Companies that use enterprise resource planning (ERP) software to manage their day-to-day business operations are often frustrated by the disconnect between their ERP system and project management system. Acumatica for project management bridges the gap between these processes.
To understand the value of Acumatica for project management, let’s first define what Acumatica is, how it can be used for project management and its project accounting features. Then we’ll explore the project management integration for Acumatica and the benefits of Acumatica for project management.
What Is Acumatica?
Acumatica is a cloud-based ERP system for businesses with features for accounting, financial reporting and customer relationship management (CRM). Acumatica excels at managing finances, employees and even certain projects and tasks. However, to oversee fully-fledged projects, complete with complex schedules, resources allocations and detailed task data required integration.
Acumatica is one of the fastest-growing cloud ERP companies in the U.S. It has over 10,000 customers throughout the world, including in construction, distribution, manufacturing, retail and professional services. Acumatica helps manage accounting, operations, customers, vendors, employees and other aspects of business operations. Its open architecture allows for rapid integration, scalability and ease of use. It helps run all the core functions of a business more efficiently.
The primary uses for Acumatica include finance and accounting teams, executives, department leaders and subcontractors. It has modules for financial management, inventory management, CRM, warehouse management and supply chain management. It has features that can support some aspects of project management processes, but it doesn’t help execute projects and tasks with teams or provide real-time insights, but can integrate with other software to deliver a real project management solution.
Can You Manage Projects With Acumatica?
Technically, Acumatica isn’t a project management software, but there are modules, integrations and services that Acumatica provides to bring project management functionality into your ERP system.
Using project management modules provides seamless integration rather than the time-consuming effort of manual imports. There is a growing need for improved collaboration and visibility between project teams and financial teams in an organization.
ProjectManager, an award-winning project and portfolio management software, is recognized as an official Acumatica Application, meeting its rigorous standards for integration and functionality. With ProjectManager, users have a cutting-edge, bi-directional project management application that empowers them to seamlessly synchronize project data, automate financial tasks and optimize workflow processes within their Acumatica ERP system. Contact ProjectManager to learn more.
Acumatica Project Accounting Features
Acumatica isn’t project management software, it’s an ERP for manufacturing, construction and other industries. However, it does offer some features that can be used for project management processes.
For example, it can help with project accounting, managing budgets, inventory, change orders, timesheets, billing, profitability and reporting. Here are some of the other features that Acumatica has for project accounting.
- Time management: Captures employee or crew time for projects, service and payroll with mobile time entry and flexible approvals workflow.
- Budget Reporting: Customizable budget reports with various templates to see financial data, spot trends and make informed decisions to keep costs in check.
- Change Order Management: Set up change order workflows to manage the status of each change throughout the project lifecycle.
- Cost Tracking: Monitor, track and manage project costs, revenues and budget for projects.
- Project Quoting: Create new project quotes to estimate the revenue and costs of a project and then send the quote to the customer.
Project Management Integration for Acumatica by ProjectManager
For a full suite of project management tools that work hand-in-hand with Acumatica’s project management accounting features, integrate with ProjectManager, which is the only true bi-directional project management integration. The combination of ProjectManager with Acumatica’s project accounting features yields the best project management experience on Acumatica.
Why Integrate With ProjectManager?
Acumatica is not designed for project managers and PMOs, engineering, IT and professional services teams. However, because of the many modules it offers for integration, the primary users for Acumatica’s executive and financial teams and professionals tasked with managing projects, users for each system can work in the system they’re comfortable with.
Integrating ProjectManager with Acumatica can bring these two different teams together. Each can work in their preferred software solution and still transfer data seamlessly via the integration. This allows for faster delivery, better data accuracy and a more effective workforce.
With the ProjectManager integration, users can create detailed project plans that can track progress, allocate resources and monitor financial impacts with Acumatica’s ERP solution. The key benefits of this integration include real-time synchronization of data, such as project plans, resource schedules and task management. There’s no duplication of data entry. Data accuracy and efficiency are improved by leveraging bi-directional integration.
Automate workflows to streamline cost and resource management processes. Users can design customized workflows that are tailored to their specific business needs. There’s also enhanced collaboration and visibility among teams by centralizing information and facilitating cross-platform communication.
Achieve deep insights into project plans and statuses in either application. Project accounting and reporting are always up to date with the real-time data sync. This allows project and financial teams within the organization to achieve in-depth project analysis with reliable data, which leads to better management, forecasting and outcomes.
For more information on this integration and a demo, watch the quick 10-minute video below.
Who Is ProjectManager?
ProjectManager is project and portfolio management software designed for business excellence. It has features to plan projects, build workflows and manage resources with powerful tools for the whole team. When projects need vigorous planning, forecasting, cost analysis, resource allocation, task management and reporting, professionals use ProjectManager, which outperforms the competition.
Founded in 2008, ProjectManager currently has over 3,000 satisfied customers including FedEx, Nestle and AWS. It’s the preferred project management software for construction, manufacturing, IT and professional services. ProjectManager’s primary users are project managers, PMOs, engineering and construction teams, IT teams and professional services teams.
ProjectManager’s features include advanced project planning, resource scheduling and allocation, project portfolio dashboards, planned versus actual cost tracking, automated workflows, project dashboards, project collaboration, task management and more.
Why Use a Project Management Integration?
Acumatica is a great tool for managing finances, employees and even certain types of projects and tasks. But for Acumatica to oversee fully-fledged projects complete with complex schedules, resource allocations and detailed task data requires integration with ProjectManager.
