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A common misconception for professional services firms is how to handle and manage write-offs of billable time and project expenses. For starters, understanding why write-offs (also known as "loses") occur is important. A common reason write-offs occur is the inefficient use of a person’s time and resources. You might ask, why do we not charge these expenses to the client if the time was spent or a resource was utilized for a specific project? Assuming these excesses were the result of your own firm’s inefficiencies and not a result of the client, absorbing these costs is fair to the client and also a good way to win more business from them. Additionally, if your firm is using Deltek Vision, handling write-offs is a simple process.

Write-Offs in Deltek Vision

Within Deltek Vision, write-offs will occur when a transaction posts. This will be identified for regular charge type projects as the following:

1. Not earned in a revenue generation calculation
2. Not invoiced either by:
   • leaving the transaction in B or to be billed status
   • leaving the transaction in H or held status
   • placing the transaction in W or to be written off status
   • placing the transaction in D or to be deleted status

In either case, the action of not billing or earning doesn’t remove the cost or burn value of the transaction from the project. This results in no matching revenue recognition, and let’s admit it, there is no way to delay the inevitable.

Tracking Losses in Deltek Vision
Now that the loss has occurred, it’s time to track them. Write-offs will appear in several places:

1. As negative profit on a Project or Office Earning Report when run at “cost”
2. As a negative variance on the above reports when run at “billing”
3. On the Project Review screen (cost and billing tab) in the profit/variance box
4. As a contributor to the Profit/Loss row on the Income Statement

Over the years, I have learned that not only best practice, but in many cases, statutory practice is to ensure when losses become apparent they must be addressed and accrued for in total. Using the functionality and reporting capabilities of Deltek Vision will provide the avenue to accomplish this.

 

Ready to learn about the much-anticipated release of Deltek Vision 7.5? With each new version of Vision, Deltek strives to include new features and enhancements to help your firm know more to do more! Let’s take a look and see what’s new with Deltek’s newest version of Vision.

Deltek Vision 7.5 Features and Enhancements:

• Focus to Client Nurturing | The new Client Activity Status Report allows users to quickly and visually identify clients that need attention. Add a touch of color! The new feature allows you to highlight your activities by color to easily identify clients that need follow-up.
• Proposals Made Easier | Sometimes it’s the small things that make a big impact. Deltek has made the proposal process easier. The improved proposal module allows users to apply the selection criteria to all projects and employees at the same time. Users can also choose default graphics and have an easy-to-select graphic option. Even more, users can select project experience based on actual hours worked and merge service estimates totals. Lastly, InDesign users now have the ability to display multiple records on one page. All of these little enhancements save time during the proposal creation process.
• Newly Created Asset Management Module | Now all of your fixed assets are in one place to increase tracking and decision-making. The New Vision Asset Management Module is integrated with the purchasing and accounting functions within Vision to enable you to create, track, manage, depreciate, and dispose of your fixed assets in one central location. Be sure to inquire about Q1 2016 incentives.
• Manage Employees with Ease Across Multiple Companies | Vision Multi-Company just got way better! In 7.5, Multi-Company Employees can be associated with more than one company with a designated “home” company. More importantly, employee specific data carries over to each company allowing for company-specific and system-wide reporting. Find out more about the new Multi-company features here.  
• Approvals Simplified | Stop with the endless email chains full of approval requests. In the version of Vision, absence requests and accounts payable invoices can be approved by designing simple or complex workflows to automate the approval process.
• Better Forecast Revenue and Expenses | In Vision 7.5, the general ledger (GL) enhancements allow users to consolidate budgeting into a single view allowing for better insight into your business. This new functionality allows you to create, manage, review, edit, and approve multiple GL budgets from a single view. Learn more about these enhancements here.
• Save Time Reconciling Bank Statements | In this latest version of Vision, users can import bank statements, automatically match records, and review records to manually match any remaining transactions.
• Smarter Project Planning | Building on the power of task dependencies in 7.4, project managers now can effectively manage project schedules and closely track a project’s critical path and identify schedule risks. Additionally, color-coded predecessor tasks, expanded right-click functionality, and better integration with iAccess are just a few highlights to enable your project managers to make smarter decisions.
• Keep Up with Project & Business Development On-The-Go | Obtaining the information you need on-the-go just got better. iAccess 2.2 enhancements now provides users the ability to create saved custom searches on any field, including custom fields. With an improved interface and screen designer settings enhancements, iAccess is becoming the go-to tool to access project metrics and business development updates anywhere at any time.
• Improved Touch Capabilities | Deltek Touch now supports iPhones & iPads with iOS 8+, Android Phones and Tablets with OS 4.1+, and Windows Phones with OS 8.1. Building upon timesheet and expense capabilities, users now have timesheet auditing available on their mobile devices.
• Much More | Deltek Vision 7.5 provides even more enhancements for accounting and project management with greater connectivity and better user interfaces.

