Blog

Oct 26, 2020

Finding reliable, scalable integrations between an ERP system and other critical business applications hasn’t been easy — until now. With the launch of Unanet Connect, Unanet customers gain access to the new industry standard for integrating the tools they use with Unanet’s lineup of project-based ERPs. Unanet Connect introduces an open, modern platform for integrations and automations that goes beyond APIs and features a marketplace with more than 100 pre-built application connectors that can be implemented at scale with an accelerated time to value. Unanet Connect provides government contractors, architects & engineers, and professional services firms with important building blocks for their digital transformation efforts. Simply by shopping the marketplace, they can create a fully integrated digital ecosystem with the Unanet project-based SaaS ERP solution at its center — an ecosystem that delivers increased efficiencies across systems, processes and teams, from sales to projects, expenses to payments and hiring to payroll and operations. Unanet Connect brings the app marketplace experience to the world of ERP, providing Unanet customers with a one-stop shop for data orchestration, workflow automation and improved team collaboration tools. Unanet customers can integrate with leading solutions, including Paylocity, ADP, BambooHR, Oracle, MS Teams, Box, DocuSign and HubSpot, to name just a few. The marketplace covers the full spectrum of business needs, with ready-to-implement integrations for CRM, HRIS, financials, project, payroll, contract management, inventory, expense, time, payments, productivity and more. These are robust integrations with some of the most in-demand, best-in-class business applications, built by a development team at Unanet that has produced many such integrations over the years. They stand up quickly and elegantly, and sync effortlessly across platforms, with Unanet’s purpose-built ERP solution as the backbone. You’ll find applications your organization is already using today, along with others you’ve considered implementing to run your business more efficiently. “Our commitment to customers is giving them elegant, integrated technology so they can run their entire businesses, not just their ERP, and with Unanet Connect, we’re delivering on that promise. As companies continue their digital transformations, Unanet Connect is the only tool that will allow them to scale their entire enterprise environment in a way that meets all of their unique needs, improving their business processes easily and simply,” said Assad Jarrahian, chief product officer, Unanet. What are integrations? Integrations are critical to any digital transformation. Essentially, integrations are the connections that enable various digital systems to function as a single unit. They connect the disparate software your organization uses so they interact and share information with one another without sacrificing functionality or data quality, and without requiring extra steps by the user. Why is making so many useful integrations available in the Unanet Connect marketplace such a big deal for our GovCon and A/E customers? Automation is a big reason. Using the tools available in Unanet Connect in tandem with Unanet’s ERP software unlocks the power of automated processes across an entire organization. So for example, the hand-off of a new project from the sales team to the project management team would automatically trigger the launch of DocuSign for the signing of project kick-off documents, with data about the new project and new customer transferring automatically from HubSpot into Unanet’s project-based ERP. It also unlocks the power of collaboration, enabling your teams to work from a single source of truth and around a central set of KPIs — to play off a single sheet of music, if you will. And let’s not overlook productivity. The more integrated your systems, processes and software are, the less time your people will spend on redundant data entry, fixing data entry errors, etc., and the more time they’ll have to focus on activities that bring value to your organization: serving customers, moving projects forward, exploring and developing new revenue opportunities and the like. To further streamline and support the integration process, Unanet Connect leverages enterprise-grade APIs that allow you to securely connect applications with end-to-end encryption and data masking for privacy along with robust tools to tailor integrations at scale with your organization’s needs, and with its digital transformation aspirations. The future of your business will depend largely on digital integration, workflow automation and scalable collaboration. With the launch of Unanet Connect, the future has arrived.

