Name: Beyond the Basics: Get More Out of Deltek ComputerEase with Add-On Modules
Uploaded: 2026-08-25T19:30:50.760Z
Duration: 41 min 56 s
Description: Beyond the Basics: Get More Out of Deltek ComputerEase with Add-On Modules

Transcript for "Beyond the Basics: Get More Out of Deltek ComputerEase with Add-On Modules": Hello, everyone, and welcome to today's webinar. Thank you so much for taking time out of your day to join us. I know you're all really busy, so I really do appreciate it. Before we get started, just a few housekeeping notes. Please use Google Chrome or Firefox for the best experience. Audio is streamed through your computer. There's no dial in, so make sure your volume is turned up. You can download the slides via the resources widget in the top right, and widgets can be resized to fit your screen. A recording of this webinar will be emailed within twenty four hours. Feel free to share that with anyone who you think might find it interesting. And as we go along, feel free to ask questions in the q and a box. I'll try to get to as many as I can. Any unanswered questions will be addressed offline. So today's webinar is supercharge Deltek Computorese with add on modules. A little bit about me before we dive in. I'm Danielle Model, a senior solutions engineer here on the Deltek Computorese team. I've been in the construction industry for over a decade now. I actually started out at a union electrical contractor that used Computorese. So I've been in your shoes. I know what it's like to be the one managing the jobs and running payroll, chasing down paperwork, all that fun stuff. I joined Computorees in 2020 on the customer care team. And now in my current role as a solutions engineer, I get to do what I really love, which is helping contractors like yourself figure out how to streamline your processes and make Computorees really work for your business. So here's what we're going to cover today. By the end of this session, you'll have a solid understanding of how Computorees can help you ensure continuity with the cloud, how to save time and stay compliant with the Computorees payroll service, how to connect your office to the field with our mobile tools, how you can manage your project schedules and documents in Computorees. And for those who work with residential clients or have a service department, I'll show you how you can dispatch and complete work orders in the field. And, also, I'll show you how to build your own custom reports using our Qtool report writer. So we've got a lot lot of ground to cover, but before we get started, I want to throw a couple of quick polling questions your way. So first question, do you currently use Deltek Computorees in the cloud? So if you could go ahead and click your answer. It just helps me understand who's in the room a little bit better. And I'll give you about twenty seconds to go ahead and submit your answer. Alright. So it looks like we've got a good mix. Some of you already are on the cloud, and some of you are still on a local install. So that's good to know. Now the second question, do you currently use Deltek Computery's payroll services? So take a second to answer this one, and then we'll move on to the next slide. And I'll give you another twenty seconds if you could go ahead and submit your reply. So, again, it looks like we have a pretty good mix. There's quite a few of you not yet on the payroll service or using the cloud. So make sure you pay close attention to the next couple of slides because I think you're going to find them very interesting. Alright. So let's talk about the cloud first. The number one reason we see contractors make the move to the cloud is business continuity. Just making sure that no matter what happens, your business keeps running. With our cloud solution, you'll have twenty four seven remote access from anywhere that you have an Internet connection, and that's whether you're in the office, working from home, sitting in a truck, on the job site. Doesn't matter. You're in. And here's something that doesn't always cross people's minds until it's too late. What happens if your server crashes? What if you get hit with ransomware, which, by the way, that's happening in construction more and more these days. What if there's a flood or a fire in your office? With Computery's cloud, you'll have automatic backups, ransomware protection, virus protection, data corruption protection, and disaster recovery testing, and that's all handled for you automatically without you having to think twice about it. You also eliminate the cost and headache of managing local IT infrastructure. And the cloud is device agnostic, so your team can log in from a desktop, a laptop, tablet, iPad, Mac, PC, whatever they've got. And here's one that really matters. When something does go wrong, you have a single point of contact for both your hosting and your support. So you're not stuck trying to figure out whether you should call your software vendor, your hosting company. You reach out to us, and we'll take care of it. Now let's talk payroll, specifically what our payroll services team takes completely off of your plate. And construction payroll is not simple. You've got multiple tax jurisdictions, union requirements, certified payroll, garnishments. It's a lot to keep up with, and our team will handle all of that for you. So we're talking withholding and tax