms:

• Reconcile All Cash Accounts: This crucial task ensures that your financial records accurately match your bank statements. It's a good practice to not only verify transactions but also check for any unusual or unexpected entries that might need adjustments.
• Credit Card Reconciliations: In the digital age, credit card transactions are commonplace. Ensure that you capture all credit card transactions, making expense reporting a priority. An accurate representation of these expenses is vital for your financial health.
• File Reconciliation Report: Regular monitoring is the key to catching discrepancies between your general ledger and subledger reports. A monthly check helps in identifying issues early, making year-end reconciliation smoother.
• Final Invoicing: Efficiently processing all client invoices ensures that you're not leaving any revenue on the table. It's the last opportunity to capture income for the fiscal year.
• Review Outstanding Accounts Receivables: Diligently following up with clients who have outstanding accounts receivable beyond 30 days can improve your cash flow. Sending past-due statements and making personal contact can expedite collection efforts.
• Review Unbilled Detail: Properly addressing time and expense transactions that cannot be invoiced helps in accurately reflecting your financial position. Writing off these unbillable expenses is an important step to keep your records accurate.
• Fixed Assets: Beyond the regular tasks, don't overlook the assessment of fixed assets. Verify their ownership and depreciation, making necessary adjustments. This action ensures that your balance sheet reflects the current state of your assets.
• Employee Expenses and Accounts Payable: Ensuring that all accounts payable vouchers are recorded accurately is vital. Making contributions to retirement plans and paying vendors and employee expense reports promptly is also a best practice for year-end.
• Notes Payable: Maintaining alignment between your balance sheet and lender statements is essential. This step can prevent errors or discrepancies in your financial statements.
• 1099 Forms: Ordering 1099 forms is just the beginning. Make certain that you have collected W-9 forms from vendors or contractors who met the $600 threshold during the year. Timely mailing of 1099 forms is important for compliance with tax regulations.
• W-2s: If you handle payroll, don't forget to order and mail W-2 forms by the January 31st deadline. Timely distribution of these forms ensures that employees can file their taxes without delays.
• Budget for Next Year: Setting up your general ledger budget for the upcoming year is a crucial financial planning step. It helps in aligning your financial goals with your operational strategy.

Deltek Customer Care Access

Each year Deltek puts together a year-end guide and checklist. Authorized users would log into Customer Care. Under the section "Learn", click on the option called Year-End Resources. You will then select your product, Vision or Vantagepoint and press "Go". There are Year-End Documentation and Year-End Videos. These complimentary, informative year-end videos are available on-demand viewing 24/7. The training sessions will guide you on how to perform year-end closing for general ledger, accounts payable and payroll, troubleshoot any issues that may arise during the year-end close process, and answer frequently asked questions. 

Be Prepared to Close Out the Year

Ensuring a smooth transition to the new fiscal year in Deltek Vantagepoint and Vision is an important part of the process. When opening the first period of your fiscal year, you're simultaneously launching the new fiscal year.

Several initialization utilities are required based on your professional services firm’s accounting calendar including Open New Period, Open New Benefit Year, 1099 Initialization, and Open a New W-2 Quarter/year. It's important to follow through with these utilities meticulously. If your firm’s database is configured for Multicompany, these utilities would have to be performed in each active company.

Be on the lookout for Deltek's Year-End update at the end of December, which contains tax updates for payroll users. Additionally, refer to Deltek's Vision and Vantagepoint Year-End guide for more detailed information on the year-end closing process. Planning and organization are key to ensuring a smooth year-end close and preparing for a successful start to the new fiscal year. With these additional tasks and tips, you'll be well-prepared for a seamless year-end transition and can confidently set your sights on the financial year ahead.