Maximizing Efficiency & Compliance with Deltek Costpoint

Government contractors face growing complexity as compliance requirements evolve, organizational structures expand, and audits become more rigorous. As a result, these contractors are moving towards adopting industry-specific ERP solutions that provide project-based functionality, multi-entity management, and built-in compliance features.

Through conversations with end users, Nucleus found that organizations deploying Deltek Costpoint reported a 33 percent reduction in audit risk and a 40 to 75 percent decrease in financial close cycles, significantly improving compliance and operational efficiency. Costpoint delivers a secure, scalable, and government-specific ERP solution for contractors managing rapid growth and increasing regulatory pressure. By consolidating financial, HR, and project data into one platform and integrating with third-party applications, Costpoint enables organizations to scale without increases in overhead while maintaining audit readiness.

Government contractors are facing greater complexity as compliance frameworks like the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR), Cost Accounting Standards (CAS), and the Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification (CMMC) evolve. Audit scrutiny is increasing from government entities, while mergers, acquisitions, and joint ventures are expanding organizational structures. As a result, contractors must manage additional entities, payroll cycles, and reporting obligations, which magnifies the burden on already siloed systems. Government contractors who continue to rely on disconnected tools or manual processes struggle with inefficiencies and limited visibility into contract performance. To manage this complexity, contractors are turning to ERP platforms that provide project-based functionality, multi-entity management, and built-in compliance aligned with federal standards.

Interviews conducted by Nucleus show that government contractors achieve tangible ROI by adopting ERP platforms, such as Deltek. Deltek provides enterprise software designed for project-based businesses with a software portfolio that spans ERP, project management, CRM, HCM, and analytics solutions. Its government contracting specific ERP solution, Deltek Costpoint, provides specific modules for time and expense, budgeting and forecasting, business intelligence, contract management, HCM, manufacturing, project accounting, resource management, shop floor time, and supply chain.

Government Services Contractor

This government services contractor manages a broad portfolio that includes joint ventures, construction firms, and internal business units, totaling up to 100 entities. The organization previously relied on disconnected systems for time and expense, project accounting, and reporting, often requiring VPN access and manual processes. The organization originally deployed its ERP systems on-premises but faced challenges with fragmented information, disaster recovery methodology, and limited remote access for users. After a natural disaster destroyed one of its data centers, leadership acknowledged the need to update its infrastructure.

When assessing a new ERP solution, the contractor deemed security and compliance as central factors in the selection process. The organization also wanted a solution that could provide the ability to scale, deep project-based functionality to help support complex government contracts, as well as compliance with Department of Defense’s

Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification (CMMC) and Defense Federal Acquisition Regulation Supplement (DFARS). The contractor needed an ERP solution that could also help streamline labor and cost reporting for Contracting Officer Representatives and track detailed attributes like labor categories and performance ceilings. After evaluating several vendors' offerings, the organization eventually selected Deltek Costpoint.

The organization completed its cloud migration to Deltek Costpoint in 2020 with support from Deltek and an implementation partner. The transition to Costpoint allowed the organization to consolidate its fragmented data, improve user accessibility through secure authentication, and meet the requirements. The organization integrates Costpoint with tools such as Dayforce for payroll and Procore, via ComputerEase, for construction project management. Integration with the corporate consolidation tool, OneStream, delivered visibility across the entire organization, which generates approximately $2B in revenue.

Deltek Costpoint has been crucial during periods of rapid growth, including a peak workforce of 3,000 employees spread across dozens of entities. The ERP solution supports multi-entity financials, automates intercompany transfers, and streamlines reporting across more than roughly 40 payroll and closing cycles. Deltek also enabled the organization to establish new legal entities in less than 30 days. Without the platform’s multi-org structure and cloud-based accessibility, these processes would have required far more staff and manual intervention. Employees and contractors can now work from anywhere, and users across business units operate in a consistent environment.

Mid-Sized Government Contractor

This mid-sized government contractor has grown significantly over the past several years, expanding from 400 to 900 employees through acquisitions and organic growth. With a large user base and a more complex portfolio of operations, leadership determined that a modern ERP platform was necessary.

Before migrating to a new ERP solution, the organization struggled with fragmented workflows, slow access to contract and operational information, and challenges managing data across timekeeping, expense, and project management. With a history of acquisitions and increased user volume, the organization required a centralized ERP platform to manage a growing portfolio of operations. The Costpoint administrator leading the initiative brought deep experience with Deltek and this shaped the organization’s confidence in Costpoint. The organization went live with Costpoint in late 2023, and the team achieved a stable and integrated environment where projects, accounting, time, and expense modules connected seamlessly.

Today, Costpoint serves as the organization’s financial system of record and is used across the business. The organization established an integrated environment where projects, accounting, time, and expense modules were connected in one system. The government contractor has integrated third-party applications such as Concur for expense management and UKG for payroll into Costpoint, allowing financial and labor data to update automatically each day. These integrations reduce reconciliation work, ensure that expenses and payroll costs flow directly into project accounting, and improve the accuracy of billing and indirect rate calculations. With UKG connected, employees can clock in and submit time from mobile devices, while payroll data is captured in real time and tied back to specific contracts. Combined with expense reporting through Concur, this gives project managers and finance teams a complete view of labor and cost data, streamlining approvals, strengthening compliance, and improving the reliability of project cost reporting. Costpoint’s BI tools have also been widely adopted to generate internal reports, giving end users greater visibility into contract performance and reducing reliance on IT for ad-hoc reports. The administration team values the transparency and user-level security features, which allow access to be managed by role and support stronger governance.

Leadership sees recent enhancements, such as Deltek Harmony, the vendor's new user interface, as an opportunity to further improve usability and collaboration.

These best practices can help organizations accelerate adoption, reduce implementation risk, and sustain system value.