In real-time, the team can see labor and purchasing commitments. Not only can they run the detailed reports on their own, but they can also export to Excel to do additional analysis. Reports can then be scheduled, produced, and delivered to the inbox of the person who needs to act on the information.
Easy Finances With Effortless Budgeting
Primary concerns to executives at government contractors that provide services to the Federal Government are contract profitability, compliance, and employee utilization. The ability for an ERP solution to provide effective reporting on the above begins with concise project accounting functionality. Everything a government contractor needs to manage project accounts is included in Microsoft Dynamics NAV for Government Contractors from budgeting and invoicing, to managing a variety of cost pools.
Benefits of project accounting in Microsoft Dynamics NAV for Government Contractors include the elimination of tedious and expensive paper-based approvals and the streamlined process through workflows which allows you to focus on completing your project on time and within budget. The solution allocates expenses in real-time to increase data accuracy and timely completion of reporting. It is compliant with what DCAA auditors expect to see, as well as FAR and CAS standards.
Microsoft Dynamics NAV for Government Contractors includes everything from budgeting, to invoicing, to managing a variety of cost pools.
Features
- Web-based Role Center to track funding and budgets; resource utilization; tasks; notifications; timesheets
- Reduces time spent creating manual reports, comparing information, and executive manual, labor-intensive analysis
- Internal controls to control the visibility of projects/jobs and tasks for specific PMs, Admins, Resources. Gives greater control for PMs on their projects; improve performance and insight into project funding, spending, budgeting, and utilizations
- MS Project Integration with Dynamics NAV allows PMs to easily integrate and send data to/from Jobs in Dynamics NAV. Integration with MS Project allows for reduced time spent between two applications; automate tasks, resource assignments and schedules between Dynamics NAV and Project with the integration.
- SharePoint integration to display or customize Dynamics NAV pages on SharePoint; set up team sites that integrate, store, retrieve data from Dynamics NAV. Create web-based portals or information center with SharePoint integration; create time sites to increase project visibility and communication and standardize PM processes with the ability to easily retrieve data on projects/company performance from Dynamics NAV.
- Create detailed budgets and forecasting for projects, reduce time spent locating/finding information on project performance; automate reporting and decision making with real-time results
- Drill-down capabilities to gain greater access to essential data and metrics for reporting
- Greater control on resource planning, reporting and decision making
- Funding and budget control — set alerts, not to exceed, restraints on tasks. Decrease funding/budgeting issues with controls, visualizations, and real-time reporting on the current status of projects and tasks; reduce time forecasting spend plans by using the Project Spend template for greater visibility into project performance and forecasting.
Frequently Asked Questions
Are there alerts built into the system?
Alerts are built into the solution to show key personnel when projects are nearing funding limits, nearing budget amounts, and nearing spending limits, for example. It features integration with email typically to alert project managers and other critical people to take action ahead of time to make midcourse corrections.
What types of government contracts does the solution manage?
Any government contract you have ranging from cost plus, firm-fixed-price, Time & Material, and IDIQ can be managed in the solution.
How frequently can I budget projects?
You can budget by the job or by the task daily, weekly, monthly, or annually.
Explain how projects are the center of Microsoft Dynamics NAV for Government Contractors from GovCon365?
Out of the box, the solution is structured around Standard Form 1408 (Pre-award Survey of Prospective Contractor (Accounting System)) for a pre-award survey of accounting system adequacy. Government contractors need a project accounting solution that will do the following:
- Segregate direct costs from indirect costs
- Accumulate costs under general ledger control
- Provide project cost ledgers that summarize incurred direct and indirect costs by cost element
- Indirect costs are allocated to final cost objectives using a logical and consistent method
- Unallowable costs can be identified and segregated from billed costs to government
- Actual prices can be determined on an interim basis (for billing & reporting purposes)
- Special types of costs can be identified per terms of the contract
- Pre-production costs can be segregated from production costs
How does the solution handle invoicing?
Microsoft Dynamics NAV for Government Contractors provides you the capability to manage multiple invoicing requirements and automate your billing process. This lets your company take control of growth, cash flow, operations, and profits. Whether you are billing fixed price, time & materials, or cost-plus contracts, you can systematically generate invoices and record these transactions for future detailed review.
What are the unique benefits related to project accounting in the solution?
The “Project Accounting” application area allows companies that work with the Federal Government to essentially create balance sheets for each project, which you typically cannot do with the average accounting application. Program managers can make decisions now that would be in the best interest of the program. You can look at the contract from an overall perspective and at a very granular level as well. Program managers can drill down for detailed job costing and labor utilization; executive users, such as chief operating and financial officers, can quickly spot trends with contract profitability and managing indirect rates. The solution makes excellent usage of familiar Microsoft look and feel and is very intuitive; special staff skills are not required.
How well does the solution integrate project accounting and web-based time and expense?
The solution integrates job costing and timekeeping systems exceptionally well. It identifies labor charges by direct or indirect cost objective taken from or reconcilable to accounting system records and subsidiary ledgers, and cost elements determine direct costs. The system is completely integrated with project accounting features such as invoicing, billing, and reporting, which provides everything a government contractor needs to exceptionally report and do business with the government. Differences between billed costs and costs supported by accounting records/job cost ledgers should be readily reconcilable.
Microsoft Partner Advisory Councils
GovCon365 is an Elite Member of Microsoft Partner Advisory Councils (PAC) and Technology Adoption Program (TAP): GovCon365 is one of 12 NAV partners (out of 4,000+) that participates in Microsoft’s PAC and TAP Programs. When a new release of NAV is in beta testing, one or more of GovCon365's government contractor customers will participate, opening the door for customers to provide feedback to Microsoft and affect the final solution.