Deltek Inc.

06/01/2023 | News release | Distributed by Public on 06/01/2023 12:51

Introducing Deltek Costpoint 8.2: The Next Evolution of Our Industry-Leading ERP

Introducing Deltek Costpoint 8.2: The Next Evolution of Our Industry-Leading ERP

June 01, 2023
Todd Walker
Vice President of Product Management

The next release of Deltek Costpoint, our industry-leading cloud ERP solution for government contractors of all sizes, is here!

Costpoint 8.2 builds upon Deltek's four decades of experience with new innovative features, enhanced functionality and a forward-thinking design that's purpose-built for managing government contracts and helping contractors stay compliant.

This newest release also directly addresses the current needs of the government contracting industry. As revealed in the 2023 Deltek Clarity Government Contracting Industry Report, the key challenges the industry is facing include rising labor costs, cybersecurity concerns, and supply chain uncertainties. The latest evolution of Costpoint brings more innovation and automation to the entire project lifecycle, helping government contractors directly overcome these challenges while proactively managing their contracts from pursuit to closeout.

In the coming months, we'll be highlighting how Costpoint 8.2 further supports government contractors in digitally transforming critical processes and operations. But today, we wanted to highlight the five key themes that remain the driving force of this release and the future of Deltek Costpoint.

1. An Improved User Experience that Optimizes Everyday Tasks

Deltek is dedicated to continually improving the user experience for our customers, and with this release, we're bringing several exciting new user experience improvements, including a streamlined navigation that supports our customers in completing everyday tasks more quickly and efficiently-with fewer steps.

We've also reimagined the way government contractors collect their employees' time information.

Tracking employee's time, with the appropriate compliance guardrails in place, is a requirement for government contractors - but it can be a complex and burdensome process. Our goal with Costpoint 8.2 is to make this process less cumbersome so customers can more easily remain compliant by giving employees and subcontractors multiple convenient ways to enter time.

One of the key ways we're doing this is with the introduction of Interactive Emails, which allow managers to send automatic email reminders to their employees. Employees can then submit time directly from the email reminder, without having to log in to Costpoint!

In addition to Interactive Emails, we've also improved the time entry experience with UX improvements to the timesheet screen. This includes a modernized user interface that's intuitive to navigate with wider rows, larger buttons, and more contrasted colors. We've also added additional capabilities so users can complete tasks directly from the timesheet, including the ability to submit leave requests.

Another one of Costpoint's UX enhancements includes a new Welcome Screen that shows a specific user's favorited and most recently used applications, allowing them to more quickly jump into the task at hand.

Users can easily customize their favorited items, which are shown as tiles on the screen, by selecting an application from the navigation menu or directly from the "Manage My Menu" function. Once the specific applications are selected, users can re-order their applications and create titled collections to customize their Welcome screen to their liking.

Users also have the option to utilize Dark Mode throughout the Costpoint solution, allowing them to configure their viewing experience based on their individual preference.

We're also improving the overall Costpoint product experience by leveraging in-app learning guides, shown below, that help users learn the solution more quickly, without having to navigate out of the software. These in-app learning tools help ensure users get the most out of their solution by alerting them to new features and enhancements, with instructions on how to begin using them.

2. Time-Saving Automation Across the Entire Project Lifecycle

Deltek is dedicated to helping our customers digitally transform how they do business by enabling government contractors to automate key businesses processes with an all-in-one solution. This is particularly topical given that business process optimization is one of the biggest initiatives government contractors are focusing on, according to the latest Clarity Survey.

The survey revealed that government contractors, across all business functions, are looking to streamline processes to help them address key market challenges by eliminating inefficiencies - and they're turning to technology to help them do that.

Costpoint is purpose-built to help government contractors seamlessly handle end-to-end business processes with an integrated tool that connects a customer's project data and business processes in one trusted solution - and 8.2 is bringing even more efficiencies to these everyday processes.

To further optimize key processes, Deltek Costpoint 8.2 offers enhancements in our Project Accounting, Capture and Contract Management, Resource Planning, and Source to Pay capabilities.

Specific enhancements include:

  • An improved integration between GovWin IQ and Costpoint to help government contractors find better opportunities and simplify their Source to Pay process.
  • Intracompany Subcontractor Work Assignments, which allows different Costpoint companies, or users within different companies, to serve as subcontractors to other companies.
  • Navigation banners to streamline the planning and budgeting process, shown below.

With these additions to Deltek Costpoint, we are enabling digitization and automation within the entire project lifecycle, helping government contractors replace manual processes while providing enhanced tracking and visibility into project and product cost data.

3. Increased Innovation for Better Project Outcomes

Our newest release strengthens our use of innovative technologies, including artificial intelligence (AI) and intelligent character recognition (ICR) that help our customers work smarter and make better business decisions.

This includes the addition of ICR for Accounts Payable (AP) invoices, which leverages optical character recognition (OCR) technology to convert the contents of an electronic invoice to automatically populate an AP voucher. This streamlines the accounts payable process - reducing manual entry and eliminating the chance for human error. The machine learning (ML) component will improve the accuracy of the invoice to AP voucher data conversion over time.

We've also made a number of enhancements to the AI Assistant in Costpoint Business Intelligence, which provides users the ability to type a question and receive a data-informed response via a chart or a graph.

This makes it easier for users to ask questions and receive answers, allowing them to access the right data more quickly. Utilizing AI in Business Intelligence means users receive smarter insights into their performance, including real-time cost data. This eliminates poor project visibility while providing the ability to catch delays and budget overruns while there's still time to correct.

The ability to do data explorations goes a step further by allowing users to explore relationships between data.

4. Continued Commitment to Compliance and Security

For 40 years, Deltek has guided businesses through growth and maturity in government contracting. With this release, we continue to meet the evolving needs of government contractors while ensuring our customers comply with changing compliance and cybersecurity requirements and remain audit-ready with a trusted solution.

Deltek has consistently demonstrated its commitment to providing industry-leading cloud offerings, while actively pursuing certifications such as the Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification (CMMC) and Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program (FedRAMP), and this remains unchanged with this new release.

5. A New Offering to Further Support Small and Mid-Sized Businesses

Along with these exciting updates, the latest release of Deltek Costpoint is also driven by a purposeful commitment to small and medium-sized businesses that are in need of an ERP solution purpose built for government contracting.

For companies evaluating moving off a generic accounting solution, we're introducing a new streamlined offering of Costpoint for government contractors as part of this 8.2 release. This new offering includes only the essential capabilities that small and mid-sized firms need today- helping these companies get up and running on Costpoint more quickly.

As a customer's business grows and their contract needs expand, Costpoint is built to scale with them. With additional capabilities and add-ons that top government contractors trust, Deltek is dedicated to remaining a trusted partner for our customers - today and in the future.

How to Get the Most from Costpoint 8.2

Costpoint 8.2 is now available for on-premises customers to download and upgrades to 8.2 for Costpoint GovCon Cloud customers starting in July 2023. With the release of 8.2, we are also excited to announce Costpoint will move to a continuous delivery release methodology. Costpoint customers on 8.2 will receive monthly minor enhancements and new feature releases two to three times a year.

To learn more about this latest release, make sure you stay up to subscribe to our Deltek Project Nation Newsletter and follow us on Twitter and LinkedIn to dive further into this exciting evolution of Costpoint.

You can also find out more in the release notes, by joining us for upcoming town halls, or by checking out the Deltek resources below.

Todd Walker
Vice President of Product Management