Costpoint

Deltek Costpoint is a project accounting software package. It is used by a number of government contractors, including Northrop Grumman, CSC, SI International, SAIC, and Lockheed Martin. The forms-based architecture requires users to specifically select the search function rather than entering data directly into fields and having Costpoint retrieve it (this would be interpreted by Costpoint as an attempt to enter a new record).

Costpoint has a number of different modules and functions arranged in a tree structure. The software has a breakdown of folders into Accounting, Projects, People, Materials, and Others. Opening up Accounting, for instance, it breaks down into the functions of General Ledger, Accounts Payable, Accounts Receivable, Fixed Assets, Travel, and Multicurrency. Each of those functions breaks down into subfunctions. Some items, like the travel and expense module, has to be bought separately.

Costpoint is known for its colorful ICONS, e.g. a picture of a vacationer in a hammock on a tropical island for employee Benefits and a picture of an American flag for Affirmative Action. It also lets the user export certain data to CSV files, such as a spreadsheet of all invoices posted for a particular vendor. This can be used, for instance, to help reconcile a vendor's statement to the invoices that have been posted.

The program has lots of keyboard shortcuts relative to Great Plains and other accounting packages which often require switching to the mouse to perform tasks. In fact, it is possible to operate Costpoint without using the mouse at all.

Criticisms

Due to the forms-based architecture of Costpoint, rather than letting the user do something directly, it often makes the user circle around and do it in a roundabout way that requires extra steps. For instance, if the user is in a form and want to access something that was already entered, e.g. a voucher that's in the system but not yet posted, he can't just type in the voucher number and have it pull it up. That would cause Costpoint to think the user was entering a new voucher with the same voucher number. Instead, the user would have to click on the binoculars (or the open folder icon, or the magnifying glass), and do a query by voucher number. This applies to many parts of Costpoint; the same procedure is followed, for example, to look up projects.

There are also many tasks that can't be done through the front end. For instance, it won't let the user export a chart of accounts to Excel. That has to be done through another tool such as Cognos Impromptu.

The validation of the forms often causes problems. For instance, if a user is entering data into a new line in a form and realizes he made a mistake in one of the other lines, it won't let him move the cursor to that line until all the required data has been entered into the current line. Similarly, if one needs to leave a window to see something in its parent window, it won't let him until he makes all the amounts balance and enters all the required information into that form.

In addition, Costpoint doesn't let users take full advantage of a large monitor. If the user maximizes the Costpoint window, he ends up with a lot of blank space on the screen, and the table he's looking at will still only show about four rows or columns at a time.

Costpoint does not have an easy way to see which users are in which modules. Sometimes, it will lock a user out of a screen because it says someone else is already in it. But it is impossible to tell who.

By default, A/P edit reports from Costpoint have a cover sheet and an end sheet with a total. These sheets are usually superfluous, since all the information you need is on the individual pages summarizing each voucher. The only way to avoid printing them, though, seems to be to do a print PREview and then select the pages you want.

Costpoint also lacks macro functionality. This is in CONTRAST to Great Plains, which has a feature that lets the user record and playback macros. This is very powerful in that one can create Excel spreadsheets that will generate Great Plains macro files for automatic data entry. If one wanted to do anything comparable with Costpoint (without going in through the backdoor or uploading ASCII files), he would have to use a third-party utility such as Macro Express. GeneRally, it is preferred to go through the front door so that the forms are performing the same validation as when data is manually entered.