Jul 27, 2020

Dulles, VA, July 27, 2020 – Unanet A/E powered by Clearview, the flexible project-based ERP software purpose-built for the architecture and engineering (A/E) industries, today released several new features that help A/E firms improve HR, Accounting, and Sales processes. Today’s release further demonstrates Unanet’s commitment to investing and enhancing Unanet A/E so customers can drive efficiency in their businesses. Unanet A/E has three new features: Enhanced CRM is a web-accessible, mobile-friendly feature that helps Unanet A/E customers improve sales tracking and nurture their customer relationships, so they can prioritize high-value opportunities in their pipeline. Additionally, customers can manage job cost, visualize and track opportunity updates, and manage the entire lifecycle of an opportunity on any device. Enhanced CRM eliminates siloes and fosters integration across multiple business functions. Line item web approvals ensure more accurate time and expense entries and readily catch errors prior to billing. This feature makes approvals intuitive and natural for managers with mobile access from any device. By streamlining and more intelligently executing line item approvals, A/E firms eliminate excessive labor hours, and also reduce the need for additional training. Secure payroll integration with customers’ trusted payroll vendors helps run, automate, and manage payroll and employee information, reducing HR costs and labor. This feature seamlessly transfers data bi-directionally so A/E firms can have improved confidence in their payroll information across the company. “These new features were developed and integrated into Unanet A/E based on customer input,” said Assad Jarrahian, chief product officer, Unanet. “We are committing to ongoing collaboration with our valued customers so they have the industry’s best tools for managing their businesses at their fingertips.” “Ashley McGraw Architects creates spaces where people are inspired to work, live, learn, collaborate and play. Relationships are at the core of what we do, and now that Unanet A/E has CRM in the web, we couldn’t be more excited,” said Deborah Rhea, Chief Operating & Finance Officer, Ashley McGraw Architects. “We love the team at Unanet A/E and look forward to their latest release.” Today’s release builds on the robust features delivered earlier in 2020 that included new integration capabilities for online payment processing, streamlining invoice delivery with enhanced invoice tracking, and an easy-to-use web app. Unanet A/E also delivers powerful analytics that allow A/E firms to predict, forecast, and model scenarios with virtually unlimited variables. “By working collaboratively with our customers, we work to identify precisely what tools they need and then develop innovative solutions to help them excel in the dynamic architecture, engineering, and construction industries,” said Matt Pantana, SVP of product, Unanet A/E. “Unanet’s investment in A/E solutions are demonstrating results and we’re committed to continuing this success.” To learn more about Unanet A/E’s new features, please visit https://exportunanet.wpengine.com/erp-for-a-e/. About Unanet Unanet is the leading provider of ERP solutions purpose-built for Government Contractors, A/E, and Professional Services. More than 2,000 project-driven organizations depend on Unanet to turn their information into actionable insights, drive better decision-making, and nurture business growth. For more information, visit www.unanet.com. Follow Unanet A/E at @UnanetAE on Twitter and Unanet-AE on LinkedIn.

Oct 14, 2020

Unanet is thrilled to share that it will acquire Cosential, the leader in customer relationship management (CRM) software and proposal solutions for the construction and A/E markets. The combination of our purpose-built ERP and Cosential’s CRM software will give customers new choices for best-in-class solutions that meet their enterprise business management needs, including business development, proposal management, project management, finance, operations and resource management. Together, we can bring a best-in-class alternative to the status quo, so customers gain the satisfaction and innovation they deserve. Last year we acquired Clearview Software, which demonstrates our commitment to investing in and enhancing existing platforms. Just like with Clearview, Unanet will continue to invest in Cosential’s technology for the construction and A/E industries while also maintaining its innovation momentum in GovCon and other professional services industries. Cosential brings deep-rooted expertise in the A/E and construction industries as the CRM market leader in the AEC space. Unanet and Cosential have many mutual customers, further demonstrating the synergy between the two companies and their technologies, and underscoring the opportunity for collaboration and innovation. Read more about the future of Unanet’s AEC solutions here.

Sep 17, 2020

Unanet users, say goodbye to the headaches and wasted hours that often accompany a lack of integration between your firm’s ERP and preferred payroll system. Unanet features payroll integration with Paylocity, Proliant, and TriNet, a trio of best-in-class cloud-based systems for managing payroll and other key HR functions. This seamless integration enables up-to-the-second payroll information, along with key employee demographic data and processed payroll/general ledger data, to flow in real time across your firm. The integrations with Paylocity, Proliant, and TriNet will move the needle for firms in several important ways: Streamlined payroll processing and employee management eliminates the time-consuming, inefficient, and error-prone process of maintaining employee information in multiple systems. Whoever wears the payroll hat in your firm, whether it’s HR or accounting, will appreciate having a simplified, integrated and ultimately less time-intensive process. Utilizing the power of automated payroll workflows increases efficiency and accuracy.Time savings free employees for the higher-value work that drives your business forward. Without the burden of redundant data entry and long hours spent reconciling disparate systems, your HR people can focus on more pressing priorities like attracting and retaining talent and improving the employee experience.Data sync. Full integration ensures data integrity at all times and enables data to flow seamlessly and bi-directionally — a 360º sync. It gives firms and their HR departments a single version of the truth on which to base decisions.Peace of mind. Full payroll integration enables you to securely and confidently run payroll and provide your staff with a best-in-class experience from a trusted payroll vendor. Here at Unanet, we’re constantly striving to provide our customers with seamless integrations that automate and streamline critical business processes. To that end, we expect our roster of integration partners to grow in the ongoing quest to make business functions like payroll less of a headache and provide our customers with new ways to capture efficiencies inside their business. To learn more about Unanet A/E’s payroll integration features and what they can do for your business, click here.