Have questions about the newest enhancements and features included in Deltek Vision 7.5, or looking for information on how to upgrade to 7.5? Reach out to us, and we will be happy to help you get a grasp on all of the new functionality available to your firm!

 

Is your firm still using spreadsheets to plan your projects? The good news is that you’re not alone, recent research from Zweig White found that almost 50% of AE firms are doing the same. The bad news is that using spreadsheets as an enterprise planning tool is very likely costing you time and money. Spreadsheets, while they are familiar to people and easy to customize, lack the many benefits of an integrated planning system. As I meet with Architecture and Engineering firms we hear common complaints and challenges about their spreadsheet planning “solutions”.  

Do any of these problems sound familiar? If so this may be the year to retire your spreadsheet in favor of an enterprise resource planning system.

Here are 5 Reasons why Spreadsheets are Challenging Your Entire Enterprise

1) Multiple Versions of the “Truth” Haunt Staffing Meetings

We find that firms that use spreadsheets to plan staffing assignments tend to end up with multiple versions of the truth. This tends to create havoc during staffing meetings as each manager has their own version of the truth, creating meeting havoc, and leading to errant meetings that lack focus. Say no to meeting havoc and refocus your staffing meetings on adjusting plans and assignments.    

2) Inability to Show Real-time and Accurate Actuals

Spreadsheets are great to start planning a project, but once the project starts evolving updating the spreadsheet becomes a tedious process that PMs quickly give up on. As the project progresses, spreadsheets struggle to show actual hours and costs spent to date. Even worse, a firm will devote manual hours requiring employees to track this information by hand – rather than investing in an integrated planning system that streamlines this process.

3) Disconnected Month End Processes

During the month end process, spreadsheets create chaos for accounting. The root cause of all this chaos stems from the duplicate and manual labor spawned from disconnected spreadsheets. Firms that use an integrated planning system eliminate the burden of spreadsheets to allow accounting to focus on financial performance; freeing up PMs to focus on project success.  

4) Project Managers and Management at Odds

Project Managers often find themselves at odds with management when it comes to staffing decisions – PMs need new resources; management thinks there is too much overhead. Firms without a way to plan staffing assignments are left with only their best ‘guesstimates’ when it comes time to validate new hires. Successful firms justify new hires by utilizing a single project management system to look at current staffing capacity compared to future assignments.

5) Adjustment Failure

Firms utilizing spreadsheets to identify project profitability goals at the beginning of the project often fail to adjust throughout the project lifecycle. Those that do try to adjust their spreadsheets work with outdated information. This lag in data creates the inability to make real-time decisions about staffing and scheduling that can impact the success of a project. By investing in a project management system connected to financials provides firms the ability to view up-to-date-billing, resource and revenue forecasts.

There is a Better Way with an Integrated Planning System

Imagine if you were able to standardize your planning process across the entire firm. Standardization allows your firm to strengthen communication amongst project managers, accounting and management; providing insight for the firm as a whole. Ready to ditch the spreadsheet? Check out one of the ways your firm can handle project planning and staffing in this upcoming webinar.

