TAIT Overcomes Operational Challenges with Deltek Vantagepoint

An interview with Jason Jones, CFO

TAIT is a family-owned business that recently celebrated 60 years of A&E industry excellence. The firm currently operates three interconnected companies: TAIT & Associates (civil engineering, survey, and architectural services), TAIT Environmental Services (construction and compliance testing for fuel storage systems) and TAIT Land (land entitlement services). The firm has headquarters in Orange County, California, with approximately 200 employees across multiple offices in California, Idaho, Colorado and Texas.

Deltek Vantagepoint Provides a More Flexible ERP Solution to Meet TAIT’s Needs

In pursuing operational efficiency, TAIT encountered challenges with its previous solution provider, BST Global. The main issue was its inability to seamlessly integrate data from field operations, particularly within TAIT Environmental Services, Inc. Technicians faced cumbersome manual processes when entering work orders, leading to data duplication and reconciliation issues. This inefficiency drove TAIT to seek an alternative ERP solution to better serve its diverse business lines.

TAIT's search for a more flexible ERP solution led them to Deltek Vantagepoint. Jason Jones, CFO, originally discovered the solution at Deltek ProjectCon, Deltek’s annual user conference, and was also recommended by his peers. Vantagepoint was chosen for its ability to address previous BST inefficiencies and provide enhanced flexibility.

"I attended a CFO roundtable in Southern California and had conversations with some members when looking for a new solution. Many of the CFOs had experience with Deltek products and recommended Deltek Vantagepoint," said Jason. He added, “Vantagepoint offered a more tailored solution that met TAIT's needs.”

The transition to Vantagepoint occurred in 2023, prompted by BST's limitations and the potential cost of migrating to a new BST platform.

"Besides BST not being flexible enough for our business, we were at the point where continuing to use the solution involved moving to a new platform, which would have been a great effort and expense. Since BST wasn't supporting our needs, the time was right to switch to Vantagepoint," remarked Jason.

Vantagepoint Provides Smoother Financial and Project Management Processes

Vantagepoint streamlined TAIT’s financial processes, offering automated user-friendly processes. The team took advantage of Vantagepoint interactive billing and field service suite integrated with EleVia, for a better, more effective electronic invoicing process and reduced duplication of efforts (time and unit entry), to save time and minimize errors. In addition, Vantagepoint’s automation of workflows, such as scheduled reports and reminders, is also helping the firm be more efficient and the solution’s intuitive dashboards offer detailed insights into project earnings and invoice tracking.

“The dashboards in Vantagepoint allow us to run analytics easier, unlike BST’s cumbersome analytics tool. For example, managers can click on labor billings and that information is easy to find,” said Jason.

The mobile expense app in Vantagepoint facilitates easy time and expense entry. Using traditional AI features in Vantagepoint, Intelligence Character Recognition (ICR) lets you scan expenses and offers a quick approval process.

Jason remarked, "We have staff working outside of the office and one of the benefits of Vantagepoint is the mobile expense app. You can easily input time and expense, and it is easy to push approvals into the system with just a click."

Exploring Vantagepoint’s Full Capabilities

TAIT has also begun using user-defined hubs to track staff certifications, improving previous Excel-based tracking methods. The firm has about 1,300 active certifications, and they need to keep track of what is expiring for each employee. Jason remarked, "Having this all-in-one hub is much more helpful than putting the information into Excel and an Outlook calendar."

The firm is leveraging workflows to send out automated emails about certifications approaching expiration. Reports are also sent to supervisors, giving them a heads-up on staff certification status and enhancing compliance management.

TAIT is also looking forward to using generative AI in Vantagepoint, which includes Smart Summaries and Ask Dela™, the AI-powered digital assistant. Smart Summaries is a tool to easily create high-level data summaries in hubs, such as information for clients or projects. Ask Dela extends beyond simply retrieving data. This powerful digital assistant can draft email messages on your behalf using data from Vantagepoint, saving you valuable time and effort.

"I am looking forward to digging into those new features and working to integrate them into our operations,” said Jason.

Advice for Firms Considering Deltek

Jason offers the following advice to other firms looking for a new ERP.

“As with any new implementation, ask more questions than you are comfortable with. Ensure you have the right partner and expertise, and consider the implementation from an internal perspective, focusing on your team’s involvement.”