ERP Integrations for Autodesk Construction Cloud

JOSH CHENEY: Welcome, and thank you for joining us. My name is Josh Cheney. And I'm a senior manager of strategic alliances for Autodesk construction Cloud. I am joined today by Michael Newland-- HH2's director of product management. And Sophat Sam-- lead integration solutions engineer for Autodesk construction Cloud.

A safe harbor statement has been included as today's presentation may contain forward looking statements about our strategy and products. Today's session-- ERP integrations for Autodesk construction Cloud. Session CS 5,023 is intended to provide Autodesk construction Cloud users with an update around cost management, and reveal integrations with two of the more widely used construction accounting suites. Sage 300 CRE and QuickBooks online.

This session will include a review of Autodesk construction Cloud's cost management capabilities and workflows, including flexible budget structures, contract generation for commitments, collaborative change order workflows, and cash flow forecasting. Next, Michael Newland will introduce HH2's universal construction model, the integration capabilities, and an overview demo of the integration.

Sage 300 CRE remains the most widely used construction accounting software according to the 2020 JB knowledge annual contact report. Last, but certainly not least, Sophat Sam will provide an overview of ACC connect, and how our customers are integrating cost management with QuickBooks online.

Autodesk build has been purpose built to provide operations teams with the right modules and features to deliver projects on time and on budget. Cost management plays a significant role in managing how revenue and costs are accrued on your project's, budget creation, contracts and change orders, pay applications in forecasting each play a vital role in managing a project's finances.

Cost management with Autodesk build provides better cost controls and visibility into a project's finances, simple connected workflows plus upstream and downstream collaboration, improved project forecasting, and instant access to a project's risk in financial health. Now, let's take a deeper dive into flexible budget segments, our user friendly contract generation tool, complete change Order Management, and cash flow forecasting.

Flexible budget structures allow our cost management module to create project hierarchies to capture granular activities that roll up to parent cost codes. We also have the ability to mirror cost code segments, regardless of their complexity or number of characters. We present users with a budget code preview, which can be really helpful during setup and implementation.

And Yes, we can import your master budget code list. Our contracts feature empower end users to create standard contracts directly in Cost Management. No need for professional services, as we leverage male mergers not complex Crystal Reports. Multiple supporting documents can be included in a contract package. And supplier contracts can be linked to prime contracts.

Contracts can also include single or multiple budget line items. Projects can be set up to include customized internal approval workflows. And contracts can be sent directly from Autodesk build. The change order work closing cost management are straightforward and support upstream and downstream workflows. Change order documents can be automatically generated, and change order impacts are immediately available from the project budget.

Cost management also helps create batch RFQ's and automate reminders. Lastly, cost management can connect scheduled tasks to budget line items to help Manage Forecasting and price increases. We provide built in forecast distribution curves for budget line items, and Visual reports reveal variances between plan and forecast costs.

One of the biggest benefits to integrating a project management cost management solution with your accounting package is to have real time access to information, keeping your project teams and your accounting teams on the same page. And making sure that information is integrated seamlessly between both applications. Now, I'm excited to have Michael Newland from HH2 walk us through the cost management and sage 300 CRE integration.

MICHAEL NEWLAND: Thanks for the introduction Josh. It is truly a pleasure to be able to present to you today, the integration solution that we've built. Before I dive into the details and then demonstrate the integration and action, I'd like to take a couple of minutes to identify the core objectives and a little bit about our approach.

This illustration is a fairly simplistic view of what we're focused on. In this case, we have sage 300 construction and real estate as your construction accounting. And we have Autodesk build as your project management solution. With these two systems there is definitely some overlap in both work processes and data, and that's what we're focused on here.

The objective is to reduce, or completely eliminate any double entry. So that this shared information is handled one time. That in turn will increase accuracy, and efficiency, and ultimately, result in recognizing greater value from both solutions. If we expand on this to look at the solution we've built, we'll see that in the middle is our universal construction model.