 

Did you know in Deltek Vision you can view multiple records at one time through a list view? The list view was a featured added in version 7 allowing you the ability to group, filter, organize and quickly export a list. The List View is listed at the top of any Info Center’s top navigation allowing you to view multiple records.

Be sure to check out our video demonstrating all of the features of Deltek Vision's List View.

 

 

 

I came across an article the other day written by ASCE Past President, Andrew W. Herrmann on the Golden Gate Bridge’s 75th anniversary celebration. The article Celebrating ‘Built to Last’ – Which Actually Demands a Lot of Maintenance, discussed the investment of on-going infrastructure maintenance and it got me thinking. The AEC industry touts about the government investing in infrastructure and how neglecting airports, highways, and bridges is more costly if it isn't maintained. The IT world has been saying the same about IT systems and databases. Is your firm guilty of not maintaining your IT infrastructure?  

Let's take a look at some on-going maintenance that your firm may be overlooking:  

Backup Mistakes

Unfortunately, for municipalities and governments, there is no backup for when a bridge or building falls apart. That is to say, there is no way to restore the bridge with a click of a button in the same way your firm can to restore lost data. Preparing for failure and implementing a reliable backup plan is essential to maintaining the integrity of your data.

The problem is many people believe this is an easy and mindless task, but often make some very common mistakes.

1. Many firm’s only test their backups periodically, and it either becomes a forgotten task or done improperly. Verifying backups is a useful practice to ensure data is intact, readable, and can be restored if data is ever lost.
2. Many firms that have their own servers tend to only backup data and not the server’s operating system and applications. While this practice saves time and valuable memory on the server, it can often be more costly in the future if the server itself fails. For example, it is much easier to restore the operating system, the applications and then the data than it is to manually install the operating system and setup the applications.   

Server and Hardware Failure

Normal wear and tear of the roads and bridges is the primary reason for the need to perform ongoing maintenance. It is required to ensure physical integrity for years to come. Likewise, many firms overlook the parts of their IT infrastructure that are prone to wear and tear. Although most of the components of servers and hardware are electrical, they also contain a few mechanical parts that tend to be more prone to failure. The reality is, as these components age, they tend to experience wear and tear that will inevitably result in a failure.

Interesting enough, failure can be avoided if you’re aware of common warning signs.

1. Servers and hardware are designed to operate while creating minimal noise. If you start hearing a clicking or grinding sign coming from your server or computer, it’s likely you’re going to experience a failure soon.
2. Mechanical failure is the result of wear and tear, plan on replacing servers and hardware more frequently to avoid the unexpected and dreaded failure.

Avoiding Updates

An ACEC whitepaper titled, Our Infrastructure Crisis – Your Turn to Act noted that one of the consequences of under-investment by municipalities and governments is an aging and outdated energy infrastructure. Aside from the inefficiencies of using outdated technologies, the cost to update the energy infrastructure is going to be massive. The problem is that the energy infrastructure has to work in sync, therefore updating one component means other key components will need to be replaced so the overall system can continue to work in harmony.  These same consequences can affect a firm using outdated software.

When deciding to update your antiquated software, you may also have to update other enterprise software your firm uses and maybe some hardware as well.

1. Firms using older software that runs on unsupported operating systems, such as Windows XP, will have to update their hardware to support the new software.
2. Also, even if your operating system may support some newer software, those can potentially impact other software that are reliant upon them.

The take away here is that using supported and current software versions might seem expensive, but in the long run, it pays to stay up-to-date. By not being on the most current software, your firms' productivity and efficiency can greatly deminish. 

The Big Picture

Just like municipalities and governments failing to maintain the roads, bridges and airports, AEC firms can experience significant costs for failing to maintain their IT infrastructure. The big picture is that maintaining your IT infrastructure requires you to ensure you backup your information, proactively prevent server and hardware failure, and most importantly, stay-up-date.    

