Redstone Government Consulting Blog | Deltek Costpoint (3)

Wow! It’s hard to believe half the year is already over. Summertime brings great outdoor time in the sun, much needed vacations, and a slowdown period of accounting deadlines. Hopefully, the hustle and bustle of year end closing, audits and Incurred Cost Submission are now complete and the summer months can provide valuable work time to catch up with any back burner projects, as well as an opportunity to get a head start on upcoming year-end needs. Here are some suggestions for your third quarter focus:

• Reconciliations
• Backlog
• Training
• Government Fiscal Year Preparedness
• Schedule FUN Time!

Now that year-end and quarter 1 is behind us, what is next? If you guessed Incurred Cost Submissions (ICS), you are correct. June 1^st is fast approaching and there are a few housekeeping items you can do to ensure that your accounting team has an efficient and painless process ahead of them.

Heather Stroud is a Senior Consultant in Redstone Government Consulting's Deltek Costpoint group. She primarily works in the Accounting, Projects, and Planning modules for Deltek Costpoint. The 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.

Did you miss Part 1? You can view it here

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.

The Redstone GCI Costpoint group recently attended a Deltek partner meeting to learn more about the changes coming in the latest 8.1 version release. A highly requested feature from our client base, this update contains real time integration of data between Costpoint and Time & Expense. The system will no longer need to pass data back and forth for UDTs (User Defined Tables) 1-11, which include the major master data of Account, Project, PLC, Pay Type, and Organization.

Source: Deltek blog

A full DCAA Business System Audit can be the longest and one of the most difficult audits a government contractor can experience. To provide some perspective, at a recent audit of one of our clients, DCAA sent 15 auditors to perform the audit. In general, our experience is that these audits take 12 months to over 18 months for DCAA to perform.

Deltek Costpoint Planning provides access to up-to-date, accurate information for developing, adjusting, auditing, approving, and re-forecasting project budgets and annual operating plans. We usually see three types of users in the Planning module: Business Development, Project Managers, and Project Control/Financial Analysts. Business Development users have access to develop new business budgets. Project Managers can create project budgets and run meaningful reports allowing them to make real time decisions and properly manage their programs. Project control/financial analysts can develop organization budgets and reconcile corporate and project budgets more accurately to better forecast their indirect rates.

As we approach the third quarter of the year, now is a good time to review your payroll setup and wages for accuracy. I often find that whether the client is a seasoned payroll processor, or new to Costpoint and payroll in general, there can be errors in wages that are not obvious in day-to-day processing. There are numerous actions you can take to prepare for a smooth year end. For example, start by ordering forms early in the last quarter of the year. Many sources for W2s, 1099s, ACA forms, etc. will sell out in January. Also, be sure to register for access to the Social Security Administration for W2 upload since this process can be time consuming waiting on the access codes to be snail mailed.

The Redstone GCI Costpoint group finalized participation in the Early Adopter 8.1 testing program at the end of June. In this wrap-up we want to focus on the Projects and Contracts modules of Costpoint, as well as some additional highlights for Time and Expense. We are thankful for the opportunity to partner with Deltek on this program and are excited to see the new release of the update in the future.

Redstone GCI has been pleased to be a part of the Early Adopter testing program for Costpoint version 8.1. There have been numerous changes and improvements within the system in all modules, but we would like to highlight the below areas that our consultants found most useful.