Customer Success Story
CNSI

IT systems services provider manages over $50 million in revenue growth with Deltek Costpoint^®

The Challenge

Established in 1994, CNSI is a self-described “business intelligence enabler of IT systems worldwide,” serving both government and commercial clients, particularly in the health care industry. The 850-employee company which is headquartered in Rockville, Maryland generated $76 million in annual revenue for 2004 working with clients such as the FAA, the Department of Homeland Security, the Census Bureau, Amtrak and the states of Washington and Maine.

Back in 1999, CNSI was just beginning a steady surge in revenue, hovering at $20 million in annual earnings. This was primarily due to the company's foray into prime federal contracting. According to Jeffrey Weisenborne, vice president of accounting and finance, it was at that point that CNSI realized it needed new accounting software that would not only be able to handle their fast-paced growth, but also the unique business requirements of the government contracting industry.

”We had been using Peachtree at the time to handle our contract and financial data,” Weisenborne said. “As a subcontractor to Computer Sciences Corporation, its simplicity had never been an issue until we entered the world of prime contracting and our growth boom began.” As a result, CNSI turned to Deltek to fulfill the company's financial and project accounting needs.

The Solution

Around 2000, CNSI purchased and began implementing Deltek Costpoint, the back-end accounting solution at the core of the Deltek Enterprise suite. “I myself have been a Deltek client for more than 15 years, working with various government contractors,” Weisenborne said. “When I came to CNSI in 2000, the company had just begun implementing Costpoint and training employees in its use. It was great to see the CNSI had chosen an accounting solution that I had come to rely on and trust. They were really impressed with its project tracking capabilities, single-point-of-entry feature and the flexibility of the entire system.”

CNSI finished implementing the Deltek solution in just six months. Today, Costpoint provides CNSI with core accounting functions, including accounts payable, accounts receivable, general ledger and billing, enabling CNSI to handle anywhere from 50 to 60 active projects at any given time. CNSI also utilizes Deltek Time Collection for 1250 users and materials management for purchase orders.

The Benefits

According to Weisenborne automation is a key benefit of the Deltek solution, eliminating countless man hours previously spent tracking project data. “Costpoint gives you the option of putting bill rates by person or by project,” he said. “Once labor is posted in the system, the process of calculating revenue and creating bills literally becomes a one-button-push system.

“Costpoint saves us at least seven days a month from having to manually enter all of our information to ensure that time is being accurately charged,” he continued. “That means bills are being sent out four days sooner and increasing cash flow in the process.” Weisenborne also points to Deltek Time Collection as a key example of how automation saves both money and time. Now when employees post labor, built-in controls prevent them from posting time to defunct or incorrect projects, saving the company from making potentially costly data entry errors.

Weisenborne added that with less man hours spent on posting labor, CNSI's accounting staff is kept at a minimum. “The automation of all our project accounting data has saved our company from the salary expenses of what at least three or four full-time staffing positions would equal — roughly $160,000 a year,” he said. “Costpoint has also dropped our day sales outstanding (DSO) rate by at least 10 to 12 days.”

Weisenborne also sees time and cost savings with Costpoint's single point-of-entry feature, claiming that the solution's fully integrated database helps to reduce and eliminate duplicate data entry as well as the risk of human error. According to Weisenborne, another noteworthy benefit of using Costpoint is the trust factor. Unlike CNSI's previous solution, Deltek provides built-in safeguards that exist specifically to protect the user.

“Comparing Deltek to Peachtree is literally like night and day, especially when it comes to traceability and accountability,” Weisenborne said. “There were no safeguards with Peachtree, no audit trail and no measures in place to prevent against the risk of manual error — a mistake that could potentially cost the company millions of dollars. Costpoint allows tracking on indirect costs that can be stored and managed by each individual project.”

Finally, Weisenborne cited increased communication across CNSI as another benefit of the Deltek solution. Using Costpoint, CNSI is able to run key financial and project reports on topics such as project status, budget, and labor distribution. “While there are just seven people in the accounting department, all our employees on a project level have exposure to the system's financial data through these easy-to-navigate reports,” he explained.