Adaptic Uses the Latest Costpoint Innovations to Save 100 Hours Per Week

High-Stakes Work Calls for an Intelligent ERP Platform

Adaptic LLC, a women-owned small business (WOSB), was formed in 2019 to support the Intelligence Community with software development, systems engineering, and data science. With 75 employees supporting 35 different programs in Maryland, they aim to provide unparalleled customer solutions and support while creating a great workplace for their employees. Part of this effort includes enhancing operational efficiency so they can be as competitive as possible when it comes to hiring and retaining top talent.

Challenge: Rapid Growth Outpacing Financial Systems

Since 2019, Adaptic has achieved significant growth, doubling in size every few years, growing from 5 to 75 employees in less than 5 years. But as the business expanded, their patchwork of tools, including QuickBooks® and separate systems for timekeeping, payroll, and retirement, quickly became a barrier to scale. Managing core financial processes across disconnected platforms created extra work, limited visibility, and made it difficult to operate with the rigor government contracting demands. They soon realized that if they wanted to continue growing, they needed a single, purpose‑built ERP system that could support the way government contractors work. From the beginning, they approached growth with a clear understanding that smart technology choices would be essential to running a modern government contracting business.

Solution: Deltek Costpoint® to Support Their Growing Business

Sarah Dabney, Adaptic’s President and CEO, and Aaron Solar, CFO and CIO at Adaptic, said they ultimately selected Costpoint to support the evolution and expansion of the business. “When we first started the company, we used QuickBooks. Then we added TSheets for timekeeping, Gusto for payroll, and Guideline for retirement management,” Aaron explained. “That worked, more or less, until Adaptic grew to five people. Then, a need for accrual-based accounting and automating indirect rates structures became important, as well as more efficiently processing payroll. It was at that point we knew that we had outgrown QuickBooks.”

When asked what the defining criteria were for choosing Costpoint, Aaron said it was because of how it supports the requirements for highly regulated, high-stakes government work. “Our main goal was to invest in an accounting system that worked seamlessly with the DCAA (Defense Contract Audit Agency). We also wanted to expand to other agencies and have the ability for unlimited cost pools,” Aaron explained. “With the Deltek architecture, you really can’t get better – no matter what size or scale or design you want your company to be – you have the flexibility to design that kind of indirect cost structure.”

Based on our knowledge of other systems such as Unanet, PROCAS, Jamis, and Corp Pro, we already knew that we were not interested in going with those platforms. We sole-sourced Costpoint, knowing what the capabilities are and knowing it was the solution our business needed long term.”

For Adaptic, choosing Costpoint wasn’t just about replacing QuickBooks; it was about building an infrastructure that kept them audit‑ready at all times. Costpoint’s controls, audit trails, and indirect architecture aligned perfectly with the compliance posture they wanted as a long‑term differentiator.

Results: Cutting Billing Time by More Than 95%

They went live on Costpoint on June 1, 2020, and quickly started to gain measurable benefits. “When using QuickBooks, it would take us on average 8 to 10 hours per month to accurately complete billing, and not have invoices rejected,” Aaron explained. “Now with Costpoint, that time is down to approximately 20 or 30 minutes.”

Aaron added that having everything in one place as a single source of truth has also been critical for staying on top of contact requirements and being prepared for future work. Over the last five years, they've also stayed committed to remaining up to date on the latest innovations and new releases of Costpoint to make sure they remain competitive.

Adopting the Latest Innovations to Improve the Bottom Line

With Costpoint GCCM operating in a secure, high‑compliance cloud environment, Adaptic enjoys a “sleep‑easy‑at‑night” experience, where upgrades and patches are taken care of for them. In 2024, they began taking advantage of every quarterly release and have been actively implementing and utilizing the powerful innovation and AI features from Dela™ to enhance operations and reduce overhead. “It’s an opportunity to use better tools and more advanced capabilities that automate the stuff we've been doing for years. When we do that, our people can contribute their expertise and skills to a more impactful, long-term project.” Adaptic leverages Dela for:

• Ask Dela for real-time answers during customer calls.
• Smart Summaries to quickly digest complex data.
• MS Teams Integration for seamless time entry and approvals.
• Real-Time Data Calls to instantly access bill rates and funding modifications.

