Integrated CRM + ERP Suite for Defense Contractors Includes Compliance with DCAA Standards
MC LEAN, Va.—February 28, 2008—Daston Corporation, a professional services firm providing solutions in the areas of information technology, financial management, and management consulting, today announced that it has built a Software as a Service (SaaS) solution targeted to meet the needs of government contractors. Using the NetSuite Business Operating System (NS-BOS) from NetSuite Inc. (NYSE: N), a leading vendor of on-demand, integrated business software suites that provide Accounting / ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning), CRM (Customer Relationship Management) and Ecommerce functionality for small and medium-sized businesses and divisions of large companies, Daston extends the core NetSuite application to provide a SaaS suite offering the ability to be compliant with Defense Contract Audit Agency (DCAA) standards.
The rigorous federal guidelines and requirements for contractors serving the defense industry have historically been a source of pain and inefficiency for smaller government contractors, leading to uncertainty, inefficiency, and high costs. Huge penalties and fees can be handed down by the government when internal management and accounting systems do not follow DCAA guidelines. Because of the complexities of DCAA compliance, many small government contractors have had to turn to as many as four disconnected, disparate systems in order to meet the standards for accounting, project management, and time-keeping. Not only is this expensive and error-prone, but the lack of integration can create dramatic inefficiencies. Because NetSuite offers a pre-integrated CRM and ERP solution, government contractors can immediately benefit from a single, authoritative view of every agency engagement. This allows smaller contractors to emulate their larger competitors and treat every engagement as a true relationship for potential future business development.
"An agency could give a contractor just a few days notice of an audit, and you may be stuck in the office all weekend preparing all the necessary reports and data needed to comply with the audit," said Greg Callen, Senior Vice President of Daston Corporation. "With the NetSuite Business Operating System, we have created a truly real-time approach to DCAA compliance. With this system, your DCAA reports take seconds to generate and managers have immediate visibility on their NetSuite dashboard, allowing them to see if processes are falling out of compliance."
"The growth of on-demand solutions has appealed to small and mid-sized government contractors who want to take advantage of the flexibility and low overhead of this delivery model, but without DCAA compliance, companies feel they are risking their government contracts," said Mini Peiris, Vice President, Product Management at NetSuite. "We are extremely pleased to see Daston leverage NS-BOS to address that risk by creating a SaaS-delivered, DCAA-compliant system which government contractors can use for the complete business cycle, from quote to purchase order to contract and project."
Defense contractors can save $150,000 or more by eliminating the costly software licenses, servers and internal IT overhead, and ongoing integration costs by switching to the DCAA-compliant NetSuite solution built by using NS-BOS. For example, NetSuite's time-management tools are uniquely well-suited to contracting engagements where manpower is the primary product. Whether it be information technology management, business consulting services, or independent verification and validation projects common in the defense contracting world, NetSuite has an architecture that can manage federal agency hours, giving government contractors confidence in their ability to stay within client requirements and deliver projects on time, within budget. This one-of-a-kind solution, suitable for the thousands of government contractors subject to DCAA requirements, is available now for any service provider looking to improve DCAA adherence while also embracing the advantages of NetSuite's Software-as-a-Service approach.
To learn more about this solution please go to:http://www.dcaa-ondemand.com
About Daston Corporation
Founded 1992, Daston Corporation is a woman- and minority-owned, professional services firm headquartered in McLean, Virginia. Daston provides solutions in the areas of information technology, financial management, and management consulting. Customers include leading government agencies and private industry. Daston is a certified Small Disadvantaged Business.