Full Sail Partners Blog | Accounting (7)

A KPI, or Key Performance Indicator, is a measurable value that demonstrates how effectively a company is achieving crucial business objectives. Organizations should use KPIs to evaluate their success at reaching targeted goals. Simply stated, KPIs provide your firm with metrics that compare budgeted amounts to the actual values. KPIs are no longer just for accounting and finance as they now reach deeper into a firm’s operational side examining marketing, business development and project management.

KPIs vs Traditional Reporting Methods 

Let’s take a look at how firms benefit from KPIs and how KPIs differ from standard reporting. A common reporting technique is to compare current profit & loss results to the same period the previous year, or to compare year to date then versus year to date for the current year. Budget data for one or both comparisons can be incorporated. Now, what if we graphed this information and included a desired growth line? We will then have a visual of actual performance in relation to a chosen measurement. This measurement will inherently become an indication of whether we are achieving our goals, and would allow us to be proactive in correcting potential challenges. 

Using KPIs to Measure Success 

As mentioned earlier, KPIs are not just a tool for the finance team. For example, a chief operating officer may not relate well to traditional financial statements and focusing on project related metrics would be more to his liking. These indicators can be project specific, relate to a grouping of projects, or be sliced and diced based on the organizational breakdown structure (OBS) or work breakdown structure (WBS). Click here to learn more about OBS and WBS.

In another scenario, a chief strategy officer believes there is a benefit from evaluating trending data regarding hit rates filtered by a predetermined criterion. However, we must keep in mind that unless a benchmark or some other distinguished metric is established, this may not result in a clear and meaningful measurement. 

Here are two examples of KPIs that have proven to be successful: 

1. Cost and Schedule Variance – Using Deltek Vision reporting, actual project cost performance index (CPI) and schedule performance index (SPI) is calculated and compared to an acceptable mean-variance.
2. Estimate at Completion (EAC) Analysis – This can be as simple as a two-column report showing EAC in comparison to the contract value. The criteria can also be set by contract type to “flag” anomalies that need to be further investigated. 

The Bottom-line on KPIs 

KPIs can be used company wide. C-level executives can look across client and project types and evaluate revenue multipliers or collections success. These same evaluations can be done at all levels across your enterprise from managers that are accountable for sections of your organization down to individual project managers driving the lowest levels of WBS. What is required is a benchmark, a budget or a goal. Whether top down or bottom up, the view into why businesses perform the way they do will kept top of mind.

So, how does your firm measure success across the enterprise? Is it profit centers, projects, employees or pursuits? Every firm is unique and can’t just use “off the shelf” KPIs. It all begins with a discussion of what you need to drive your firm to the finish line. Once decided, designing the reports and data is easy.

Spend Management is a popular term, but what is it really? Spend Management can encompass anything from procurement, supply chain management, expense control, outsourcing and more. For most businesses, managing spending may not seem to provide a competitive advantage nor differentiate them from the competition. While this task doesn’t directly drive revenue, figuring out how to better manage and control your travel costs, expenses and invoicing does provide significant business value.

So, what exactly does a good Spend Management strategy need to accomplish? It should:

• Simplify accounts payable (AP) workflows
• Enhance the end user experience
• Encourage mobility in the AP process
• Improve compliance levels
• Provide increased insight into spending
• Allow for visibility of expenses before they are incurred

What Can All This Do for Your Firm?

Spend Management will lower your capital expense profile, increase employee productivity, lower costs for managing operational functions and drive new capabilities that have a direct impact on business performance. Accomplishing these goals allows your firm to continue to compete in this hypercompetitive environment that continually rewards sustained agility.

Organizations typically start with a manual process for managing purchasing, expense reports, and invoice management. As the company grows in size and complexity, workarounds like spreadsheets and physical reconciliation are simply no longer efficient and directly impact the further ability to grow and manage spending.

According to an IDC study (Document #US42246116 © 2017 IDC), implementing effective strategies can result in:

• 68% less time processing invoices
• Improving company procurement compliance by up to 14%
• Increasing productivity by an average of 11% using mobile/OCR management tools
• Reducing IT staff time to manage spend by 29%

How to Evaluate Solutions to Help Your Firm with Spend Management?