This is a cloud based technology platform that we've actually had in the market for many years now. It powers all of hh2's point solutions, and it also has been used as a backbone for a whole host of other construction ERP integrations. I'd say the key takeaway here is that this platform is ERP agnostic, meaning that we represent construction financial data in our system in a way that is not specific to any ERP system.

Next, you'll see that sitting between sage and our platform is this integration client. This piece simply serves as the conduit to sync data back and forth between sage, which is on premise, and our platform, which is in the cloud. And then similarly, between our platform and Autodesk build, you see the Autodesk integration solution that manages data moving to and from Autodesk build and our platform.

So that's about as technical as I'm going to get right now in explaining the technology. Except that I'll note that we've built this to be very scalable, reliable, and performant. And we've done that by leveraging a proven platform, plus our many years of experience.

Before I demonstrate the integration in action, I'd like to take a moment to identify the specific types of information that we're integrating today. Keeping in mind that there are some additional things that we'll be adding support for in the coming weeks and months. But I'll cover those at the end.

As you can see in this diagram, we are handling vendors, customers, jobs, cost cuts and categories, which includes original budget and actual cost totals, commitments, and commitment change orders. Arrows here identify the direction that data could flow based on how you choose to configure the integration.

Now let's take a look at the integration in action. I'm going to start with a very simple demonstration where I will create a new vendor and sage 300, and then we'll see that vendor show up in Autodesk build. For this example, let's assume that AAA doors and Windows is the new vendor.

If we look in Autodesk build, we can see that this vendor is not yet listed as a company. Now let's switch over to sage 300 accounts payable. When I select Setup, vendors, and click List, we can see that the vendor is not yet set up here as well. Now go ahead and add the vendor in Sage now. First, I'll enter the vendor code, then their name and address, phone number, and then I'll click Save.

Now just a few minutes later, we'll switch back to Autodesk build. Click Refresh. And we can see that a new company has been added based on the vendor that we entered in Sage. Notice that there were no additional steps I needed to take for this to happen. It was automatic and occurred very shortly after the information was entered in Sage.

Next we'll take a look at integrating some project information. In this case, I have a project that's already been set up in sage 300 job costs, along with its original budget. And we'd like to get that project set up in Autodesk with the same information. Back in Autodesk build, we first need to create just the Project record.

I'll enter the name of the project as it appears in sage. Then the project number, and the project type. Since I've set up the integration to only integrate selected projects, and because this is a new project, I now need to update the hh2 integration configuration to include the new project. To do that, I'll go to my h.h. To customer site and then I'll click on Set entity sync, and then click the job selector button on the right.

I'll identify the new job that I want to integrate. And then click Accept. And now to trigger the integration, I'll click on manual sync, and then click the sync entity for jobs. This triggers the integration of all the budget data from SAGE into Autodesk. Now after this finishes, the information in Autodesk will be kept up to date in Autodesk as the information changes in sage.

Now just a few minutes later, we'll switch back to Autodesk build and navigate to the Cost module for the new project. We can see all of the codes and budgets now appear in Autodesk based on what is in Sage. At this point, I can select a budget item and create a subcontract in Autodesk.

I'll first provide the subcontract number, and description, then identify the subcontractor, and contact. Under the schedule of values, I'll identify the amount that was committed. And finally, I'll move the subcontract through to a status of executed.

At this point, the subcontract will be picked up automatically by the integration and to sage. Now a little while later, when I switched back to sage, and click tasks, and then commitments. I can click on list and see the subcontract that came from Autodesk, and then I can view its details.

Note that the commitment appears here in the same way as if it had been manually recorded in Sage. To wrap things up, I wanted to identify some additional functionality that is coming in the weeks and months ahead. This includes the ability to send commitments from SAGE to Autodesk, budget changes going from Autodesk to sage as approved estimate changes, actual cost going from SAGE to Autodesk in more detail than the cost totals that we are currently providing, owner contracts, owner contract changes, owner contract invoices, and subcontractor invoices.

