Customer Success Story
Dynamac Corporation

Consulting and R&D services provider reports both time and cost savings, improved record-keeping and reporting since implementing Deltek 20 years ago

The Challenge

Established in 1970, Rockville, Maryland-based Dynamac Corporation provides consulting, research and development services to numerous federal agencies, state, regional and commercial clients. The privately held, 325-employee company specializes in four core competencies including space, life and earth sciences; environmental management and compliance; natural resources management; and defense services and homeland security.

Dynamac has supported some of its clients for more than 20 years and maintains a client base that includes more than 20 federal agencies such as NASA, the Department of Defense and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). With $35 million in annual revenues, this reputable company has won nine Federal Contractor-of-the-Year awards since 1996.

In the late 1980s, Dynamac began to pursue large government contracts related to EPA Superfund sites. As vice president for contracts and administration Kip Duncan recalled, Dynamac began looking for an accounting solution that could seamlessly handle this workload.

“Those types of contracts require a very precise level of detail in terms of job costing, reporting and so on,” Duncan said. “We had to make sure the system we selected had the sophistication to appropriately deal with these requirements, as well as an innate understanding of how the world of government contracting operates.”

In addition to needing an accounting solution, Dynamac also needed a way to automate and streamline its timekeeping and administrative functions. Both Duncan and accounting manager Ann Quigg acknowledge that until 2001, the company was still handling all timekeeping manually, collecting handwritten timesheets and manually posting their labor into the accounting system weekly. Under this model, Quigg explained, data integrity issues and wasted man hours were a common occurrence.

“It was a real nightmare,” Quigg recalled. “We would receive timesheets on Monday and we'd need to have them posted in just two days in order to complete our payroll and labor distribution functions on time. Timesheets were literally being faxed from all over the country, sometimes without the proper signature that was required. We had to manually correct huge stacks of posting mistakes by hand each week. In fact, the job was so cumbersome that we had one full-time staff position completely devoted to it.”

The Solution

Dynamac addressed the accounting piece first by turning to an early version of Deltek's ERP software designed for small to mid-sized government contractors in the late 1980s. Nearly 15 years later, in early 2001, the company implemented Deltek Time Collection to tackle its labor distribution and timekeeping needs. “We simply did not have the sophistication prior to Deltek being implemented to appropriately deal with the specifics of our varying contracts,” Duncan said. “Deltek was the answer.”

The Benefits

Almost 20 years later, Dynamac still trusts Deltek with its project and financial accounting, as well as payroll, purchasing, reporting, timekeeping and business performance management. Today the growing company is using Deltek GCS Premier^®, the newest back-end accounting software for small to mid-sized government contractors, to manage a wide variety of contracts, including cost type and fixed price. The system was purchased in late 2003 and was being widely used just months later.

“I can't seem to recall a time when our Deltek software didn't solve any particular financial issue we were having,” Duncan said. Dynamac also remains a satisfied user of Time Collection. Since implementing the timekeeping solution in 2001, Quigg noted numerous time- and cost-saving benefits that have positively impacted operations at the company. “Deltek Time Collection has reduced the amount of time we spent making corrections to timesheets by 60 percent,” she said.

In addition, Time Collection has eliminated the need for one full-time staff position. “We were staffing a full-time timesheet administrator since 1970,” Quigg said. “Making the switch to Deltek Time Collection has saved us anywhere from $25,000 to $35,000 a year.”

According to Duncan, Deltek has also automated Dynamac's exhaustive record-keeping processes as well as its reporting functions. “From job status and business development reports to management tools like overhead and financial statements, we always have the most up-to-date financial and project information at our fingertips anytime we want it now,” he said. “In short, Deltek has significantly improved our internal controls.”

Added controller Rob Shapiro, “This information is especially well-received by auditors. Thanks to Deltek's software, we can easily create detailed project and financial reports within minutes, and scan them as PDF files to create a paperless audit trail. When auditors see the Deltek name, it's practically the equivalent of getting a seal of approval.Auditors are extremely familiar with Deltek and know the reports that Deltek's software generates are reliable and accurate.”

Quigg also points to the GCS Premier purchasing module as another key feature. Using the module, Dynamac is now able to track hundreds of contracts, funding commitments and subcontractor labor. “Some of our contracts require us to have a purchasing system,” she said. “Having this process automated truly makes our clients feel more comfortable and overall increases their trust in our ability to get the job done.”