Sep 17, 2020

First in an ongoing blog series detailing the reasoning behind a firm’s selection of Unanet’s ERP solution over other options. The firm: OptoKnowledge Systems, Inc. (optoknowledge.com), a Torrance, CA, company that develops imaging systems (hyperspectral imaging, night vision, situational awareness, and spectroscopy) for defense, security and environmental/energy applications. The company is primarily an R&D contractor for the Department of Defense, NASA and the Department of Energy. As accustomed as OptoKnowledge is to operating at technology’s leading edge as a developer of advanced imaging systems and sensors for night vision, drones, and other visibility-related applications, it needed an enterprise resource planning (ERP) system that could provide it with better visibility into its own business. Soon after purchasing the 30-year-old company in February 2020, OptoKnowledge’s new ownership realized the company could benefit from a new ERP system that could better support its strategic priorities — preferably one that’s fully integrated, proven in the government contractor space, and well-supported from a service standpoint. The effort to find a replacement for its inefficient and outmoded ERP system got off to a rocky start. The initial plan to transition from an obsolete version of that system to a newer version was abandoned, chiefly due to issues with data migration. Seeking another option, company officials reached out to their contacts in the GovCon space for recommendations. While the reports they got about one big-name ERP system were consistently less than glowing (mostly complaints about subpar support), the reviews their peers provided on another ERP software option were highly positive. Those positive reviews pertained to Unanet. Additional due diligence cemented Unanet as the right choice for OptoKnowledge, primarily for its strong data drill-down capabilities and its service and support, which got uniformly high marks from the current users with whom company officials spoke. A contract was signed soon thereafter, and OptoKnowledge is poised to implement Unanet’s purpose-built ERP software in November 2020. “We are so excited about the financial reporting,” says Ilana Gat, Chief Financial Officer at OptoKnowledge. “It’s impossible to ask staff to keep spreadsheets up to date, but with Unanet, our program managers will get real-time insights into their programs on a daily basis.” Using Unanet, she expects program managers will be able to see key information about their programs and projects in real time. She’s also looking forward to gaining a new level of granular insight into profit and loss by project/program, as well as the ability to drill into the data around individual transactions. The only drawback: waiting until these and other capabilities built into Unanet go live company-wide.

Sep 17, 2020

DULLES, Va., Aug. 27, 2020 — Unanet A/E powered by Clearview, the flexible project-based ERP software purpose-built for the architecture and engineering (A/E) industries, today announced a new agreement with Mesa Associates, one of the country’s largest engineering firms serving power, defense, aerospace, industrial, commercial and municipal entities. By implementing Unanet A/E’s ERP solution across its company of almost 900 employees, Mesa will be able to more efficiently and effectively manage its business, and deliver even better service to its customers. Specifically, Mesa will have access to robust reporting and analytics with real-time, interactive insights across the organization. Mesa will also leverage Unanet A/E’s mobile features including time, expense and approvals to gain efficiencies throughout their teams. All of these features of Unanet A/E will help Mesa deliver on its commitment to its customers to perform on schedule, within budget, and with the family-oriented care and support that has become the hallmark of Mesa’s success. “The Unanet team took the time to listen and understand our business, and then developed solutions that met our requirements, rather than trying to force a one-size-fits-all solution on us,” said Reggie Headrick, Senior Vice President, Mesa Associates. “The features Unanet A/E offers, coupled with their outstanding service and support teams, will give us an ERP system that we can rely on to be a single source of truth, accurate and up-to-date, which just makes us a better partner to our customers.” Mesa had been using disparate systems to manage its business, which led to complications among project teams and business functions. It also had issues with reporting, where pulling detailed reports would take hours and slow the entire system. Mesa begins the implementation of Unanet A/E in Q3 and will have the entire company using the platform in 2021. “Mesa is a leader in its field and has delivered some of the best projects in the entire region, primarily due to its strong relationships and care it provides its customers,” said Matt Pantana, SVP of Product for Unanet A/E. “Unanet A/E’s mission to serve customers aligns with Mesa, and both of us are trusted advisors in our respected fields. We’re thrilled to have the honor of working with Mesa.” In 2020, Unanet A/E has rolled-out extensive new features including payroll integration, streamlined invoice delivery with payment facilitation, and mobile capabilities. These features, coupled with the robust support from Unanet corporate, have helped Unanet become a leader in the A/E space. Unanet expects to continue to release feature enhancements that draw A/E customers away from disparate or less reliable systems, and to the purpose-built simplicity and ease-of-use of the ERP platform. About Unanet Unanet is a leading provider of ERP solutions purpose-built for Government Contractors, A/E, and Professional Services. More than 2,000 project-driven organizations depend on Unanet to turn their information into actionable insights, drive better decision-making, and nurture business growth. For more information, visit www.unanet.com. Follow Unanet at @UnanetTech on Twitter and Unanet-Technologies on LinkedIn.