Deltek Vision sustaining support (2026): should architecture and engineering firms move to Vantagepoint or ERPNext Projects?
Short answer
Deltek’s own Vantagepoint upgrade FAQ says Deltek Vision 7.6 received a final year-end update in January 2026 and then moved to Sustaining Support, which Deltek defines as no new enhancements, hot fixes or regulatory updates. If you run Vision in Deltek Cloud, access to your instance winds down in the first quarter of 2027 (checked Nov 13, 2026). Deltek also states that there is no cost to upgrade to Vantagepoint, that it is an upgrade rather than a reimplementation, and that your data, user-defined info centers, workflows and custom SSRS reports come with you. For most architecture and engineering firms of 20 to 200 people that are happy with Deltek, that makes Vantagepoint the default answer, and we say so plainly. ERPNext Projects is worth a fit test in narrower cases: you want to stop paying a per-user ERP subscription, your billing is mostly time and materials or fixed fee, you need one system for a non-A&E business in the group, or you want to self-host on open source. ERPNext has no licence fee (GPL-3.0); Frappe Cloud hosting starts at $5 a month for a site and $40 for a server. Vantagepoint subscription pricing is quote-only.
Contents
- Who this guide is for
- What Deltek actually says about Vision
- Where Vantagepoint wins, honestly
- Where ERPNext Projects is a credible alternative
- The fit test: project accounting, timesheets and billing
- Mapping Vision concepts to ERPNext
- Cost: what you can and cannot compare
- If you do move: a Vision to ERPNext plan
- Vantagepoint or ERPNext: a decision table
- Best for, and wrong choice when
- Frequently asked questions
Who this guide is for
This guide is for principals, finance directors, controllers and IT leads at architecture, engineering and similar project-based professional services firms with roughly 20 to 200 staff that still run Deltek Vision. Most of you have had emails from Deltek and your partner about Vantagepoint for several years. Now there is a hard edge: Vision is on Sustaining Support, and Deltek Cloud customers lose access to Vision in early 2027.
We build and support ERPNext, so you might expect us to tell you to leave Deltek. We will not. For a lot of A&E firms, the free Vantagepoint upgrade is the right move, and the honest job of this guide is to show you where it wins, where ERPNext can genuinely compete, and how to run a short fit test that settles the question with your own data.
It is part of our series on legacy ERP deadlines. The legacy ERP end-of-support hub lists every vendor date we have confirmed. If part of your group runs Microsoft Dynamics, see our Dynamics GP to ERPNext guide too.
Sources: the Deltek Vantagepoint upgrade FAQ (PDF) (dated 1/9/2026, sustaining support answer updated 1/31/2025) for every Deltek statement here; the Frappe Cloud pricing page and ERPNext repository on GitHub for ERPNext; the ERPNext Projects module overview, ERPNext Project documentation, ERPNext Timesheet documentation and ERPNext Activity Cost documentation for ERPNext Projects features. All checked on Nov 13, 2026.
What we do not do here
We do not quote or estimate Vantagepoint subscription prices, partner fees or ERPNext implementation costs. Deltek does not publish Vantagepoint pricing, and implementation cost depends on your modules, data and billing rules. Any figure we gave without seeing your system would be invented.
What Deltek actually says about Vision
Everything in this table comes from Deltek’s Vantagepoint upgrade FAQ. We have kept Deltek’s wording close, because the exact terms matter when you plan around them.
| Topic | What Deltek states |
|---|---|
| Vision 7.6 status | Final year-end update in January 2026, then Sustaining Support |
| What Sustaining Support means | No new software enhancements, hot fixes or regulatory updates |
| Deltek Cloud customers | Access to your Vision instance winds down in the first quarter of 2027 |
| Cost of upgrading | “There is no cost to upgrade” |
| Nature of the upgrade | Not a reimplementation or data conversion: “your next release of Vision”, though you must prepare and make some changes after upgrade, such as reviewing security roles |
| On-premises | Remains available, but Vantagepoint is cloud-first and some functionality may only work in the cloud; new features may reach cloud customers first |
| Help available | A complimentary Customer Assistance Program (CAP) and the Vantagepoint Readiness Portal, which has no cost |
What this means in practice:
- On-premises Vision keeps running after January 2026, but Deltek is not fixing bugs or shipping regulatory changes for it. Tax, payroll and reporting changes are the usual pressure points.
- If you are a Deltek Cloud customer, the deadline is real and close: Deltek says access winds down in Q1 2027. You cannot simply sit still. A same-vendor upgrade is the only route that fits that window comfortably.
- Whatever you pick, the database server and operating system under an on-premises Vision install have their own support lifecycles. Check them separately.