payments, your direct deposits, all your federal, state, and local tax payments, garnishments, child support, tax agency communications. So if you get a notice from a tax agency, we deal with it. We also handle employment verification services and, of course, all of your tax filings. The way I like to describe the payroll service is that your team processes payroll inside Computorees the same way you always have. Our payroll services team handles everything that happens after. The compliance, the filings, the payments, that's on us. So why use our payroll services over a third party provider? A few reasons I think really stand out. First, compliance. Our team stays current on every single tax law change so you don't have to. Tax laws change constantly, and it is a full time job to keep up with those. But we'll do that for you, which also means you're never missing a tax deadline. No penalties, no late fees, no nasty grams from the tax agencies. And here's something I love to point out. Our payroll team has hundreds of years of combined experience, and it's specifically in construction payroll. These aren't general payroll specialists who also happen to process construction payroll on the side. Our team understands union fringes, certified payroll, all the nuances of this industry, and that expertise is really hard to find. And because all of your payroll data lives inside Computorees, it's going to sync directly with your job costing and your general ledger. There's no importing, no exporting, no reconciling between two different systems. It's all one connected solution that was built specifically for construction companies like yours. Alright. So let's jump into the software now. And the first thing I want to show you is Computorese Field. This is our mobile app, and it works on iPhone, Android, iPad, tablet, or there's even a desktop version if you prefer that. But this app is built around three main things, time tracking, expense management, so think credit card, expenses, employee reimbursables, and it has field logs. And I do want to mention this app has some really neat functionality built into it, things like geolocation services and approval work flows, crew time entry where a foreman can enter time for their whole crew at once, and even voice commands with Ardela AI. But we're covering a lot of ground today, so I'm just going to do a high level walk through and show you a very simple time entry, an expense, and a field log. But if any of those additional features sound interesting to you and you want to see more detail, go ahead and raise your hand, and we'll get a hold of you to set up a more detailed demonstration on that. Alright. So let's let's take a look at our Computorees field app now. Alright. So I've switched my screen share over to my phone, and we are going to start with a simple time entry. So I hit the plus sign in the bottom right, and I'm going to plug in the date, the hours that I worked. I have a line where I could enter a brief description, and then I'll pick a job. And I have my nearby and recently used jobs up at the top, or I can type in part of the job name, number, address to help me filter and find the correct project. So let's find my construction job. And then I just need to pick the cost code. So today, we did site construction, and then the category was safety. Now a question I get quite a bit is, do users have to pick a job? And the answer to that is no. If you would prefer for users to put in the hours that they worked and then a supervisor input the job and cost code, that is totally fine. So to summarize, we plugged in the date, the hours that we worked, and then the job phase and the category. Once I have that entered, I hit create. And when I'm ready to sign my timesheet, I come down to the bottom and hit the signature button. And once this is signed, it goes either to a supervisor to approve or it could go straight to the office for approval. So next, let's do an expense. All that I have to do to start an expense report is take a picture of the receipt, and the ICR capture will start filling out that expense report for me, and I just have to fill in the blanks. So I'll choose a purchase method, a purchase type, the merchant, and the amount came through from the ICR. If this is going to a project, I could select that here, and we'll stick with the job we've been working on today. There's a line for descriptions. And then down at the bottom, I can see the receipt copy. So, again, I hit submit, and that goes to the office for review and approval. Lastly, let's do a field log. So in the field log screen, I need to specify the job, and here are all of the different areas that I can report on. So whether the employees will actually come through from the timesheet, subcontractors, material, equipment, visitors. I can collect signatures. I can put my notes or my daily story, and a lot of our customers will talk to text what they did that day. I could take pictures or add attachments. So here's a picture of my job site. And when I'm ready to submit the field log to the office, one click, and now that is also going to Computorease for review. Alright. So I just switched my screen share to my phone, and you're looking at Computorese field. Let's start with a time entry. So create a new entry and choose the date. Plug in how many hours were worked. There's a line for a brief