JOSH CHENEY: Michael, thank you for that awesome overview. I'm really excited about this integration. And I know our customers are going to be also. Now we're going to pivot and turn today's presentation over to Sophat Sam. To take us through the integration leveraging ACC connect, to connect cost management with QuickBooks online.

SOPHAT SAM: Thanks, Josh. And again, thank you for having me on this session today. It's really great seeing what partners such as HH2 is able to provide to our customers in terms of an integration between our products and other third party solutions.

For the next portion of this session, I want to focus on our own integration platform called Autodesk construction Cloud connect. This platform allows our customers to build very specific, very customized integrations between our solutions as well as other third party cloud solutions.

So here at Autodesk, we understand that our customers are typically leveraging a variety of cloud solutions. So in addition to the Autodesk products, you are probably using cloud storage solutions, such as SharePoint, box, Dropbox, et cetera. There's a variety that we've seen our customers leverage. There are typically other requirements from our customers as well, to be able to integrate with other cloud project management solutions, CRM solutions, as well as e-signature tools, such as DocuSign to be able to get the signatures on the contracts, on the drawings, et cetera.

And this is really where the power of Autodesk construction Cloud Connect or ACC connect comes in. This platform allows our customers again, to build very specific and customized workflows that meet their business requirements. Without getting into the technical details, I'll highlight really the two key areas of HCC connect I think every customer should be aware of.

First, this is a platform that has out of the box connectors to our products, including auto desk build, auto desk stocks, auto desk costs, et cetera. As well as third party cloud solutions, again, I mentioned some of those already just SharePoint Online, box, Dropbox, et cetera. We'll actually be focusing on some of the accounting solutions that are cloud based. For example, QuickBooks online, station tax, xero.

These are a couple that customers have mentioned to us. And these are out of the box connectors that are supported on the platform. So what that means is that customers do not need to write any code, stand up any development environment whatsoever to immediately connect to these platforms. These out of the box connectors typically provide a set of triggers and actions that you can then use to build your workflows between the various applications.

So as a really simple example, a simple trigger might be when a expense is approved in autodesk costs. Once that's approved, you can then map out visually how you want to push that expense into another platform such as QuickBooks online. And we'll go through and show you an example of that. But this allows you to really custom fit the integrations to meet your very specific requirements.

So again, those two key points is the platform allows you to access out of the box connectors to our tools, as well as other cloud based tools. And with those connectors, you're then able to build very custom workflows between the various applications.

So jumping just really briefly into what is supported on the Autodesk side. So right now we do support most of the products on the unified platform. So if you're using autodesk build, autodesk stocks, autodesk cost, that is all currently supported. We are also planning on adding support for autodesk takeoff. And by the time you see this it may have already been added to the platform.

This is in addition to the existing support that we provide to BIM 360, the plan grid, building connected, and the other products within the Autodesk construction vCloud Suite of products. Again, these are all out of the box connectors that customers can start leveraging once they have access to the ACC Connect platform.

In regards to third party applications, this is a sampling of what we've seen our customers use the platform for. So going through it really briefly, if you're using a cloud or a document management platform, such as SharePoint, box, Google Drive, et cetera. These connectors are available out of the box for these applications, for our customers to start building those integrations.

We also have support for other project management solutions, such as Smartsheet, Asana, Trello. We also have customers who are pushing data to their power BI or Tableau dashboards. You can even use the platform to simply export your data into an Excel or a Google spreadsheet.

And lastly, we also have support for, what has really become very common among our customers, and that's the suite of cloud collaboration and communication tools. So as we all Shift to working remotely, a lot of our customers have adopted slack, Microsoft Teams, to be able to get everyone on the project on the same page.

So the ACC connect platform gives you out of the box connectors to these cloud applications. So it could be something as simple as sending a teams message when expenses are approved, sending a message when drawings are signed and approved on Autodesk docs. Really, it's up to the customer, to you, to really figure out what is most beneficial to your end users, and then being able to customize that on the ACC connect platform.

