Deltek Maconomy

A very powerful tool...a must for Government contractors.

Comments: Overall it is a great product. I have been a part of the implementation team for two companies and it was night and day once deltek came online. Things I learned:
Tips: 1) Run at least a 3 month if not a 6 month parallel with your old system, with your old system generating the live invoices.
2) Work out any bad numbers or problems in your old system, the one you know well, before migrating to the new system
3) Project set is the key. The system is based on how the project is originally set up, so make sure your staff is 100% comfortable in performing the project set up.
4) Have someone on staff who has gone through an implementation before, is very helpful.

Pros:

Project detail - The ability to understand the financial picture of your project or company from the highest level down to the charging level. Government bids - Allows the company to bid on Cost Plus type contracts with the confidence that the cost will be tracked and be reported to the Government's satisfaction.

Cons:

It is not a system you can sit down and in a couple of days figure it out intuitively. It is conceptually difficult to understand, if you have never used a system like this one.

Deltek user since about 2005.

Comments: I would recommend this software. Honestly, I can't imagine business without it!

Pros:

I'm a full service office manager in the Architectural / Engineering / Construction industry. I worked with Deltek Vision first and I absolutely LOVED the software! We updated from a very antiquated system to a full CRM and it was mostly seamless and allowed us to really clean up our data before migrating over (which was so valuable because it's a 70 yr old company). After about 6 months, I was chatting with the president of the company at a holiday party and he asked how I liked Vision and was very happy to hear me gushing about how much I loved it (I worked for a branch office). I never understood the old system and felt very lucky just to get my time sheet entered each week without 'issues'. It was so amazing to have our project marketing data connected to our accounting data! In 2013 I took a new job with a company that had recently migrated to Deltek Ajera (although, at the time, I'm not sure if Deltek owned it) and we only have the accounting system. It makes time sheets, payroll, and project accounting very easy but it does not incorporate marketing and leads and that sort of thing. I'm not sure how important it is to track that information from a financial standpoint but I feel very disconnected not having that information in Ajera (full project descriptions, project photos, employee photos and resumes, etc.) This is a small office and the President handles most of the marketing and he has a system that works for him but if it comes time to update I will definitely push hard for the full system! Customer service is great for the most part! I get someone on the phone within minutes and it's rare to have a problem they can't fix right then or remote into my computer to show me how.

Cons:

With Ajera there are a few glitches but they're constantly updating and trying to work things out. There's a few annoying functions like when you try to get out of a screen it will make you hit save or cancel to get out (maybe just annoying for me because patience with tech is not my strong point). The one other issue that really bothers me is that we pay per year for support for all 7 employees but I'm the only one that ever uses it and not often. They told me that there's no way around that and I can't pay for just me. I think that's way too much money, especially considering I call them about once a month max.

Deltek First GovCon - GCS and T&E modules

Comments: Administrator on the Deltek First GovCon - GCS and T&E modules for approximately 2 years. There was very little training or support offered. If you needed help you had to log into their customer service portal and submit a case - and of course you had to make sure you had enough cases available (i.e. you have to pay to have cases to use for support). Although I did get a few customer support agents who went above and beyond, the majority of the time the support was slow and they just directed me to printed training guides which were not easy to follow. The system is not user friendly at all, it takes several steps in different parts of the system to make sure things are done rather than having automatic work flows. The time sheet module worked well on the employee side however a lot of setup and maintenance was necessary on the back end. I would not recommend this product except as a last resort for government contractors, if you do purchase it, make sure to have them include extra training and support cases up front.

Pros:

Timesheet system has good features and is easy to use on the employee side. Some of the customer service reps were great and went above and beyond for help.

Cons:

Very little training or support offered and only through customer service portal case submission. Not user friendly on the admin side with no automatic work flows and a lot of extra steps for anything that needs to be done.

My experience with Deltek Vision

Comments: I overall enjoy the product, and have enjoyed it for many years now. I do recommend this software for project based industries, but I would like to see some reporting enhancements and more customization features.

Pros:

It's a one-stop-shop for project management and HR. There really isn't a need for other software programs, and minimizes the use of Excel. It's so easy to use that it's hard to use, but once you understand it's basic functionality, you pretty much understand the way the software works.

Cons:

If there's an option that I want, like adding a new billing status, that is not easy to do. Report writing should be an option all of the time- there are very specific reports that I want and it's not easy to get that-I usually have to pull 3-4 reports, export into Excel and format myself. I don't want to have to active the cloud, learn SQL server/Vision studio and reporting, and upload to be able to get the report that I want. Other than those things, the software is brilliant.

Information Powerhouse

Pros:

Maconomy has proven to be an information powerhouse, giving us access to information that was outside our grasp in our legacy system. Due to Maconomy's core project management focus, we have gained better visibility on contribution margin. This has lead us to new initiatives to optimize leverage on client projects and fine tune realization. What is great about working with Deltek's consulting team is that the possibilities are endless. We were fortunate enough to be one of their first clients on their CPA solution and as a result we have seen so many of our ideas come to life in the core product.

Cons:

With a system as customizable as Maconomy, the ideas may be endless but the time you need to devote to testing new upgrades can be taxing. However, Deltek has been great at walking us through new functionality and is always there as a resource to help us through any issues that arise.