PROFESSIONAL SERVICES

AUTOMATE TIME AND BILLING

Professional Services Automation Time and Billing provides a simple and fast method for professional services staff to enter their billable and non-billable time, designate projects and input notes for either internal review or to append to client invoices. Custom business rules can verify time sheet accuracy and completeness. Workflow processes run in the background to verify that all time sheets are received by due dates, or if not, automatically send out e-mail alert notifications requesting receipt. Once time is entered, it automatically transfers to customer invoices during the billing cycle. Time and Billing simplifies time capture, validates accuracy, enforces time sheet compliance and accelerates the billing and collections process.

MONITOR REAL-TIME PROJECT PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT

The PSA Project Accounting module provides an up to the minute pulse on all project financial aspects and system wide job cost integration for all transaction types, including purchase orders, payables, sales orders, time reporting, invoicing, cash receipts, and journal entries. Proper jobs, job types and cost codes can be validated at the source transaction to improve data accuracy and make sure that all job-related revenue and expense transactions get assigned to the right job. The centralized job cost management console provides a one stop view of job status, budget, customer information, billing, tasks and other activities helpful for coordinating the control and management in a simple and effective manner. Job profiles can be customized using the Customization Manager so that all needed information is recorded, unused fields are removed and page layout is user defined.

ADOPT BEST PRACTICES

In an increasingly competitive environment, sales and project delivery mistakes come at a higher price. Professional services organizations who fail to document customer facing and project delivery processes extend user learning curves, repeat mistakes, miss sale opportunities and erode customer confidence. The PSA Content Management System (CMS) is a knowledge- base which delivers instruction, processes and best practices for consistent performance and a simplified user experience. Project delivery best practices and company specific procedures can be created and linked to PSA processes in order to complete tasks accurately and consistently.

RAISE STAFF PRODUCTIVITY AND ROI

Organizations don't achieve ROI by putting data into a system. They achieve ROI when manual business processes are automated and productivity increases. Business process automation is the answer to the question of how to do more with less. Only Aplicor Professional Services Automation provides a Workflow Designer to permit the custom configuration and automation of project management milestone achievements, time sheet forwarding, process approvals, resource utilization alert notifications, automated billing and other user-defined activities. By empowering users to automate otherwise manual activities, Aplicor raises the PSA system value, payback and ROI.

USE BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE (BI) FOR MORE EFFECTIVE DECISION MAKING

In order to accommodate staff who want quick and simple custom reports in a matter of a few minutes, as well as users who desire reports based on multiple-dimensions and complex logic, Aplicor delivers a Business Intelligence (BI) suite which includes the Visual Report Writer, the Data Warehousing Suite and Dashboards.

• The Reports Library provides on-demand reporting for managing information, people, time and projects. Billable hours, staff utilization, staff realization, project margins, client profitability and other reports provide drill-down analysis, slicing and dicing of data and exporting to Excel, PDF, XML or other file formats. Reports may be customized or new reports created with the Visual Report Writer
• The data warehouse and OLAP (Online Analytical Processing) suite permits drag-and-drop manipulation in order to instantly understand the causes, effects and impacts which most influence the reporting results
• Dashboards deliver key performance indicators, visual diagrams and pro forma modeling in to facilitate action-based information. Dashboards and the BI suite focus on clarifying the difference between what information is available and what information is really actionable, deciding how to apply that information and take directive as a result. Aplicor BI transforms raw data or consolidated columnar reporting into the graphical visualization of trends and patterns readily visible and actionable. BI is the tangible means to turn information into actionable outcomes. Aplicor is the only hosted system which provides a BI suite and forward looking reporting

USE CUSTOMER INFORMATION TO GROW CUSTOMER SHARE

Customer knowledge provides the single-greatest path to profitable organic growth in the professional services industry. Aplicor PSA provides complete front-to-back office client information in a centralized 360 degree customer view. With one integrated system, staff view all client marketing interactions, sales communications, customer support incident history, client contacts and preferences, client documentation, complete purchasing history and outstanding sales and receivables information.

ENABLE DOCUMENT MANAGEMENT AND KNOWLEDGE SHARING

The Document Library is a centralized repository which maximizes knowledge sharing and information re-use by providing easy access to historical or archived working papers and prior client deliverables. Documents and other electronic files can be categorized by information type, client type, category, class, dates and other user-defined variables in order to provide precise recall and searching capabilities. Looking for that analysis or deliverable somebody did for a client three years ago, but don't know the author, client name or file name? The Document Library can retrieve the file based on information type, description or other criteria. By using a central medium for document control, the most current document versions are always utilized and document security, history and audit trails are maintained.

EMPOWER REMOTE AND TRAVELING STAFF

Aplicor Offline Edition keeps users productive even when they're not connected to the Internet. Offline Edition allows sales professionals to take, use and update their account information while on the road and then simply synchronize with the online system during the next login. The ability to view and update account information while on an airplane, in a hotel or in a client's office is critical to empowering professional services staff, capturing accurate data at the source and eliminating redundant work or rekeying of data. For security purposes, all offline information is encrypted and secured.

ADDITIONAL CRM CAPABILITIES

The benefits below are a small sampling of additional CRM PSA capabilities:

• Front-To-Back Office Integration

    It doesn't take a genius to recognize that multiple vendor systems result in islands of information, disintegrated processes, difficult information retrieval and ultimately vendor finger pointing when it comes to trouble-shooting system issues. The Aplicor back-office accounting system is fully integrated with the front-office CRM (Customer Relationship Management) system. Aplicor pioneered Front-to-Back Office fully integrated systems in the software-as-a-service and hosting industry. One web-based, enterprise-wide, front-to-back office system brings formerly disparate sources of information into a single view and ensures that people get the best information regardless of its source.

• Customer Satisfaction Continual Improvement

   The CRM systems provides manual or automated customer survey distributions and tabulations. Alert e-mail notifications can automatically initiate based on specified survey response results

• E-mail Integration

   The PSA system provides synchronization of e-mail, contacts, appointments and activities with MS Outlook, Lotus Notes, Blackberry, Palm and Pocket PC

• Demonstrate Compliance

   The complete customer record history and audit trail is automatically retained in order to provide visible and verifiable internal controls for policy, contractual or statutory compliance

• Simple Customization

   PSA screens can be modified on demand to add new fields, remove unnecessary fields, change field attributes and position all fields and the entire page layout in the way that makes the best sense and supports the greatest ease of use. Customization is done with a visual drag-and-drop designer by system administrators. Programming and confusing syntax are not required

The Professional Services Automation edition stands alone as a hosted and on-demand front-to-back office online CRM and financial accounting software solution which achieves key competitive advantages of increased staff realization, more timely project management, improved project delivery, automated billing and accelerated cash collections.