Implementing the Purchasing Module in Deltek Vantagepoint to manage subconsultants.

=> TLDR:

The Vantagepoint purchasing module is clunky and comes with many gotchas and limitations.

My client wanted to use purchase orders to manage subconsultant commitment and progress. I took over a previously abandoned implementation effort and re-architected the entire approach.

I expanded the capabilities of the module while at the same time simplifying the user experience.

Lastly, and most interestingly, I backfilled the purchasing and transaction data with purchase order transactions, providing the client with a contiguous stream of data. From a user and data perspective, it is as if they had implemented the module from day zero. Thus on day one of go live, they have purchase orders already "in progress" with applied commitments and vouchers.

=> end TLDR

What follows are some details about the project:

Ghirardelli Associates (GAI) in Pleasanton, CA is a construction management firm with large contracts working for state and federal government agencies.

They asked for help implementing the purchasing module with the goal of managing subconsultant allocations and commitment on a per sub agreement (contract) basis.

In this case, their sub agreements span multiple projects for any given vendor.

An official Deltek partner had previously given it a shot but had long since abandoned the effort. I admit, this was a much thornier problem than we first anticipated.

The following is a summary of some of the challenges we faced, and how I solved them. Challenge:

Project Groups:

GAI wanted to show subconsultant allocations across many projects in a series. This is because a subconsultant agreement often covers more than one project and could last for several months or an entire year.

Example:

You might have a "project series" 22015 which has project numbers 22015.001, 22015.002, .003 and so on. Each project is its own project in Vantagepoint, but they all belong to the same master service agreement (often designated by project 22015.000 in this example).

While a purchase order in Vantagepoint can distribute costs to multiple projects, it takes some process and architecture to build a useable and meaningful approach to how it should work. My solution: a. Assign one purchase order for an entire project series and allocate items across all projects for that vendor using the built in line items concept. This keeps everything in one place, and as you'll see later, has reporting benefits as well.

b. build a meaningful purchase order numbering scheme. (project series prefix) + (vendor number) + (year)

C. One purchase order = one agreement. This keeps the NTE (not to exceed amount) in the PO aligned with the actual contract. Amendments are handled through change orders as intended.

Unfortunately, the project number is limited to 13 characters so our options were somewhat limited.

An example of what we came up with:

22122.3220_25

For next year, the purchase order for this vendor on this project series (22122) will end in _26.

Result:

Challenge:

Clunky user interface that does not scale well to large purchase orders.

Standard cost distribution capabilities severely limited.

Hard to find information for where cost has been distributed for a given PO

No spent information directly on PO

To solve all of the issues above I provided a custom grid that simplifies data entry and shows all distribution information in one place. When the PO is being built out, the custom grid then distributes the data to all the standard fields in Vantagepoint so you only need to enter data once.

When the PO is in progress, the grid updates automatically to show allocations and spent amounts.

Since a picture tells a thousand words, see the image below for a detailed example.

Challenge:

Report limitations. I think most Vantagepoint users are aware of both the complexity (not very user friendly) and limitations of standard report functions.

In this case, the client desired a report that showed the Purchase Order, all assigned costs (distributions) and spent amounts. I included the actual files names of posted vouchers and vendor information with invoice numbers etc.

Since in this case the projects often belonged to a "project series" I made the report show all assigned purchase orders and details for any given PO number, project, or project series.

See image below for some report details:

First example: all projects in a series, with multiple purchase orders if applicable

Second Example: same report but further down, details for each purchase order

If you're interested in seeing more about this solution or have something you want to discuss, feel free to reach out.

Document updated: 12/29/2025