After several months with little update, Projector has shown that it has been working hard on new deliverables for its PSA solution. Enterprise Times recently spoke with Dennis Whelan, CEO, and Richard Calhoun, Vice President of Product Management at Projector PSA. While Whelan is overseeing the company’s expansion in 2021 and into 2022, Calhoun is responsible for moving the product forward.
Whelan commented, “As we look to 2022, we continue to have big ambitions for our company growth. We fundamentally believe that the best project work is done without heroics. That means focusing on providing valuable functionality and a world-class customer experience to enable our customers to do more with less in a resource-constrained world.”
Projector hasn’t just improved the features within the PSA. It has also completed a migration to AWS to enable the company to scale its solution for more and larger customers. This latest release sees three main enhancements:
- A more modern user interface
- Enhanced revenue recognition in the accounting module
- Integration Microsoft Business Central integration.
Enhanced Revenue Recognition for Services
Revenue recognition is complex. Many finance teams have built massive spreadsheets to help track revenue recognition within their business. Projector has provided a revenue recognition solution for PSA firms. It has gone a step further.
Projector PSA leverages a robust accounting module that enables business leaders to track revenue recognition for contract types, including fixed price revenue over multiple periods. However, it now also provides insights into where there are anomalies within the solution. Calhoun explained: “As you work through the workflow, we’re also going to let you know when something seems out of the ordinary. Hey, this is probably not something that you want to do. You’ve already recognised this revenue. We will allow you to do it, but we’re going to work that intelligence in and say, this is where the margins are.”
Importantly, a full audit trail enables people to understand what action was taken with Rev Rec. As Calhoun added, “We want to make sure that everyone has clear and transparent information about what will happen in any action they take within Projector. At the same time, we make It’s super simple to both complete Rev Rec and undo Rev Rec.”
This integration of analytics and insights, such as anomaly detection, will be surfaced into more actions across the application in future releases.
Projector PSA adds integrations
With this release, Projector has also added an integration to Microsoft’s general ledger product Business Central. This latest integration provides a deep accounting integration similar to the one Projector PSA already has with QuickBooks.
It will enable Projector PSA to exchange sales, purchase and nominal ledger transactions with Business Central. Business Central users will have the project accounting detail available for reporting automatically without the need to rekey information. The system is already live, and Calhoun noted: “We’re in use with a client or two, testing that integration out. We’ve already started putting the pedal to the gas on that one and have had some significant usage out of it already.”
Other new integrations include OAuth2.0, enabling ProjectorPSA to connect to Slack and Microsoft Business central. More integrations are planned for 2022. Enterprise Times asked Calhoun whether the integrations would go beyond accounting?
Calhoun replied: “Potentially, yes. One of the things that’s nice about how we’re moving is that we’re trying to take that platform-agnostic approach. We’re making our data and our platform easier to integrate with other solutions and tools and easier to accept that data from other solutions and tools.”
Improving the user experience
Another tranche of work has seen Projector improve the user interface making it modern and responsive. It now has a new navigation panel with search and filter capabilities on the left-hand side. Users no longer have to use the buttons and toggles of the past.
A new “I know what I’m looking for” feature will take the user right to where they need to go. Recently used filters and actions are surfaced, bringing a new level of personalisation to the product.
The Road Ahead for PSA Software Features in 2022
For the future Projector will continue to develop the Business Central integration and may also announce others. It will also improve the embedded analytics powered by Power BI within the platform. Calhoun noted: “Projector continues to provide the essential operational efficiencies our customers require to drive their business. In 2022, visibility through BI will continue to be a driver for higher-performing teams.”
Projector is also promising more standard feature improvements to its modules for Project Management, Resource Scheduling and Project Accounting. These will no doubt introduce what it calls nudges, insights-driven by AI for users to take advantage of
Enterprise Times: What does this mean
There are two key things about this update. The first is the launch on AWS, which should enable Projector PSA to accelerate growth without worrying about the complexities of its infrastructure. The deeper integration to Microsoft Business Central may also indicate where it sees that growth coming from.
Projector PSA is one of the more mature PSA solutions on the Microsoft platform, and it will be interesting to see whether the company focuses its growth on that platform. If it chooses to do so, expect further integrations with Microsoft Dynamics CRM.
