Heather Stroud is a Senior Consultant in the Deltek Costpoint group at Redstone Government Consulting. She primarily works in the Accounting, Projects, and Planning modules. Redstone GCI's Costpoint Group works with our clients to implement Deltek Costpoint, create customized training, and assist with day-to-day processing. This two-part video and article discuss some common Deltek Costpoint questions and complaints we hear from our clients.
We work with our clients to implement Costpoint, create customized Costpoint training, and assist with day-to-day processing. We will sit down today to go over some common Costpoint questions we hear from our clients. Costpoint just doesn't seem to be intuitive or user-friendly.
Our Costpoint team has an overview presentation that will take you through the system's flow, explain how to understand the core configuration, and explain how that translates to your general ledger, project reporting, and financial statements. Costpoint can be a bit overwhelming at first. Our team provides customized step-by-step procedures with screenshots and one-on-one training to help your staff become comfortable with the software.
We are a very small company with no current government contracts, but we hope to win work soon. Is it worth my time to jump into Costpoint now versus down the road once we have grown?
Yes, always, yes. We can design your Costpoint system to meet your needs today and leave room to grow for future work. By implementing early, you will put yourself in a position to pass a DFARS accounting system audit. This also sets you up for the inevitable DCAA accounting system audit. Costpoint has 20 steps to any task that used to be one to two steps in our old accounting software.
Why is it so complicated?
Some of these steps are built-in mechanisms for data integrity and incorporate an approval process within the system. This helps integrate the DCAA review and approval requirements we discussed earlier. A good example is timesheets.
The manager approving the timesheet should review each employee's project and project labor category and verify that against the statement of work. We can't make the approvers check the data, but the system forces a second set of eyes to be responsible for that data. Yes, Costpoint does require many steps for common tasks.
Because of its flexibility, it can be complicated. However, with the proper configuration, settings, and project structure planning, the system can provide a solution to offline Excel spreadsheets commonly used for pricing, proposals, invoicing, and budgeting. Multiple tables are affected on the back end when you post a transaction in one module.
There are 1,400 tables in Costpoint. All transactions from time, expense, accounts payable, and accounts receivable are automatically posted to the general ledger during the Costpoint posting process. The project ledger is updated through a series of processes based on the data posted to your general ledger.
This removes the potential for human error when entering data into the general ledger and project ledgers. Ultimately, this helps the integrity of the data being passed to your customers through invoicing and project reporting.
Heather is a Senior Managing Consultant with Redstone Government Consulting, Inc. Her areas of expertise include supporting government contractors in the implementation and operation of Costpoint, assisting with employee training, and providing outsourced accounting services, including program control deliverables, financial analysis, forecasting, general ledger, unbilled analysis, reconciliation, accounts payable, accounts receivable, payroll, and payroll taxes. Heather specializes in best accounting practices, from setup and training to monthly processing. Heather has over 19 years of experience in government contracting, supporting a wide range of contract types and customers. Her areas of expertise include program control, financial analysis, forecasting, government cost accounting, and procurement. Heather’s hands-on technical experience in all aspects of the business department provides a unique set of expertise for our clients. Heather has led and participated in numerous Costpoint implementations and re-implementations for the Accounting, Projects, Subcontractor, and Planning modules. She has worked directly with our clients to design accounting systems that are meaningful and useful for each client. She provides training in these modules and has developed desktop procedures that allow for a quick and seamless transition and implementation of these modules. Her experience in utilizing and implementing Costpoint gives our clients a unique perspective on the best practices related to both implementation and government accounting procedures. Her knowledge and guidance of the setup and end-user experience helps to ensure our clients receive a fully configured system that not just meets their current needs but will also allow them room to grow within the Costpoint system in the future. Heather is also experienced in assisting clients with “day-to-day” accounting processes. She has experience with all the normal accounting processes, such as accounts payable, account receivable, journal entries, reconciliations, reporting, etc. She helps multiple clients to produce, review and submit all types of project billings, including experience with WAWF, NASA 533s and MORADO. She processes, reviews, and submits timekeeping, leave and payroll data for multiple clients on a regular basis. Heather’s knowledge and experience in all business departments provides an invaluable resource to our outsource clients.