description, and then I pick my project. Now my nearby and recently used jobs appear at the top of my list, or I can search by name, number, or address. So let me go ahead and find my job here, and then I need to cost code it. And these will be your phases, categories that you have set up in the Computore's desktop. So to summarize, we created a new entry. We plugged in the date, the hours that were worked, and then the job phase and category. Now some common questions that I get about entering in time, do users have to choose a job? No. They do not. If you would prefer for them to leave the job blank and have a supervisor fill it in later, that's absolutely fine. Another question I get is about the phases and the categories. Some people will ask, if we don't use phases, do we still have to click through that part of the time entry? And you do not. If you only have a category on that job, that's all that they've they'll have to choose is the category. So once I have everything filled out, to submit the time entry for approval, I come down to the bottom and hit the signature button. And once this is signed, it's now going either to the office for review or it could go to a supervisor to review and then to the office. So next, let's do a credit card expense, and this could work for credit cards or reimbursables. So all the user has to do is take a picture of their receipt, and the ICR capture will start filling out the expense report for them. So from here, I just fill in the blanks. I need to choose the purchase method, the purchase type, the merchant, and the amount are already filled from the ICR capture. If this is going to a project, I'll go back to my project list and pick which job and cost code this applies to. I have a line for a description. And then down here at the bottom, you can see the receipt that's attached. So now I'll go ahead and submit that to the office as well for review and approval. Lastly, let's do a field log. You can have multiple field log types, and they are customizable. And I'm going to go ahead and choose my project, and I can be reporting on weather, employees, which these flow right from the time sheet, so no need to double enter them, subcontractors, material, equipment, visitors, productivity, which can update job costing. I can collect signatures. I can put my notes or daily story. I can add user defined fields to my to my logs, and I can take pictures or add attachments. So I'm going to take a picture of my job site here and submit to this to the office as well. So to summarize, we did a time entry, an expense, and a field log. And now we're going to switch gears and move to the office so you can see how this all comes into Computerease. Okay. So now I've switched to the screen share, and we're back in the office. So let's bring in the time, the expense, and the log that we just did in the field. We'll start with the time entry. All of the time sheets come to the time center, and this is a holding place where payroll admin are able to review, edit, and approve the time entries before exporting to labor distribution. Once these are in labor distribution, note that they will show as unposted payroll on your job costing reports so you see your labor updating in real time. For the expense, those will go to the expense management center. And, again, you can click in and review the expenses that were turned in, make any edits, and then these will be posted. And at that point, they update job costing as well as the general ledger. I do want to point out that we have a very nice expense report that will show all expenses. You can filter by status, by the job, by the employee, the credit card holder, and you can simply click into the attachments and view the receipts that were termed in from this report. And then let's bring in the field log that we termed in. So those go to the field log management center. And I could either view them tab by tab or I could print to a PDF, and you can have different templates for your field logs. The field log management center is really, really helpful for keeping track of data because I have all of these different filters where I could pull all of the logs for a specific date range or for a specific job, the employee that turned it in. So it really helps me dial in the information that I'm seeing, and it retains all of those logs that were sent from the field. So we just covered Computore's field, the time, the expense, and the logs. Now let's go through some of the add on modules that we have in the Computore's desktop. I'm going to give a high level overview of what each of these modules does and what the functionality looks like, but we're covering a lot today, so we won't be going super deep on any one of them. If you want a more detailed demonstration on something specific or you've got questions about how a particular module would work for your specific business need, go ahead and raise your hand, put your questions in the q and a, and we'll make sure we get to it or follow-up with you after the webinar. So I'm going to start with the QTool report writer. This is how you can easily build custom reports in Computorees. And this is a module that a lot of customers don't fully take advantage of or don't even know that they have access to, but it's just part of the base system. And how it works is you start with a canned report, and then you can add your own