Customer Success Story
McMunn Associates, Inc. (MAI)
Small Research Firm Uses GCS Premier® To Bring Project Accounting And Contract Management Up To Speed
The Challenge
Defense contractor MAI experienced significant growth in the years following September 11, 2001, as the company offered in-demand services such as information analyst training, emergency management exercises and national security consulting. The firm also had only seven employees prior to 1999, but has since grown to 90 employees.
Before their expansion, MAI had been using a combination of spreadsheets and Quickbooks Pro to manage their financial and project accounting across the company. According to Leigh Wilson, Chief Operating Officer at MAI, Quickbooks was unable to manage the firms various billing processes, including indirect job costing and job rates. In addition, there were limited controls to prevent critical project data from being accidentally manipulated by an employee.
“We were using Excel spreadsheets to handle our billing and cost allocations,” Wilson said. “It was a long, time-consuming process and we were always afraid of the potential for serious mistakes. As a result, we never fully trusted our data without extensive checks and balances.”
There was also no interaction between MAI’s accounting and timekeeping processes. “We were using paper timesheets, which were manageable considering our size in the ‘90s although they took almost an hour to process on a biweekly basis,” said Wilson.
As MAI began to increase in employee, revenue and project size, they began a search for new enterprise management software to accommodate the project accounting needs of their growing organization. MAI initially turned to Deltek at the recommendation of Aronson & Company, one of the Mid-Atlantic region’s premier accounting and consulting firms, and a Deltek partner. MAI was a tax client of Aronson for quite some time, according to Kathy Fuller, a senior consultant at the firm. “Our firm helped MAI thru an extensive DCAA audit and because of that, we knew that their current system was not capable of supporting them through their growth,” Fuller said.
The Solution
With Fuller’s recommendation, MAI licensed Deltek GCS Premier, Deltek’s enterprise management software for small to mid-sized government contractors. “Deltek integrated financial and project accounting and timekeeping into one, single solution,” Wilson said. “Also, with Deltek’s extensive consulting and training services available, we knew that our company would never be hung out to dry.”
MAI went live with GCS Premier in January 2004, turning to Aronson to outsource their financial and project accounting needs, such as billing and timekeeping. “By outsourcing their accounting processes, MAI has seen significant cost-savings now that they are no longer required to maintain a full-time accounting staff,“ Fuller said.
The Benefits
MAI has seen several improvements to its business processes since implementing GCS Premier. “GCS Premier provides accurate, real-time project information which in turn, has provided a better frame of mind for our project managers,” Wilson said.
According to Wilson, data visibility has also significantly increased. “With GCS Premier, we have access to intuitive reporting tools that allow us to drill down into several levels of detail per contract,” Wilson explained. “With Deltek, we know that all our most critical project data is controlled within our database, and protected with tight internal controls and intuitive checks and balances.”
In addition to improvements in project data, MAI has also seen definite productivity gains across the entire organization. “Now that you can generate rates with the click of a button, rather than having to manually calculate them on an Excel spreadsheet, our timeliness and efficiency has improved by leaps and bounds,” said Wilson.
GCS Premier also provides MAI with multiple task orders on one contract, which QuickBooks could only handle through manual manipulation of the system—a tedious process that Wilson says she could never seem to trust.
As an integrated solution with GCS Premier, Deltek Time Collection has proved to be a valuable and time-saving tool for MAI. “We used to spend an hour or more handling paper timesheets, where now it just takes two minutes per pay period to process them,” Wilson said.
About McMunn Asociates, Inc.
Established in 1992, McMunn Associates, Inc. (MAI) provides professional management and technical consulting services to organizations responsible for national security. With proven expertise and performance in maritime and intermodal transportation, infrastructure security, crisis management, operational analyst training and e-knowledge management, MAI maintains a long client list of high-profile federal agencies that includes the FBI, the Department of Energy (DOE), the Department of Defense (DOD), the U.S. Coast Guard, the Office of Naval Intelligence and the DIA. Most of MAI employees sit on remote government sites in Honolulu, San Diego, Colorado Springs, or several locations across Florida.