FROM SEATTLE TO LONDON TO SOUTHERN AUSTRALIA, AWARD WINNING DESIGN FIRM ACHIEVING GOAL OF INTEGRATED ACCOUNTING AND RESOURCE PLANNING CAPABILITIES WITH DELTEK VISION™

There are not many challenges that The Portico Group—a design firm whose integrated services include architecture, landscape architecture, interpretive planning, and exhibit design—has not been able to meet.  The company manages a diverse roster of projects, each of which requires between 18 months and five years of planning and development, in design areas encompassing zoos and aquariums; arboreta and botanical gardens; museums and visitors centres; parks, recreation and eco-tourism; urban ecology; and other community spaces. Since 1990, the company has earned more than 20 design awards for projects. The Portico Group has also successfully expanded its business into international markets, with projects in countries including Australia, Canada and Great Britain.

Prior to 1995, The Portico Group had conducted its accounting and resource planning activities manually. At the time, the company held greater confidence in the accounting capabilities of Tim Nicoulin, Finance Director for The Portico Group, and his staff than it did in the promise of technology.  “Even the best accounting system will only be able to tell you what you have done to date, but the key to this business is knowing where you are going to be when you finish the job,” said Nicoulin. “We wanted a system that would allow us to integrate our accounting information with the ability to plan out the time between any given point of a project and completion. In other words, we wanted to marry the key components of what makes a project profitable.”

The Portico Group became aware of a fully integrated Web based Professional Services Automation solution being developed by Deltek. This system, Deltek Vision, not only encompassed many of the requirements of The Portico Group’s longtime goal, but it also provided additional benefits and functionality including client relationship management; proposal automation; project management; time and expense management; billing; and human resources.  Though cautious, the company was impressed with its early glimpses of the product. After viewing several informative Deltek Webcasts, Mr. Nicoulin attended a Deltek User Group where he got a firsthand look at the system.

“Deltek Vision was everything we wanted to get out of previous systems, plus about 50 percent of additional functionality that the other systems didn’t have.

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