There are many factors to consider when evaluating a Spend Management solution. Here are some key things to contemplate:

• Business ready: Solutions must be able to scale to accommodate your firm now and in the future, and must automatically link into existing accounting and ERP systems. These are secure, cloud-based solutions that fit within the CIO’s IT policy framework, are cost-effective and easy to deploy across the organization.
• Business Intelligence: These solutions must be capable of providing greater business performance visibility and driving smarter decision-making. With a solution that offers more than automation, executives are armed with the insights to identify business opportunities that never existed before. What used to take days or weeks can now take hours.
• Complete visibility: Encompassing all areas of spend in one solution, including travel costs, expenses and invoice management, is ideal. If you only see a piece of the puzzle, it is virtually impossible to view the entire picture. With solutions that can integrate all of the data and incorporate your firm’s spend management regulations, you can ensure there is maximum compliance and have the easiest adoption across the company with only one solution to learn.
• End-user adoptability: As better financial performance rests with reducing accounts receivable turnover and achieving greater efficiency in cash flow management, businesses need to ensure that finance and accounting staff, as well as their employees, are able to quickly and accurately execute a modern, mobile process. When end users are satisfied and are able to employ solutions anywhere and anytime, this results in faster and increased adoption of the solutions and increased financial performance.

The best systems provide better visibility and insight into non-PO spend, P-card spend, and corporate card spend as well as meet employees where they are. They allow for visibility into spend before the money has been spent (PO management) and follow through to auditing with full details completely integrated into your firm’s ERP system. They also can incorporate all of these areas of spend into one solution so it’s easy to quantify spend across all areas.

Gain Control of Your Spend Management

Expectations and demands for employees, especially finance staff, have never been higher. The cost of lower productivity, employee turnover, and inefficient financial operations is now even more critical to a firm’s success and must be addressed. Employees require mobile, efficient solutions to increase their overall satisfaction and productivity. With increased industry compliance regulations, accurate reporting is now a necessity instead of a luxury. Now is the time to get control with a Spend Management solution.

Within Deltek Vision lies a very handy tool, which enables a firm to have multi-company functionality. However, the benefits of this multi-company functionality feature seem to elude many firms that would greatly appreciate its capabilities. So let’s talk in detail about multi-company functionality and the why, when and how firms should use this fantastic feature.

Intro into Deltek Vision Multi-Company

Basically the need for a multi-company environment comes down to having to track a separate entity with its own tax id number in a single Deltek Vision database. Some of the scenarios that require multi-company management include:

• Banking relationships
• Investments and/or holding company requirements
• Tax reporting
• Professional licensing requirements
• Foreign country reporting requirements

Additionally, the need for intercompany billing can occur when two or more related companies make payments on behalf of the others. The most common reason for intercompany billing is the sharing of labor resources between companies that have separate payrolls and/or making vendor payments for another related company.

When a firm decides to utilize multi-company functionality, it is recommended that sub-ledgers be set up to track the due to and from, and clear intercompany balances. This creates the ability to use both the AP and AR aging reports for the intercompany balances.

Determine Internal Pricing Structure

Upon implementing multi-company functionality in Deltek Vision, firms must determine what internal pricing structure to adopt. The options are:

• Re-class only - moves the transaction to intercompany AR/AP at cost
• Project Centric - leaves the transaction on the books of the project’s company with some amount of compensation also moving to keep the loaning organization whole
• Employee Centric - moves the transaction back to the employee’s company with some amount of revenue moving back as well
• High Accountability – which uses work breakdown structure to manage transactions and point directly to the company who owns the transaction

Keep in mind, there is a lot of flexibility within the options above. Different scenarios can be created for different transaction types. Also, by order of operation, the various options can be overwritten at the individual company level or at the lowest work breakdown structure level by project.

Intercompany billing makes accounting’s job easier in regard to multi-company transactions. When transactions are made to projects not in the home company (company where the transaction is being posted), invoices and vouchers are created through a series of postings that are reflected in GLs of the respective companies. These invoices and vouchers also appear on the AR and AP aging reports noted above. Accounting can then clear the reports using standard check processing and cash receipts.