There’s a difference between a true project management software and an ERP. Let’s compare use cases and features. Acumatica specializes in accounting, financial reporting, inventory management, CRM, payroll and time tracking.
These features can support some project management processes, but they’re not useful in executing projects and tasks with project teams. Acuamatic cannot give users real-time insights that ProjectManager can through its resource allocation across a dynamic project schedule.
ProjectManager is a perfect fit for Acumatica project management. It delivers advanced project management features that allow project managers and their teams to plan, manage and track their projects in real time. Instead of shoehorning project managers and their teams into Acumatica, which could result in project slowdowns and data inaccuracies, integrate ProjectManager with Acumatica for project management solutions that dovetail seamlessly with its project accounting features.
Benefits of This Acumatica Project Management Integration
The benefits of Acumatica for project management with the ProjectManager integration are many. Users get deep project planning, resource scheduling and task management features without double entry, which results in saving time and better data accuracy across both systems.
Users can execute project plans with their team in ProjectManager, a collaborative environment, and then track progress, resources and financial impact in Acumatica. Since this is a bi-directional integration with access to real-time data, users no longer need to manually import Excel or CSV files into Acumatica for project updates.
This will provide increased visibility into project plans and statuses across platforms, deepen project-level analysis, automate and streamline cost and resource management and reduce manual imports. ProjectManager is the best integration for Acumatica project management.
Contact ProjectManager to Learn More
For businesses looking to connect their project management and financial operations, they need to look no further for an Acumatica for project management application. ProjectManager integration gives users the power of seamless integration. Schedule a custom demo today and discover how Acumatica for project management with ProjectManager can transform your project management experience. Contact ProjectManager today.
Acumatica Project Management as a Service
As noted above, Acumatica does not have a project management module. It does, however, partner with resellers who are experts in project management and can customize Acumatica’s features for customers who are interested in Acumatica for project management.
Acumatica’s “project management as a service” is designed to help partners achieve ERP implementation. Partners work directly with Acumatica-certified project managers, who help them with each stage of the ERP implementation lifecycle.
The standard project management options include project planning, kickoff meetings, weekly project management meetings, weekly core team status meetings, weekly status reports and project plan tools. There’s also a premium option that includes what was just listed as well as follow-up and status updates, monthly steering committee meetings, task and issue log monitoring and a personalized dashboard.
More Project Management Integrations From the Acumatica Marketplace
ProjectManager is the sole project management software integration that’s available on the Acumatica marketplace, which is its platform for finding integrations. There are other integrations, though, that can facilitate project management processes. They are as follows.
- WorkforceGo: Automated, scalable tool that integrates HR, time and attendance, scheduling, payroll and more.
- Asite Project Workflow: Fully and seamlessly integrated with Acumatica’s construction edition, helps to manage the entire project lifecycle, bringing data together in a single secure platform.
- ASC Project Accounting Extension: Extends project accounting into requests/requisitions allowing companies to track purchases associated with projects and their tasks from inception.
- ExakTime: Time tracking purpose-built for construction, designed to be simple and intuitive.
- WorkMax Time: Cloud-based employee time-tracking solution for the construction industry, tracks employee hours, tasks and units completed in real time.
- RedTeam: Commercial construction management software, extends workflows to team members in the field and office.
Why ProjectManager Is the Best Acumatica Project Management Integration
While there are some Acumatica for project management integrations, it’s clear that none have the scope of ProjectManager, which is a full-service project and portfolio management software that can be used by construction, manufacturing, IT, personal services and many other professionals managing projects. Follow this link to integrate Acumatica with ProjectManager and gain key portfolio insight, reduce data gaps and better understand the financial impact of projects. ProjectManager has multiple project views and can balance resources to achieve greater productivity.
Use Multiple Project Management Views and Tools
When planning, executing and tracking a project, teams require different tools. Project managers use robust Gantt charts or the sheet view, which can link all four types of task dependencies, filter for the critical path and set a baseline to track planned effort against actual effort. Cross-functional teams prefer the visual workflow of a kanban board or manage their tasks on the powerful list view. Stakeholders tend to work on the calendar view, with its monthly overview of the project’s tasks so they can keep updated on progress. All views are updated simultaneously allowing all team members to work on the most current data.
Advanced Resource Management Features
Managing resource helps to deliver successful projects. Start by onboarding teams and setting their availability, including vacation time, PTO and even global holidays for distributed teams. This makes assigning tasks much easier. Then go to the color-coded workload chart or the team page and get an overview of all the team members’ allocation. From there, balance their workload to ensure that everyone is working at capacity and therefore more productive.
Related Content
ProjectManager is an ideal project and portfolio management software for construction and manufacturing teams. For those who aren’t ready to upgrade to Acumataica for project management with the ProjectManager integration, take a moment to read some of the articles we’ve published on the best project management software tools on the market, free construction and manufacturing templates and scheduling software for construction.
- Acumatica for Manufacturing
- Acumatica Construction Edition
- Best Project Management Software: Free & Paid Options Ranked
- Excel Construction Templates (Free Download)
- Manufacturing Excel Templates (Free Download)
- Why Use a Gantt Chart in Construction Project Management
- Best Construction Scheduling Software: Free & Paid Options Ranked
ProjectManager is online project and portfolio management software that connects teams whether they’re in the office, out in the field or anywhere in between. They can share files, comment at the task level and stay updated with email and in-app notifications. Join teams at Avis, Nestle and Siemens who use our software to deliver successful projects. Get started with ProjectManager integration with Acumatica today.