 

Introducing the Deltek Vision Constant Contact Connector! Full Sail Partners unveiled a new breed of Deltek Vision connectivity at the Deltek Insight Conference.These ready-to-go solutions included an integration to Constant Contact. This cutting edge technology allows firms to integrate to Constant Contact at a fraction of the development time and cost needed to build out a similar solution from scratch. Any Deltek Vision user can utilize this solution no matter if they are in the cloud or on-premise. 

When developing the solution, our own team was challenged by the manual process we had to go through on almost a weekly basis and heard of many other Deltek Vision users faced with the same challenge. During the development of the solution the Full Sail Partners team sought to: 

• Allow users to utilize the existing Marketing Campaign functionality to associate contacts and leads
• Eliminate the manual push of contact and lead data to Constant Contact
• Provide visibility and searching capabilities to unsubscribe, open, clicks, forwards and bounce data in Vision
• Report on single email lists in one Marketing Campaign for all email mailings or single mailings, i.e. newsletters
• Weed out duplicates and poorly formatted email addresses prior to mailings 

We invite you to view our video to learn more about our Deltek Vision Constant Contact Connector. Additionally, Full Sail Partners has partnered with Constant Contact to also offer new Constant Contact clients a discount off your subscription. Happy marketing!   

Interested in Connecting Your Deltek Vision System to the Outside World?

Want to learn more about this new breed of API connection tool that can be used on-premise and in the cloud? Full Sail Partners the first and only solution provider to bring you applications that can immediately connect to your Deltek Vision product with little to no effort from your IT department. Start doing more with your Deltek Vision system!

 

Learn More

Ready to learn more about the features offered in Deltek Vision CRM? Sign up for our virtual webinar:

Full Sail Partners unveils new custom solutions and integrated offerings for Deltek Vision® ERP at Deltek Insight 2015. The Vision Connector Suite includes ready-to-go solutions focused on keeping professional services firms centered on efficient production by connecting their critical business systems.

The Full Sail Partners Vision Connector Suite allows quick connections from Deltek Vision to other API capable applications. This next generation framework allows both Deltek Vision cloud and on-premise systems to seamlessly integrate with best-in-class cloud applications like Constant Contact, MailChimp, SharePoint for Office 365, Client Feedback Tool, and more. This cutting edge technology allows firms to integrate critical business systems at a fraction of the development time and cost needed to build out similar solutions, with none of the traditional network topology restrictions. Solutions include:

Automated Feedback Process

Full Sail Partners is releasing version 2.0 for the Client Feedback Tool, a cloud solution built to help firms collect and incorporate feedback from their clients throughout the project life cycle. Leveraging the Vision Connector between these two systems was ideal for a prebuilt integration. A team of experts developed an automated process to reduce redundancy and improve efficiency while adhering to the feedback philosophy set forth by the Client Feedback Tool. Full Sail Partners integration with the Client Feedback Tool allows Deltek Vision clients to deploy surveys on-demand or through a batch process, as well as, view the survey response status directly in Vision.

Email Marketing Connectors

Deltek Vision now integrates with Constant Contact enabling firms to populate data directly to their email marketing tool from Deltek Vision CRM in a matter of minutes. The Connector maintains consistency between the two applications and eliminates manual importing and exporting of data. This mutual relationship between data will save marketing teams hundreds of hours each year. The solution provides tracking capabilities through the Deltek Vision Marketing Campaigns Info Center providing visibility that can be leveraged throughout the system. 

Deltek Vision Meets SharePoint Office 365

The SharePoint Connector is a quick and easy way to bring data in Deltek Vision and SharePoint into harmony. Beyond basic connectivity, the SharePoint Connector also integrates with Gig Werks’ ProjectReady Suite of Applications’ best in class SharePoint solutions built for the AEC industry. This bi-direction data synchronization ensures data accuracy and consistency across all of your projects.

“We look forward to expanding our investment in business productivity and integration offerings,” said Peter Nuffer, Director of Solution Development at Full Sail Partners. “We’ve effectively established a layer of functionality on top of the Vision API that will allow Deltek Vision administrators to setup easy point and click ready-to-go solutions with low costs and high tech results.”