More Benefits of Multi-Company

Using Deltek Vision’s multi-company functionality provides another benefit to firms with consolidated reporting. Consolidated reporting allows a view of the performance of all the companies within the database. Consolidated groupings can represent all companies or a cross section of companies depending on the needs of company leadership. The consolidation process incorporates standard eliminations of configured control accounts as well as client-defined accounts, such as capital investments in related companies. Consolidations are “memo” entries and not posted to the GL.

A multi-company database permits each company to maintain a unique GL while still only creating one set of shared GL account numbers. Furthermore, firms can restrict GL account numbers, and other master records can be shared and/or restricted as well. Also, Vendors can be shared. However, the accounting tab is company specific for account and 1099 purposes.

In addition to the benefits mentioned above, the multi-currency function works in tandem with multi-company to allow firms to have unique GL/functional currency. This is a great feature for firms that work internationally. Lastly, the consolidation process can include GAAP compliant currency translation and a gains/losses entry.

Final Thoughts on Deltek Vision Multi-Company

Firms of all sizes can benefit in many ways by using the multi-company functionality that is part of the core capabilities in Deltek Vision. Being aware of when, why and how to use a multi-company database will help your firm make important business decisions and operate efficiently. For more information, contact Full Sail Partners here.

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!

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

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.

Full Sail Partners today announced it joined the Concur Solution Provider program and can now refer clients, including those using Deltek, to Concur, the leading provider of spend management solutions and services.

This partnership expands the Full Sail Partners offering to include Concur solutions and allows Concur data to flow into Deltek Vision, helping professional services firms create a better expense reporting experience for their employees and also enable the firms to realize significant cost savings.

“We are ecstatic to introduce Concur to our clients,” said Tanya Drake, Full Sail Partners Technology Division’s Technical Consultant. “This partnership gives project-based clients the most efficient expense reporting solution ever. Our clients will experience firm-wide cost savings and eliminate mistakes and fraud with the automated controls and duplication verification. Employees will love the automatic pull of data to their expense reports, virtually eliminating manual entry of expense reports. It’s a win-win for both the firm and employees.”

Concur Travel, Expense and Invoice are the industry’s leading solutions to help businesses manage spend and gain insights that drive savings. Concur has more than 40 million users globally, and in 2015 the company processed transactions worth more than $70 billion in travel and expense spend.

Kelly Duquette, Principal Solutions Consultant at Full Sail Partners who has worked with the Concur product at a previous firm said, “We believe this is a great opportunity for the Deltek Vision community to leverage Concur to create a fast, efficient process that allows employees to spend less time on tedious tasks and more time focusing on their billable work.” 

Together, Full Sail Partners and Concur will enable HR and accounting professionals to better manage expenses and invoice processing from approval to payment posting. The expanded capabilities offered through Concur will enable professional services firms to capture paper and electronic invoices, enabling efficient, automated processing – from purchase request through payment, including 2-way and 3-way match capabilities. 

“Travel and expense is the second largest area of controllable business spend – a challenge especially significant to SMBs. With a partner-focused initiative like the Concur Solution Provider program, we can help partners like Full Sail Partners expand the value they provide SMBs while driving business growth and profitability,” said Christal Bemont, SVP and GM of SMB and National Accounts, Concur.

To receive details about this partnership and the Concur solutions offered through Full Sail Partners, please visit http://www.blackboxconnector.com.

Full Sail Partners provides technology services and solutions for more than 1,000 professional services firms nationwide. Blackbox Connector, a division of Full Sail Partners, helps bring data together with a no-code, low cost, integration solution connecting Deltek Vision users to any API-powered application within minutes. Full Sail Partners represents project-based products focused on integrating business processes by connecting front-end and back-end systems. We seek to help organizations identify the critical resources needed to create a faster, more efficient, and cohesive business infrastructure.

I don’t know anyone that actually enjoys completing their expense report. The process is arduous, and steals valuable time from your already hectic day. The fact is, if you want to get reimbursed for a company expenditure, you have to take the time to complete your expense report. No ifs ands or buts about it.  Luckily, Blackbox’s Deltek Vision and Concur Integration eliminates this pain staking process for your employees and frees them up to concentrate on client-focused, billable work.

So, how can the Blackbox Concur Connector help you combine the benefits or Concur's expense controls and management with Vision's financial and project management tools? Easy! See how below.

