Customer Success Story
The National Center for State Courts (NCSC)
Deltek Enterprise™ automates project accounting, funding processes for $25 million nonprofit working to administer justice to state court systems
The Challenge
It was the vision of Chief Justice of the United States, Warren E. Burger, to create a national organization to serve the research and educational needs of the nation's state courts. Through this vision, the National Center for State Courts (NCSC) was founded in 1971 to capitalize on best practices and to create more consistent, efficient standards and processes for state courts.
Since the mid 1990s, NCSC had been using Epicor's financial solution to handle its general ledger and accounts payable processes. However, this necessitated using several disparate, homegrown solutions to handle other critical business functions, including project management and timesheets, that NCSC's financial system was not built to handle. Because these other solutions were not integrated, data from each system had to be separately uploaded into Epicor, an inefficient process that took several additional man hours a month to perform.
“We had to maintain databases in different, disparate systems because all our data simply couldn't be stored in one place,” explained Beverly Goodman, Finance Manager for NCSC. “Employees were working themselves to death trying to manage all this information.”
Because of the system's limitations, NCSC staff also had to manually perform certain business tasks, an inefficient process prone to human error. “Bills were being done in Microsoft Excel and certain kinds of data, such as indirect costs, had to be calculated manually,” Goodman added.
In addition, NCSC employees were having a difficult time monitoring their own performances on each project. The system was only capable of storing a certain level of detail, making it almost impossible for employees to keep track of key data essential to project planning. As CFO Gwen Williams explained, “Our employees couldn't easily compare their costs with project budgets by key components, such as level of effort.”
Finally, Williams said, NCSC's needs were simply outgrowing their system's capabilities.The nonprofit was becoming increasingly involved in federal work, particularly within its international division. “Epicor was not able to properly manage and track the federal government's complex reporting requirements,” she said. “This is very difficult to accomplish manually, so we knew this was going to become a serious problem.”
The Solution
Based on these issues, NCSC decided in 2001 to complete a strategic review of its technical capabilities. Both consultants and staff were surveyed on their business process needs, consequently identifying financial and project management; ability to manage association work and contacts more easily; and ability to centrally store and access content (knowledge) as key requirements. After assembling a team of core staff selected to evaluate new solutions, NCSC examined Solomon, Epicor's complete ERP system and Deltek. According to Williams and Goodman, the choice was clear.
“We almost unanimously selected Deltek,” Goodman said. “It was the closest match to what we needed as a business.”
The Benefits
In October 2003, NCSC purchased the Deltek Enterprise™ suite, including back-end accounting solution Deltek Costpoint®, Impromptu® for reporting and Deltek Time Collection for timekeeping and HR needs. As Williams points out, NCSC received positive support from Deltek staff handling their implementation. “Deltek helped us go through the entire implementation business process by pointing out which decisions to make, when and why,” she said. “It made an ordinarily overwhelming situation a lot more bearable.”
By July 2004, the organization had the new system live, handling NCSC's accounts payable, accounts receivable, general ledger, billing, project reporting and timekeeping needs. Today the system is helping NCSC manage a hefty project pipeline, with around 400 active projects open at any given time. The benefits are already becoming clear.
“Most of our manual calculations have been eliminated,” Goodman said. “Deltek's one-stop solution has automated all the critical organizational data that we were previously managing using disparate systems and spreadsheets, such as tracking the hours and project costs for our billable staff.“
“Now, with just a few pushes of a button, we are saving hours every month and have dramatically reduced risks such as data duplication and human error,” says Goodman.
According to Williams, another important benefit has been being able to reallocate resources more effectively. “We had been spending too much time crunching numbers and trying to manage our systems,” she said. “Now we can spend that same time analyzing the numbers and making them work for us, so that we can more efficiently and effectively provide services to our court constituents.”
Other benefits include the automation of accounts receivable functions, more accurate actuals versus budget information for each project, comparison of project cost with project revenue and vast improvements in project management.
”With the old system, you could only see which voucher was charged to each project,” Goodman explained. “Now we can see when it's been paid, by whom, when projects are billed, and the value of the receipts paid. We can access a lot of information now in just one place as opposed to having to search for it in multiple systems as before.”
| The Challange | The Solution | The Deltek Advantage |
| NCSC needed a system that can consequently identifying financial and project management; ability to manage association work and contacts more easily; and ability to centrally store and access content (knowledge) as key requirements. | The U.S. Army chose Deltek Deltek Enterprise was chosen to handle accounts payable, accounts receivable, general ledger, billing, project reporting and timekeeping needs. |
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In addition, NCSC has harnessed the Deltek Enterprise suite to manage its funding sources. NCSC tracks, manages and reports upon a wide variety of funding sources and contract types, including T&Ms, cost type and fixed price contracts, as well as anywhere from 10 to 15 international projects per month. “With varied and complex reporting requirements for each of our funding sources, Deltek has made it much easier for us to manage all of them,” Goodman said.
Internal reporting has also improved under Deltek, with more accurate and timely corporate, project and financial reports available anytime and from anywhere via Web-based reporting.“We are starting to get many compliments from division heads on both the quality and availability of our reports,” Goodman said. “We can now see concrete financial performance numbers on demand.”
As NCSC grows and flourishes, the accounting staff is also coming to understand how Deltek Enterprise's one-stop solution will continue to improve internal business processes. “They are beginning to recognize that the system will make their lives easier as we continue to expand,” Goodman said. “Deltek is helping us manage across all levels of our organization.”