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Company Overview
DLR Group is an integrated design firm delivering architecture, engineering, interiors, planning, and building optimization for new construction, renovation, and adaptive reuse. Our promise is to elevate the human experience through design. This promise inspires sustainable design for a diverse group of public and private sector clients; local communities; and our planet.
DLR Group sees EleVia Software as its go-to partner for improving efficiency. When DLR Group began using Deltek Vision® in 2006, the firm used the ERP system straight out of the box, wishing it could be adjusted to better align with their processes. Then DLR Group Financial Systems Director Chris Haferbier learned of EleVia Software at a Deltek Vision User Group meeting.
Why EleVia Software
Streamlining the payables process
DLR Group’s wish list also included improving its payables process. “We have 20 offices that process their own incoming invoices in the Vision purchasing module,” Haferbier explained. “Local financial administrators would have to make copies of invoices, put them in a red folder, put the folder on the approver’s desk and hope the folder didn’t get lost. And then when the invoices were approved, they needed to send the invoices in weekly overnights to our accounting office for processing,” she added.
“EleVia continually helps us get more out of our Vision software.”
“We took our own first steps toward electronic processing, with our offices scanning their approved invoices and dropping them into a network folder for processing,” Haferbier noted. “But our A/R department still had to match up the scans to what had been entered into Vision manually — for about 2,300 invoices a month.”
Haferbier had looked for software solutions, but couldn’t find any. Then she learned about EleVia Payables Approval & Tracking — known as PAT.
PAT is an add-on product for Deltek Vision that makes it easy for architecture and engineering firms to review, approve and track subcontractor invoices and other payables. Once someone scans the incoming paper invoices into PAT, the software notifies the appropriate approvers that they have invoices waiting. Approvers simply login to Vision and can view electronic invoices for each project alongside the contract to compare actual vs. estimated costs. They can also mark-up the invoices for accounting easily and quickly with built-in mark-up tools.
To make PAT even more efficient for DLR Group, EleVia made some adjustments at the firm’s request. For example, if a user enters a wrong vendor number or general ledger code, PAT notifies the user of the error. EleVia consultants also customized the software to recognize when consultants can be paid based on DLR Group’s payment rules, so accounting can release consultant invoices at the right time.
No training required
PAT is so easy to use that no formal training was required, Haferbier said. “All I did was email instructions to each invoice processor and approver. They like how fast it is to use. In fact, one project manager wondered if he could use PAT to enter and mark-up initial drafts of client contracts,” she added.
“We’re grateful for the partnership and look forward to what they can do for us in the future.”“
It was kind of ironic that he asked, because PAT has that capability, too, and we plan to implement it soon. It’s another example of how EleVia continually helps us get more out of our software,” explained Haferbier. “We’re grateful for the partnership and look forward to what they can do for us in the future.”