So obviously, I want to focus really on the autodesk cost side of things, and how we integrate with other cloud based accounting systems. So as you saw with HH2, they're able to leverage autodesk costs and send data from autodesk costs to sage 300. With ACC connect, our focus is more on the cloud based applications.

This includes QuickBooks online, sage intacct, and xero. Going back to what I mentioned in terms of being able to monitor and look for changes in your budgets, in your expenses, in your payouts. Depending on what you want to push from all of this costs to your accounting system, you can customize that however you see fit.

Once those changes also happen on the QuickBooks, the sage intacct, or the xero sites. For example, when a bill is paid, when an invoice is paid, when budgets are created, et cetera, you can push that back into autodesk cost as well. So it can be a two way communication between our products and these third party cloud products.

So just to give you a more real-world example of how ACC connects is being leveraged by some of our customers. Here's a workflow showing how expenses are approved within autodesk costs. Once it's approved, ACC connect can detect that approved expense, and push that automatically into your accounting system. That could be again, QuickBooks, xero, Sage intacct.

What we've seen is that expense will automatically generate a bill in the accounting system. Once that bill is generated, you're now really sending it out and waiting for that bill to be paid. Once the bill is paid, we can detect that change in your accounting system, and automatically set the expense item in autodesk costs to be paid, as well as the paid amount, the pay dates, et cetera.

So this creates a two way communication between what's happening in autodesk costs, what's happening in your accounting system, and those changes being sent back to autodesk costs as well. Again, this is a pretty simple workflow, but hopefully it gives you an idea of some of the things that you can do with ACC connect.

So just to show you what that workflow looks like from a product perspective, I'm going to run through an example demo where we are pushing expenses from costs, from autodesk costs into QuickBooks online. So here, this is a screenshot of Autodesk construction Cloud Connect for ACC connect. What you're seeing on the screen is what we refer to as a recipe.

The recipe is pretty much your step by step set of instructions in terms of how you want to handle the workflow. So in this example, we're going to set any event trigger that monitors Autodesk construction Cloud costs or Autodesk costs for any approved expenses. So we can click on that trigger. We're able to select our account, our projects, the type of object, in this instance again, it's an expense.

We're going to monitor that for any changes to expenses. Once we detect that change, we're going to get some information about that project, such as the customer, the vendors, the items associated with that expense. And that creates in this instance, a purchase order in QuickBooks for our users to then review and approve on the QuickBooks side.

So here, I'm starting the recipe. Once the recipe is started, this basically says every five minutes or so we will check autodesk costs for any changes to the expense. So I'm going to go into autodesk costs here. I'm going to create a new expense from one of my contracts.

Here we have a roof and wall cladding expense. I'm just going to go ahead and approve this expense. Once it's approved, it should then create that expense item in QuickBooks online. So I'm going to refresh my ACC connect. Again, this is checking every five minutes or so. So sometimes for demonstration purposes, I can force this to automatically check for new changes or new expenses in this instance.

So we can see that a new expense has been found. That expense will now be processed based off of what we have outlined in that recipe. So if I go back into QuickBooks online, I can go in and filter based off of items that were created today. And I can see that expense that I just generated in autodesk costs is also generated on the QuickBooks side as well.

So here we can see our roof and wall cladding expense item with the amount that we had generated based off of that contract. So again, what we've covered here is a really simple example of being able to customize specifically what you want from autodesk costs to push to a third party application such as QuickBooks online. And specifically, how that data should move from one platform to another.

Again, this is really the tip of the iceberg in terms of what we're able to do with ACC connect. But hopefully, this gives you an idea of the flexibility, the power, and really the creativity that we've seen our customers use the platform for. So with that, I'll send it back to Josh to close out the session.

JOSH CHENEY: Sophat, thank you so much for taking us through ACC connect. It is a really powerful tool. I want to thank Michael Newland, and all of our friends at HH2 for building a best in class integration between sage 300 and Autodesk builds cost management module. Now we will open up the session for questions and answers.