PM Financial Visibility Without ERP Access in Government Contracting

In government contracting, project delivery is deeply financial. Every task order is governed by contract ceilings, milestone payments, indirect cost allocations, and burn thresholds. But here’s the paradox: the very people responsible for managing these constraints—project managers (PMs) and delivery leads—are often locked out of ERP systems due to internal controls, audit exposure, and cost restrictions.

This leads to a dangerous operational divide.

The Visibility Gap Between Finance and Delivery

PMs must manage:

• Burn rates against budgets that often blend T&M and FFP terms.

• Revenue recognition across multi-TO IDIQ vehicles.

• Milestone billing triggers that must be aligned with delivery status.

• Collection risk, flagged by growing DSOs or missing payment signals.
   

But without ERP access, they’re reliant on ad hoc exports from finance, often days or weeks delayed. This means decisions around staffing, work pacing, or milestone prioritization happen in a vacuum.

The result? Delivery delays, margin leakage, billing disputes—and audit exposure if work proceeds without funding visibility.

Why You Can’t Just “Open the ERP”

Letting PMs into the ERP might seem like the quick fix—but it violates best practices:

• Segregation of Duties: DCAA and internal controls restrict transactional access for delivery staff.

• License Cost and Complexity: ERP seats are expensive, and training delivery staff to navigate financial modules introduces error risks.
  Security and Data Leakage: Full ERP access may expose unrelated financials, indirect rates, or confidential client terms.

Thus, most firms choose between visibility or compliance—and both suffer.

Gridlex: Financial Insights for PMs—Without ERP Access

Gridlex solves this by creating ERP-synced, read-only project dashboards governed by granular role-based access controls. PMs see the exact financial metrics tied to their contracts, TOs, or delivery units—nothing more, nothing less.

Here’s how it works:

1. ERP Data Mirroring, Governed by Role

• Finance teams control which fields are mirrored (e.g., billed vs. collected revenue, project burn, open invoice aging).

• PMs are granted visibility based on project or TO role mappings—no ERP licenses, no data write-back, no audit risk.
   

2. Real-Time Burn Tracking and Forecasting

• Dashboards show actuals vs. planned budget across labor categories, deliverables, and contract CLINs.

• AI models project burn trajectories based on time log trends, flagging potential overruns.
   

3. DSO and Payment Risk Visibility

• PMs view invoice status, aging buckets, and DSO trends at the task order level.

• Delivery teams can flag risk proactively, instead of discovering payment delays when staffing or deliverables are impacted.
   

4. Milestone Billing and Status Transparency

• Billing schedules—often buried in PDFs—are transformed into live dashboards.

• PMs can see whether a milestone has been billed, paid, or delayed, aligning delivery with receivables.
   

5. Internal Controls + External Audit Alignment

• Gridlex enforces read-only access, prohibits transactional actions, and logs every view for audit integrity.

• This satisfies internal audit, DCAA scrutiny, and GAAP-aligned separation-of-duty requirements.
   

Real-World Use Cases

• Civilian Program Oversight: A PM overseeing three TOs across an IT modernization contract tracks individual TO burn and alerts finance to initiate a change order before overrunning GSA labor category caps.
   

• Defense Agency DSO Monitoring: Delivery leads are notified when payment delays exceed 45 days post-invoice on milestone 2. Without Gridlex, this would only be visible in the next quarter’s finance report.
   

• Revenue Forecasting: AI models combine ERP-synced actuals with projected labor plans to forecast revenue risk 6–12 weeks out—guiding PMs on corrective pacing or resource shift decisions.
   

Why This Matters

• For Finance Teams: You maintain audit compliance, control exposure, and avoid the ERP seat sprawl.

• For Delivery Teams: You operate with real-time context, mitigate margin risk, and coordinate across contract, billing, and delivery.

• For Government Clients: You deliver on expectations, timelines, and reporting standards with fewer disconnects and surprises.
   

Gridlex bridges the finance-delivery divide—without compromising compliance.

Stop flying blind. Let your PMs lead with full financial visibility—on a system built for security, compliance, and government contracting realities.