Making Time & Expense as Simple as Possible

In addition to adopting Dela capabilities within Costpoint, Adaptic is also making use of the AI digital assistant, Ask Dela, and the Costpoint MS Teams app to streamline processes, including time and expense, saving an estimated 100 hours per week collectively.

Adopting Dela and the Teams app was an obvious choice. Employees working outside government buildings were getting bogged down trying to log time in different places, and this gave them one place to do it without the hassle. They were already a Microsoft-first company, using Microsoft Office 365 in a GCC High environment for their entire firm, so it was an easy transition while still keeping the necessary security controls to limit data access to approved personnel.

“All the people who are boots on the ground—whether an embedded developer or a systems engineer—they know Microsoft tools,” says Solar. “They’re already logged into Microsoft Teams, so they can quickly do a time sheet right on there, and it makes everyone happy.”

Aaron said turning on Costpoint’s Dela capabilities was a simple click of a button, and implementing the Teams app took less than 10 minutes to install. Immediately, they started to see an impact on operations and employee satisfaction.

“By automating or utilizing the tools as much as we can, we don't need a bloated infrastructure. This means more bottom-line dollars to employee salaries and compensation and benefits."

Adaptic had historically struggled with late timecards, especially considering that some are due at different times throughout the week – some on Thursday, some on Friday, and some over the weekend, which resulted in missing timesheets that affected payroll. Aaron said, “If your timesheets are late, that starts messing up payments, which affects payroll, which drives up unallowable interest expense. So, by being able to leverage the technology, for something as simple as time sheets, it actually drives 100% of our operations.”

Accurate timesheets submitted on time, with the help of Teams, allow Aaron to approve them quickly and move on. “I’m already in Teams, so the approval request comes in, and I just click approve. It’s a matter of seconds, and I can move on to other things. It’s saving us about 2-3 hours per week, just in the timekeeping approval process.”

Finding Important Data in Seconds

Aaron said the unified search across Teams, Outlook, SharePoint, and OneDrive for easier document retrieval has also made an impactful difference. “By keeping everything inside Teams, it’s creating a central hub of information and content, making it easier to find data.”

Adaptic is also using the Microsoft Teams app and Ask Dela for real-time access to employee rate information for projects and cost data. “Sarah could be on the phone with a candidate, and she can quickly type in ‘What’s the software engineer Level 3 bill rate for this program?’ And [Ask Dela is] going to come back with the answer,” says Solar. “This allows her to secure potential high-level candidates in real time.”

Innovation in Secure Environments

For Adaptic, innovation doesn’t mean sacrificing security. It means finding practical ways to modernize workflows while respecting the realities of high-compliance government environments. Because Adaptic’s employees work inside SCIFs (Sensitive Compartmented Information Facilities) every day, supporting highly classified programs, they depend on systems that can operate securely in these restricted environments.

Costpoint’s secure, high-compliance cloud environment gives Adaptic the access-controlled infrastructure they need to manage projects, time, and financial data without violating SCIF restrictions such as no mobile devices, no microphones, and no external network access. And by integrating Costpoint with Microsoft Teams in a GCC High environment, Adaptic is able to take advantage of time-saving automation, AI-powered insights, and streamlined workflows, without compromising its cybersecurity posture.

Looking Ahead: Driving Business Growth Long-Term

Adaptic’s transformation underscores how the right technology investments can fuel long-term growth. Starting as a small business, they had the foresight to implement purpose‑built GovCon solutions early, a decision that has helped them scale confidently and stay ahead of the curve as AI capabilities accelerate across the industry.

With Costpoint GCCM, Dela, and the Microsoft Teams app in place, Adaptic has sped up profitability, saved time on menial tasks, and boosted productivity across the organization. Looking ahead, Adaptic is particularly excited about Deltek’s upcoming AI-powered proposal capabilities for government RFPs—an innovation that has the potential to further accelerate proposal development and more tightly connect pre-award work with downstream execution.

As they continue to expand their use of Costpoint and adopt new capabilities, Adaptic works closely with Deltek Pros® services from Deltek partner PCI, drawing on their expertise to support ongoing growth. Together, Deltek and its partner ecosystem provide Adaptic with the speed, clarity, and control they need to operate and scale in an increasingly complex government contracting landscape.