Customer Success Story
SMSi (Solutions Made Simple, Inc.)
Deltek GCS Premier® Helps Engineering and IT Contractor Increase Efficiency and Ensure Compliance
The Challenge
Government engineering and IT contractor Solutions Made Simple, Inc. (SMSi), has a singular focus: to provide best-practice design, integration, implementation, and management to each project they manage. Since its founding in 2002, the company's growth was steadily outpacing the capacity and capability of their legacy infrastructure. “Nothing we had was able to keep up,” said Lance Petty, Chief Financial Officer. “We were happy to be growing, but we definitely had the pains to go along with it.”
With a growing list of customers as well as the introduction of their own proprietary software package, SMSi needed a robust solution to manage their expanding business that could also meet stringent government audit requirements. They also wanted fast, reliable access to metrics and data, and their current systems were lacking. “The combination of Peachtree and Excel was just too primitive to meet our growing needs,” Petty continued.
The Solution
In addition to the need for accurate metrics to make smarter business decisions, the risk of manual entry errors and the subsequent audits they might affect were enough to lead SMSi to invest in a more advanced system to manage accounting, time, and expense.
While exploring options, SMSi quickly added Deltek to its consideration set, based primarily on Deltek's reputation as an industry leader. “It's the standard,” Petty said. “Everyone knows what you get with Deltek, and our government clients like to see it too. It improves our credibility when we use Deltek solutions.”
However, even though Deltek had a strong reputation, the final decision was based more on the strength of the solutions themselves. “We looked at many separate time and accounting options, and were concerned that for the money, we'd still have to ensure that they'd play nicely together, which just meant more manual work,” Petty continued. “Deltek GCS Premier gave us both a robust time and expense system and an equally robust accounting system that were made to work together.”
Deltek GCS Premier is a powerful, easy-to-use solution that manages corporate finances and project accounting, while also dramatically reducing operating costs and expensive risks. Because it enables compliance with DCAA and other government requirements for cost accounting systems, GCS Premier can meet the financial management and audit needs of even the most demanding government contractor. Contractors that use GCS Premier typically experience increased financial control, reduced project costs, increased productivity at a lower cost, and tighter compliance with DCAA regulations.
Working with a professional services team from Deltek partner WJ Technologies, LLC (WiJiT), SMSi quickly implemented GCS Premier after purchasing the solution. “You would think that identifying the right tool is the magic, but in reality, it's also the smoothness of deployment. WiJit offered experts who know what we do, and what they're doing too,” Petty reported. “They were extraordinary.”
The Deltek Advantage
SMSi hasn't been surprised by the benefits they've seen with GCS Premier, and that's exactly what they wanted. “It does exactly what we need it to do – it's scalable so we don't have to worry any more about a system limiting our growth, it significantly reduces the amount of manual entry and human error, and it makes utilization analysis and invoicing much easier,” Petty said. “We get invoices out in days instead of weeks, and I can respond to data inquiries in minutes instead of days.”
In addition, the materials management module within GCS has enabled SMSi to take procurement out of the hands of their customers who lack the capability or staff to manage this process efficiently. As such, it has led to SMSi offering a value-added service on top of their existing solution.
Finally, by comparing revenue against contract or funded value and producing detailed variance reports, GCS Premier helps SMSi better track and manage progress against their financial forecasts. “Like they say,” Petty concluded, “you can't manage what you can't measure. Today we can measure so much more – and if I had it to do all over again, I'd choose Deltek every time.”
SMSi At A Glance
Company Name: Solutions Made Simple, Inc. (SMSi)
Headquarters: Reston, VA
Primary Business: Government contractor SMSi is an industry-leading provider of engineering, data-management and IT solutions, helping its customers protect and secure data, while also improving access, availability, and reuse.
| The Deltek Advantage |
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The implementation of Deltek GCS Premier enabled SMSi to:
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