We've been using Axium's Ajera for about 4 years now. It attracted me because it puts the tools right into our project manager's hands. It also is customizable. I believe that if some basic fundamental design issues could be fixed, Ajera is the ticket. Ajera is aware of the following comments, and I offer them here, in part because I hope Ajera or some other accounting software package picks up on them and incorporates the improvements.
By the way, Ajera has some of the greatest tech support people around. They truly are a joy to work with. I think the issues we experience have to do with how the software has been written. It stems back to IT.
It appears to me that all accounting packages are developed in consultation with accountants, bookkeepers and of course program writers, but not architects. As a result, some items that could really make matters easy to manage and understand just do not exist. For example:
a. The word, "budget" really means, "contract". Thus when a PM enters their budget, Ajera takes that to mean the contract has been signed and fixed at this amount. PMs want to be able to budget one thing, many times well before a contract is in place. However, Ajera is already figuring time entered as "Work In Progress" that is fully billable and expected to be collected. And if a banker or accounting type person looks at our numbers, they also believe it is billable and collectable. In the real world, we know this isn't always true.
b. It is very difficult to determine if a project and/or PM is over budget on any given phase of work or on any given project. I have been suggesting that any work on a "budgeted" but not "contracted" prospect/project be indicated with red negative numerals. As it is right now, it looks like WIP. And all over budget figures should be in red.
c. If a project manager "writes off" some of their work (they were doing this when they knew their time spent was over budget and not billable) on a project, the project then appears to be back on budget. We recently learned to not write off hours, but to "zero invoice" them. However, a saavy PM could still write off hours and make their reports look favorable, thus skewing the reports pertaining to PM performances.
d. We've always had a difficult time using the invoice formats. Although Ajera says they are customizable, our small firm does not have programmers and Ajera's charges for creating these custom formats is beyond our reach.
e. Flow through costs (especially consultants) cause our PMs all kinds of grief. I personally would love to see a system that removes flow through costs. For instance, if our consultant costs us $10,000 and we charge the client $10,000 then it is a revenue neutral item for our PMs. But what happens is they see the $10,000 as time that can be spent on their projects (and they do spend it). And all the charts indicate that they are doing great! Then the invoice from the consultant arrives and our PMs are somehow "shocked" that this put them over budget. We've developed a work around, but it would be great to delete "flow through" costs. Of course, there's always "mark ups" to deal with, but our managers would love to manage those items.
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Robin Miller AIA
MSH Architects
Sioux Falls SD
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Original Message:
Sent: 07-07-2011 01:35
From: David Gast
Subject: Accounting/Project Management Software for Small Firm
This message has been cross posted to the following Discussion Forums: Practice Management Member Conversations and Small Project Practitioners .
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Any financial management/project management software suitable for a ten person firm that you've had success with? Ajera by Axium, ArchiOffice with Quickbooks, InFocus by Clearview, other programs?
We are on Deltek Vision after we were forced to upgrade from their Advantage product we used for many years - we felt there'd be an advantage in terms of porting our financial data over easily and in training staff. After only six months with the program, and after spending tens of thousands of dollars on software, set-up on the cloud, transferring of historic data, and training staff, I am looking for appropriate alternatives. Besides being extremely expensive for a small firm, it is a rather cumbersome and non-intuitive program. We utilize a cloud based service in order to avoid purchasing a separate server for it. Tasks that were one step in Advantage are now 3 steps. The timesheet is poorly designed graphically and functionally. Then the straw that broke the camel's back is when we needed to accommodate an 11th person on payroll, we would need to spend an additional $4,300 and 18% service fee per year to purchase a 10 person module. Basically it is a way too sophisticated, expensive, and poorly designed product for our usage. Deltek's answer is for us to spend an additional $7k for further staff training (the same staff that used their prior product for years without a problem).
What's your experience been with these programs? We've gotten feedback that the newly redesigned ArchiOffice has the potential to become a very good product but is still very buggy and integration with Quickbooks can be difficult.... Ajera looks good so far based on discussions with a few firms. Don't know anything about InFocus.
Any other programs you would recommend?
Any feedback from your experiences would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks.
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David Gast AIA
Principal
Gast Architects
San Francisco CA
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