user defined fields to it. Now with user defined fields, those are added in configure and system parameters, and you just choose which module and which area of that module you would like to add that user defined field. Now for my example, I'm going to do an employee master report and bring in some user defined fields that I've added there. So in the employee master file, just to show you what these look like, if I go to my user fields tab, you can see all of these data points that I'm collecting. And they can be drop downs. They can be check boxes. Now when it comes to building the report, if I go to my Q tool report writer and I choose the module and the canned report that I want to start with, I can start building this out. And to do that, I just pick from my available columns. And these include the standard columns as well as if you notice as I scroll down here, I have those user defined fields that we just saw in that employee master screen. So for this report, maybe I want to do a expiration report. So I'm gonna go ahead and grab the employee's name. I want to know their ZIP code because why not? Maybe I need their email for this. And as I keep going down and building this out, I'm going to add the OSHA expiration date to this report. So once I create the report, I can save this so that I can easily run it again. I could pin it to my workflow menu. Also, a lot of our customers aren't aware of this, but we can easily export these to Excel. So if I click this button here, all of that data will go straight to an Excel worksheet. Now all of the reports in Computorees, whether they are Qtool reports that you've created and saved or canned reports in the system, can be automated to email at whatever cadence you choose, and they can go to people that are not Computorees users. This feature is called report books. And if you go to your system menu search and you type it in at the top, it will take you to where you set these up. So with the report books, you're able to automate any of your reports to email at whatever cadence you choose. And like I said, that can be your saved Qtool reports or it could be your canned reports. So if you want to send job cost reports to auto email every Monday at 7AM to your project managers, that's exactly where you would go in the system to do that. Alright. So next, let's move to the purchasing and inventory module. So if you keep materials or stock items on hand or you're writing purchase orders to vendors, this module is for you. Now right here, I can see all of the purchasing and inventory reports that are available. So you'll always have full visibility into what you have on hand, what's been ordered, where everything stands with your inventory and your POs. Now starting on the inventory side, you'll set up your items with cost and pricing details. You can set reorder points so you know when you're running low, and you can have multiple inventory locations. So maybe you've got two shops or warehouses, or maybe you have service trucks that you want to set up as their own inventory location so you know exactly what's on your tech's truck at any given time. That's actually a really popular setup for our customers with the service department. Here is the inventory adjustment screen. So this is where you'll make those adjustments, Whether that's moving something off a job to a location or from a location to a job, a job to a job, whatever the situation calls for. And a really common scenario that we see is that you buy material specifically for a project, You don't end up using all of it, and you want to move that leftover material off the job and into inventory so that you know you have it, you can account for its value, and you can repurpose it to another project. The inventory adjustment is where you would do that. Now on the purchasing side, you have the ability to create pull list. Let me pull one up here so you can see what that might look like. And with these pull list, you choose which items that are needed for the project, and then you pull from your existing inventory, or you can generate a PO right to your vendor. You can do that all in the same workflow. Or if you're not working with pull list, you can simply create POs directly, and they'll show as committed cost on your jobs immediately. And as you're receiving the material and being invoiced for it, the system recognizes that and it matches it back. So you always know what you have committed versus what you've actually been invoiced for. And that distinction is really important for keeping your job cost up to date in real time. So next, let's talk about the project management suite, which includes the document management and the Gantt and critical path scheduling. So starting with document management, Drawings, specs, submittals, RFIs, change orders, everything gets stored right on the job record. So it's not stuck in someone's email. It's not buried in a folder on someone's desktop. And beyond just storing those documents, you can manage all of your correspondence directly from the document management module. So when you need to send out an RFI or a submittal or, you you know, you need to send out a change order, you create that email right inside Computorease with all of the relevant documents already attached. So everything is tracked, everything is tied to the job, and nothing falls through the cracks or disappears