The Deltek Vision and Concur Integration Made My Life Easier:

As someone who travels a fair amount, the Deltek Vision and Concur integration has allowed me to get the most out of my business expenses. Before, I was overly focused on diligently taking a picture of every receipt and documenting every incurred cost. Now, when I am out with a client, I can focus on listening and cultivating our relationship.  Here is how:

No more expense report time dump! Concur’s credit card integration is freakin’ awesome. I’ll admit it, I am terrible at manually documenting receipts and deciphering between my credit card charges vs. cash expenses. I used to stress out when thinking about the time dump required to complete my expense reports. Now, the Deltek Vision and Concur integration allows me to complete and submit my expense reports faster, rather than waiting until the end of the month to begin the process.

User protection / fraud prevention. Recently after traveling in New York City, I submitted an expense report with duplicate charges for an Uber ride. This minor mistake held up the processing of my expense report as we internally worked out my error. Concur allows me to eliminate this time consuming process of going back and forth from submitter, management and accounting. Additionally, these controls protect the company from accidental or direct fraudulent activity.

Mobile is where it’s at! I’m constantly on the go and I rely on my smart phone for just about everything. I can honestly say that Concur’s mobile app has been a big reason that I have been more diligent with completing my expense reports.

The app utilizes OCR technology that allows me to automatically pull all relevant information off of receipts, including:

• Vendor
• Date
• Dollar amount
• And more

Additionally, the mobile app sends me alerts when I have new charges, reports to approve or notifications.

Real-time, Automatic, Transaction-based Integration.  No more waiting for new projects to show up so I can associate expenses.  No tedious manual uploads to share information between the two systems.  No more having to input the same information in multiple places.  The bi-directional connector allows the information I and my accounting team need to be available where and when it is needed.

Ready to See How Concur Integrates with Deltek Vision?

Are you ready to learn more about this turn-key integration of Deltek Vision and Concur? Join Pete Nuffer as he unveils how all Deltek Vision users can win with automated expense management.

Our first inclination when the new FASB 606 was announced was this wouldn’t impact many of our Deltek Vision clients. But after more insight, we recognize this has a tremendous impact on our clients. The rule states applicability to ALL entities that deliver goods or services. Though many believe that GAAP, FASB, SOX and other guidelines are good rules to follow regardless of any statutory relevance, the reality is if we are not being overseen we tend to be somewhat lax in compliance.

On May 2014, FASB issued Accounting Standards Update (ASU) 2014-09, Revenue from Contracts with Customers. As a result, nonpublic entities will be required to apply the revenue recognition standard. In the case of FASB 606, if you are subject to any audit oversight, whether it be the bank or a taxing agency, FASB 606 now becomes relevant. This is also relevant if revenue is used and or needed for verification. Lending institutions and those requiring financial statements for qualification have been requiring GAAP compliant financial statements and will likely begin to demand conformance to the new standards. Finally, CPAs offering attestation services will now give increased scrutiny to how firms recognize revenues on their contracts.

“Revenue is recognized when a company satisfies a performance obligation by transferring a promised good or service to a customer (which is when the customer obtains control of that good or service).”

Architects, Engineers, and Professional Service Firms that “sell” labor and drawings fall under this definition and will be subject to FASB 606.

Enter Deltek Vision Revenue Generation

Using Deltek Vision Revenue Generation was always a good idea for Project Management as it allows us to begin recognizing what we have earned as compared to what has been spent. This is done by using basic revenue generation factors such as: 

• Job to Date Spent (or as I refer to it “earn as you burn”)
• Percentage of Complete
• Milestones or Deliverables

Using Vision’s User Defined Revenue capabilities, these and other potential methods and formulas can also be developed.

Preparing Deltek Vision for FASB 606

All firms need to understand how this measure requirement relates to them and seek advice from CPAs and Tax Professionals to ensure they will meet the requirements. Our role is to work with you and your CPA to configure Deltek Vision appropriately to accommodate the methods. In advance of your discussion with your advisors, we will assist in the creation of commonly understood measures. 

To learn more about overall revenue recognition concepts in Deltek Vision, check out this past blog. For further information on how to set-up revenue generation methods related to FASB 606 in Deltek Vision, please reach out to us and a consultant will be in contact.

* Rana Blair contributed to this blog.