Customer Case Study
CDH Partners, Inc.

Architectural design firm uses Deltek Vision^® to drive organizational efficiency and lower staff costs

The Challenge

For over 30 years, CDH Partners has helped build hundreds of schools, medical facilities and places of worship. However, it was their back-office infrastructure that needed a better foundation. Even after converting from a DOS-based system to a more modern system called Protrax — an accounting product from Axium — much of CDH's data was unreliable at best. "Every bit of information was being re-keyed into spreadsheets across half a dozen databases," said Valerie Connors, CDH's Controller. "Across the board, we had zero confidence in the information we were pulling."

The data structure throughout the legacy systems was inconsistent, and this contributed to the lack of data reliability. "Everyone had their own unique way of entering, storing, and accessing the data, and we had no visibility across those databases," Connors continued. "Pulling together reports required a lot of detective work."

As the business grew, the existing Protrax system was unable to meet the needs of the organization. "Protrax felt behind the curve in terms of what we needed," Connors said. "And we didn't see much on the horizon."

The Solution

Connors chose Deltek Vision based on her positive experience implementing and using Deltek software in two other firms. "Based on my experience, I didn't need to look any further than Deltek Vision for our needs. It was a perfect fit," she said.

Compared to other options that were too generalized or required too much customization, Vision rose to the top. "Deltek looked the best to me. There was no other system that had the elegance and usability that Vision offered. It just felt right," Connors continued.

Specifically designed for professional services firms, Deltek Vision automates and integrates the planning, tracking, and administration of both resources and projects. CDH implemented Vision's accounting and project management modules and is in the process of implementing additional Vision modules. All the legacy systems, including Protrax, have been phased out.

The Deltek Advantage

Because all accounting and project management information is centralized within Vision, CDH saw results almost immediately. With reliable data to build on, invoices are now easily generated and understood, decreasing the likelihood of rejection, and cutting the billing cycle from a month to one week. It also helped to lower the days sales outstanding (DSO) significantly.

"Our new processes, powered by Vision, are simple and straightforward. Generating invoices is no longer a convoluted and time consuming process," Connors reported. "We gained so much efficiency by implementing Vision, we were able to cut our stress level in half." CDH also was able to reduce accounting staff and allocate key personnel to more value-added activities.

Reporting is easier as well. With company-wide visibility into the performance of projects and resources, project managers now have access to what they need, and can generate their own reports instead of going through accounting. "The principals and project managers are excited about having the ability to run their own reports, and being able to have confidence in the data," Connors continued. "My time has been freed up so I can review and analyze the information instead of running reports for people. It's made my job easier."

Dependable information has had a tremendous impact on CDH's efficiency and effectiveness. "Everyone did the best they could with the information that was available, but most people resorted to spreadsheets in order to have some level of confidence in the data," said Connors. "Now we trust the data we're working with. Vision has helped me overcome my biggest hurdle as controller – getting people to have confidence in the system and the information in it."

CDH at a glance

Company Name: CDH Partners, Inc.
Headquarters: Marietta, GA
Primary Business: CDH Partners is an architectural design firm specializing in schools, medical facilities, and places of worship. With over 100 employees, CDH also offers professional interior design, civil, mechanical and electrical engineering services to clients in the Southeastern United States.
URL: www.cdhpartners.com