Blog

Jan 13, 2021

New solutions designed for a data-driven COVID-19 recovery and beyond Cosential has reaffirmed their continued push of bringing innovation to the Architecture, Engineering, and Construction industry with the launch of the New Business Development Experience. The new suite of features eclipses basic CRM capabilities, and places the power of pursuit data directly into the hands of users. The new innovations are designed to enable Business Developers and Doer-Sellers with quick and easy access to the data they need on-the-go to strategically leverage the power of their relationships and drive predictable revenue for their firm within a project-based platform. Cosential allows Business Developers and Doer-Sellers to work where their daily habits already thrive in business pursuits by delivering them the right information, real-time, in the context of how they operate today: on-the-go with their smartphones, and at-their-desk directly from their email inbox. Business Developers and Doer-Sellers are the pace-setters within AEC firms, the introduction of the New Business Development Experience includes an entirely re-imagined mobile application, for iOS and Android, as well as the strongest integration with Outlook – bringing the right information to users in the context of how they pursue and win business, and cracking the code to wide-spread technology adoption across firms by eliminating the need for multiple web page logins to further operational efficiencies with familiar tools. Cosential’s new mobile app completely up-levels the on-the-go experience for users. Cosential for Mobile enables business developers to access and manage their contacts from anywhere, and feed their colleagues important relationship and pursuit information on-the-go, never missing a critical moment. Cosential for Outlook seamlessly integrates contact and opportunity management with email, allowing users to run on the power of their firm’s data while connecting their contacts, leads, and maintaining their pipeline straight from their inbox. “A/E/C firms are experiencing one of the most complex and unpredictable environments in their history, now more than ever their success depends on their business development teams’ ability to help draw predictable revenue streams and stabilize accounts. Relationships are at the core of Business Development teams, and that’s true here at Cosential, as well. Our customers told us precisely what they needed during these turbulent times and we’re committed to innovating and delivering those solutions. No other CRM provides this level of pre-sales relationship and pipeline management functionality,” said Akshay Mahajan, General Manager of CRM at Unanet. Cosential is delivering on its commitment to continued innovation after its acquisition by Unanet, the leading ERP provider for the A/E/C market. Together, Unanet and Cosential are uniquely positioned to continue to deliver the most innovative platform and value for A/E/C businesses looking to streamline their business operations in 2021. The Gilbane Building Company has been an early adopter and partner with Cosential on the New Business Development Experience. In fact, Ryan Hutchins – the executive VP of Business Development at Gilbane categorizes Cosential’s New Business Development Experience as a game-changer for the firm, ranked number ten on ENR’s top four hundred contractors. Sharing, in his own words, that “Now we are able to execute project pursuits without leaving the tools our BD teams are most familiar with.” To learn more about Cosential’s newest enhancements for A/E/C CRM, read the press release or Download the Overview.

Jan 04, 2021

Today we unveiled new game-changing features and functions for our ERP platform purpose-built for GovCons. The new capabilities clearly establish Unanet at the forefront of ERP functionality and ease-of-use, giving customers more visibility, analytics, and real-time project management tools than ever before. Customers gain best-in-class technology while also benefitting from the dedicated service and support Unanet delivers. For GovCons, Unanet’s new release offers three primary enhancements: Contract Management, Project Central Dashboard, and Unanet Mobile. The enhanced Contract Management capabilities enable users to record, track and reconcile a contract’s value and funding by modification, aggregate contracts by customer and project type, and  more. Users can associate a contract with as many projects as needed to account for CLINs, SLINs and Task or delivery orders. Changes are automatically reflected in an automatic audit trail, and reports reflect the latest contract details, information and modifications. The new Project Central Dashboard is an interactive dashboard in Analytics Studio that provides real-time, integrated  project and financial insights. More than 45 different project-based metrics related to revenue, revenue backlog, revenue variance, profitability and many more are presented in graphs and tabular formats, providing detailed, personalized project views for project managers. Unanet Mobile is a new native application that allows users to input time and comments, set push notifications, request leave, and do it all  directly from the mobile device of their choice. The simplicity, along with secure authentication, encourages consistent time input by employees on the go. Powered by Stripe, Unanet Pay is newly available for GovCons and will provide a significant increase in invoicing and payment flexibility resulting in increased efficiencies and improved cash flow.  Inventory Management has features that allow project managers and accountants to view and report on inventory associated with their projects.  While inventory is managed through best-in-class inventory solutions, the integration creates inventory transactions associated to the project and journal entry transactions documenting the inventory flow from acquisition to use. In recent months, GovCons have been hit with a variety of rule changes, new regulations and industry uncertainty, and 2021 promises to offer a similar roller-coaster ride. All the new features help GovCons have one, consistent and single source of truth for all their business information, and help them gather valuable real-time insight. This helps them accelerate projects, meet deadlines and be profitable. Unanet is committed to being a trusted counselor and knowledgeable expert to help GovCons navigate increasing change and complexity in their industries, through insightful, simplified project and financials management, contract management, invoicing, timekeeping, security compliance and more.