into a personal inbox. For scheduling, you've got a full project schedule that's tied directly to the job. Tasks, milestone, you can track assigned crews and team members. And one thing that's really handy is that you can export your scheduled activities right from your job setup. So your schedule is always working off the same data that's driving the project. So everything your project manager needs to stay up to to date on a project is in one place, and it's connected to the same job record as your cost and your documents. Of the CRM module. I always like to start here in the sales center. So this module is where you'll manage your sales pipeline, your bids, your opportunities, and all the activity that happens before the job is even awarded. In the sales center, you have your pipeline laid out by stage, and these are completely user defined. So you set them up however your sales process actually works. And then new opportunities, anything that's quoted, in progress, what you've won, lost, Each stage is clickable. So you could drill right in, and you can see exactly what's sitting there. When you're working on an opportunity, you have the ability to assign tasks, and you can assign these to specific people on your team. And the system will automatically send them an email and a calendar invite as a reminder to complete that task, which, honestly, if you ever have had a follow-up fall through the cracks because it just was sitting in someone's head and they forgot about it, this is the thing that can fix that. All of your notes, all of your updates, all of your attachments, that will all live here in the opportunity instead of someone's email inbox or a sticky note on their desk. And then this search center here is where you can filter by project manager, by stage, by whatever you need. You save those searches, and then you can view or export the results into a report. So the the reporting in CRM is very customizable. And then once a job is awarded, it links directly to the job dashboard, job center. So you can always go back and you can see the full history of how that project came in. Let's talk about fleet and asset and tool and equipment tracking. So fleet and asset is about getting a true picture of what it costs to own and operate your equipment. And for a lot of contractors, that number is bigger than they realize once they actually start tracking it. Now you can apply cost through purchase orders, AP, and payroll, so you're capturing everything, not just the purchase price, but maintenance, repairs, fuel, operator time, all of it. And you can set hourly billing rates so you can job cost your equipment. And you can see how profitable it really is on your projects. A lot of our customers are surprised when they actually start seeing those numbers. Now maintenance scheduling is built in as well, and you can set that up by hour, by date, by mileage. That's another report that is great to automate with the report books. And that way the system tells you when something is due before it becomes a problem or a safety issue. Now we also have the tool and equipment tracking module, and this piece lets you check tools and equipment in and out of jobs or to specific employees or even inventory locations. So you always know where things are and when they're due back. And you could job cost those items with either daily, weekly, monthly rates. Or if you rent equipment to outside contractors or bill your own jobs internally for using it, you can generate those invoices right from this module. So last but definitely not least, let's talk about the service management module. So for those of you running a service department, Computerease has a full service management module, and it really does handle the whole workflow. From the dispatch board, you have a complete view of every open work order and who's assigned and what stage it's in, and it's all here on one screen. Now for the field side of things, work orders will get pushed out to your text through a web based app called Fieldies. When a new work order comes in, the tech will automatically get an email or text that lets them know they've got a new job. And then they'll pull it up on their iPad or their tablet or their laptop, and I'll show show you an example of what a workout order will look like that's already been filled out in the field. But you can see here that the tech has filled out their material, their labor. They can add attachments from the field as well, so maybe a photo of the equipment, a completed inspection form, whatever they need to document on that job. And then once the tech finishes and submits that work order, it comes right back to the office for quick billing, and your team can review everything, make any edits if needed, and they'll approve it before anything goes out to the customer. So you've always got that review step, so nothing goes to a customer without someone in the office seeing it. Now the service management module isn't just for the one off service calls. It also handles maintenance contracts. So the system manages when those jobs need to be performed and when to bill for them. So it keeps your recurring work organized and make sure nothing ever slips through the cracks. So that was a lot of ground that we just covered. And, honestly, we still only scratch the surface on a lot of these areas. Each one of these modules goes a lot