A Case Study on Selecting Contract Management Software

Apex Environmental is a complete health, safety, and environmental services firm focusing on consulting and remediation work. The firm’s professional, technical, and discipline specialists are located in 10 places of work across 25 states, and services include compliance, environmental exams, remediation, health and protection, program control, power control, and records technology.

All customers of the path require careful tracking, reporting, and invoicing of actual labor and direct venture fees. However, the enterprise’s government customers also deference to a host of necessities as defined with the aid of CAby. In work, ing with their authorities contracts, Apex’s body of workers contributors should meticulously account for the allowable overhead cost (that may vary significantly from settlement to agreement); they must observe strict suggestions for time and expense entry, and they must record challenge direct and overhead expenses on pre-approved authorities bureaucracy.

In addition to being an environmental consultancy that honestly charges for professional services, Apex also has a $6 million creation division that performs real remediation paintings inside the area. To assist this division, Apex staff also needs to manage creation-associated activities—producing purchase orders, handling subcontractors, and hiring and paying production people.

Apex Environmental has attempted to address this complex blend of facts tracking and reporting requirements in an expansion of ways over the years. The firm used a manual document-keeping gadget during its first few years in the enterprise. Quickly outgrowing the guide device, corporation leaders purchased primary accounting software to automate the operation. That software managed the financial factors of the business, but it supplied no guide for the governmental reporting requirements.

Thinking they had discovered the answer, Apex bought an accounting system designed specifically for government contractors. While this software did a higher process of managing records needed for government reporting, its undertaking control and general reporting competencies were susceptible. To attempt to address the shortage of capability inside the software, office employees used several spreadsheet and word processing applications to generate reviews and other files inside that they needed. As a result, staff individuals have been continuously re-entering data from the accounting device into those supplementary packages – a time-ingesting and frustrating duplication of the attempt.

After great research and product comparisons, Apex Environmental decision-makers chose a business gadget from Wind2 Software that integrates popular accounting functions with project invoicing and reporting, price range management, profit evaluation, worker management, fee notion development, money owed receivable tracking, and government contract control. The device is bendy enough to deal with the organization’s blend of clients and activities these days, and its scalability makes it able to do extra because the company grows.

“We wished for software that would allow us to focus on being a smart business first, even while coping with our authorities’ settlement of specific needs absolutely,” says Winston. “Wind2 permits us to correctly handle all the necessities of our federal, country, and neighborhood authorities initiatives without sacrificing proper, solid, and simple business practices. That flexibility makes this software properly desirable to an employer like ours, which has so many distinct activities and a mix of presidency and private quarter work.”

Like all government contractors, Apex Environmental must comply with all government accounting necessities (e.g., FAR, CAS, Incurred Cost proposals, DCAA steerage) and put them together for authorities audits. According to Winston, the employer is saving masses of guy-hours each month by eliminating spreadsheets and simple accounting software programs to satisfy the stringent audit and reporting necessities in their government contracts. These assets are now freed to help with ongoing paintings and to land new contracts.

Apex’s new software is fully geared up to satisfy the 17 agreement and billing types described by using DCAA, consisting of constant price, price-plus, and time and materials. It addresses “Other Transaction Authority” (OTA) contracts and handles timekeeping practices, direct and indirect costs, overhead and G&A quotes, unallowable, pre-award, incurred price proposals, and invoicing well.

Within two months of installing the new software, Apex was capable of lessening its debt payable workforce from six to five through attrition. Staff members now do not need to manually calculate price costs or enter records into two systems to prepare reviews. They have instant access to economic and task data that has been unavailable to them in the past.

Winston explains this: “When a seller calls asking approximately a charge, staff contributors can now question the database to find the answer. Instead of looking through antique difficult copy reviews and documents, we find the seller file and drill down into the database to peer all related invoices and payments.”