Jan 04, 2021

Today Unanet released several new industry-leading features and functions of its ERP platform purpose-built for A/E companies. The new capabilities clearly establish Unanet at the forefront of ERP functionality and ease-of-use, giving customers more visibility, analytics, and real-time project management tools than ever before. Customers gain best-in-class technology while also benefitting from the dedicated service and support Unanet delivers. For A/E customers, Unanet’s new features provide a more seamless deployment experience for project managers, accounting teams in both AP and AR, and all desktop users. Highlighting the latest release is a new web experience for Project Managers, enhancements to Unanet Pay, and updates to project planning and purchasing functionalities. Project Central for Web provides detailed project views anytime, anywhere with key metrics across all projects in one, single real-time source. Firms can customize the metrics to create personalized project views, search and export information, and monitor project performance dashboards with KPIs at the project and phase level. Unanet Pay, previously known as invoice delivery and payment facilitation, is an upgraded function powered by Stripe that streamlines invoicing, tracks customer engagement, and increases cash flow. Customers can copy/paste payment links for easier collections, flexibly email invoices, engage their customers with a seamless invoicing experience and collect payments via ACH and credit card more efficiently than ever before. New Enhanced Project Planning functions provide key updates to Unanet A/E’s full suite of enterprise tools for scheduling, budgeting and managing projects featuring enhancements for multiple rate analyses, and ETC and Percent Complete History automation for easier earned value management. Purchasing is also simplified with flexible configuration and approvals, support for process automations, and easy-to-use management. After a year of extreme uncertainty and varying market dynamics in the A/E industries, customers need insightful – and valuable – tools that help them gain a competitive advantage, and ultimately profitability. Unanet A/E has carefully tailored each of its upgrades to resolve a specific challenge faced by customers today, at their requests. These features help companies execute on their business goals. To learn more details about Unanet A/E’s new release please visit our Unanet A/E 2020.7 Release Notes (login required).

Dec 21, 2020

Project-based ERP software users have spoken, and their verdict is clear: Unanet performs better than most solutions in its class. In ratings published by G2 in its Winter 2021 Reports — and based on extensive input from the actual firms and people using project-based ERP software — Unanet is recognized as a “high performer” in dozens of categories and has received several badges for its A/E and GovCon/professional services ERP solutions, among them: • Fastest implementation • Highest user adoption • Most implementable • Easiest setup • Best customer support • Best relationship • Easiest to use, and, • Best usability What’s especially gratifying for us is that these G2 ratings come directly from users. Not only does it tell us we’re doing something right with the quality of the ERP solutions and support we offer to government contractors, A/E/C firms and professional services organizations, but it also increases our resolve to continue innovating, listening to our customers, and supporting them on their ERP journeys. So to the firms whose input has kept Unanet at the top of the G2 ratings, and whose feedback enables us to continue to strengthen our purpose-built ERP solutions and service, a heartfelt thank you, plus a promise that we’ll have more good things in store for you in 2021, starting with a release early in the new year that we think our GovCon and A/E/C clients are really going to like.

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.

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.