deeper than what I'm able to show you today. So if anything sparked a question or piqued your interest, whether it's something specific to how your business operates or you just want to see an area in more detail, that's exactly what we're here for. And I'd love to set aside some time to dig into whatever matters most to you. So from here, let me bring you back to the slides, and we'll go ahead and wrap up, and we'll do q and a. Alright. Welcome back. So one more quick poll before we head into q and a. Would you like to be contacted to learn more about Deltek Computery's add on modules? So go ahead and take a second to answer, and this goes straight to our team. Someone will reach out after the webinar to everyone that's raised their hands. So I'll leave this open for about thirty seconds. And for those of you who said yes, someone will reach out to you soon. And even if you said no today, please know the door is always open. Don't hesitate to reach out to us anytime. We're we're here to help. So I'll leave that question open for about ten more seconds. Alright. So one more thing before we get into q and a. I want to take just a quick minute to mention g two. If you're not familiar, g two is one of the most widely used software review sites out there. A lot of contractors use it when they're researching and comparing software options before making a decision. And as you can see on the slide, Computorees has earned some really great recognition. So if you're a current Computorees customer and you've had a good experience, we would love if you could take a few minutes to leave us a review. And you can do that at the website listed on the slide. And as a little thank you for being a customer and for taking the time, you'll receive a $25 gift gift card for completing it. We truly appreciate every single review, not just because it helps us grow, but it helps other contractors find the right solution for their business. Okay. Now let's open it up for questions. We've got just a few minutes left, and I want to make sure we get to what's most on your mind. So if you have questions, go ahead and drop those in the chat. So first question, does the Computorees field app have geolocation functionality? It does. And we covered so much today that I wasn't able to really dig into that feature. But if geolocation is something you'd like to discuss in more detail, go ahead and raise your hand, and we'll reach out to you and get you set up with a demo that's more focused on that. What happens to our data if we move to the cloud? And are we protected if something goes wrong? So great question and, honestly, really fair. So when you're on the Computery's cloud, your data is still your data. You always have access to it, and it's automatically backed up on a regular basis in multiple locations. And we run disaster recovery testing, so we make sure that those backups are viable if you need them. And on top of that, you've got ransomware protection. You have virus protection, data corruption protection. That's all built in, as well as our cloud team who are experts in hosting. Can someone log in to Computoree's cloud from an iPad out on a job site? Yes. And that is one of the best things about being in the cloud. It's device agnostic. So if they have an iPad, a tablet, a laptop, it could be Android, Mac, PC. If it has a browser and an Internet connection, they'll be able to access Computorease in the cloud. Okay. So here's one about payroll services. Does our process inside Computorease change at all? Not really. You will still process your payroll inside Computorease the way you do today, assuming that you're using our payroll module. Your team will enter the time, whether that's, you know, through labor distribution or with the mobile app that we looked at earlier. You run the payroll. It flows to job cost. It hits the GL the same way. It our payroll service just handles everything on the back end, so the tax payments, the filings, the agency communications. So overall, the workflow stays the same. You just have less to worry about on the compliance side. Can I track equipment certifications or inspection dates for my fleet inside Computereats? So, yes, definitely. And that's actually a nice combination of a couple things I showed today. So in the fleet and asset module, you can set up maintenance schedules, and you could do that by the date, hours, mileage, and that will track when equipment is due for service or inspection. And then you can add user defined fields to your equipment, and then you could add those to a q tool report to capture that data point. So once you've built that report, you could even add it to the report books that we talked about earlier and have it automatically emailed to you when those are expiring. So, yes, great question. How much does it cost to move to the cloud? Another great question, and it depends on your user count and how you're set up. So we'll have a account manager reach out to you after the webinar, and they can help you get set up with a quote for moving to the cloud. Alright. So there are a few questions that I wasn't able to get to, but we are running short of time. I'll make sure to reach out after the webinar ends. So for those of you that stuck with me to the end, thank you very much. For those that raised your hands, we'll be reaching out soon, and everybody have a great day. Thank you.