Where Vantagepoint wins, honestly
Before we make the case for ERPNext anywhere, here is the case for staying with Deltek. It is strong.
| Factor | Vantagepoint upgrade | ERPNext move |
|---|---|---|
| Software cost of the move | No Deltek charge for the upgrade itself | No licence fee, but a full implementation project |
| Data | Upgraded in place, including in-progress transactions (Deltek says you do not need to post everything first) | Extracted, transformed and loaded; history policy needed |
| Custom reports and invoice templates | SSRS remains the report platform, so custom RDL reports and invoice templates continue (some may need schema fixes) | Rebuilt as ERPNext print formats and reports |
| User-defined info centers and workflows | Upgraded and supported | Rebuilt as custom doctypes and workflows |
| A&E-specific depth | Built for project-based firms: Interactive Billing, batch billing, draft invoice approvals, resource planning, CRM and proposals | General project accounting; A&E-specific billing patterns need configuration or custom code |
| Partner and staff familiarity | Same vendor, same concepts, CAP sessions | New system, new training |
| Time to safety for Deltek Cloud customers | Fits a Q1 2027 window if you start now | Tight for most firms |
If you use Vision broadly, across project accounting, billing, resource planning and CRM, and you are content with Deltek as a vendor, the upgrade is very hard to beat on risk. The data comes with you and the reports mostly survive. Your accounting team keeps its mental model.
The things that do change in Vantagepoint
Free does not mean effortless. Deltek’s FAQ lists changes you should plan for, and they are worth knowing because they also form part of a fair comparison:
- Clients and vendors are merged into a single Firms hub. Client numbers become firm numbers; vendor numbers stay as vendor numbers; client values take priority when linked records share a field. Vendor user-defined components get a [VE] prefix.
- Timesheet approvals move to the workflow engine, so in-progress timesheet approvals restart. Deltek suggests posting timesheets before upgrade if you use approvals.
- Some functionality still runs in the smart client: Deltek names some payroll, purchasing, asset management and configuration utilities.
- Vision Performance Management is not available in Vantagepoint, and the basic analysis cubes are not carried forward (they are an add-on module).
- Some minor components are being phased out, including MODI, Document Management for SharePoint and the Abra HR interface. Deltek also says the Salesforce integration will be deprecated in 2026.1.
- Saved report favourites upgrade as read-only legacy favourites; you recreate any you need to change.
- Deltek advises deleting data from modules you no longer use before upgrading, because data is upgraded regardless of current modules.
None of these is a reason to leave Deltek on its own. But if several of them hit you at once, say you rely on VPM dashboards and the Salesforce integration, the “free upgrade” turns into a real project, and that is when it is fair to price an alternative.
Where ERPNext Projects is a credible alternative
ERPNext is an open-source ERP under the GPL-3.0 licence. Its Projects module is general-purpose rather than built for A&E, but it covers the core of project accounting. ERPNext’s documentation describes it like this:
- Projects and tasks with a customer, estimated cost and a percent-complete figure calculated manually or from tasks (by completion, by progress, or by task weight).
- Timesheets that record hours per employee against a project and task, flag each row as billable, carry billing hours and a billing rate, and a costing rate.
- Activity Cost, which stores a per-hour billing rate and costing rate for an employee against an activity type, and is pulled into timesheets automatically.
- Invoicing from timesheets: you can create a Sales Invoice from a timesheet, and the project tracks total billable, billed and costing amounts.
- Project costing and margin: the project pulls costing amounts from timesheets, plus expense claims and consumed material, and shows gross margin.
- The Projects overview also describes billing based on time logs, milestones or fixed project values, and links projects to accounting, HR, sales, purchasing and stock.
That is a sound base for firms whose billing is mostly time and materials, fixed fee by milestone, or a mix. It is less of a natural fit for complex A&E billing patterns, which is why we recommend the fit test below rather than a sales demo.
When ERPNext is worth pricing
- You want to stop paying a per-user ERP subscription, and you have the appetite to run an implementation project to get there.
- You use a narrow slice of Vision: project accounting, timesheets and basic billing, without heavy use of resource planning, CRM and proposals.
- Your firm sits in a group with a non-A&E business, for example a product, fabrication or installation arm, that needs stock, purchasing or manufacturing in the same ledger.
- You want to self-host or choose your hosting region, or you want full access to the code and database.
- Several Vantagepoint changes above (VPM, analysis cubes, Salesforce, SharePoint document management) hit you at once, so the Deltek upgrade is a project anyway.
When it is not
- You are a Deltek Cloud customer with no plan yet. Q1 2027 is too close for a careful ERP replacement at most firms; upgrade first, and evaluate later if you still want to.
- Your revenue depends on complex fee billing that Vision handles today and your team does not want to redesign.
- You rely heavily on Deltek’s resource planning, CRM and proposal tools. Rebuilding all of that in a general ERP costs more than it saves.
The fit test: project accounting, timesheets and billing
This is the part we would insist on before anyone signs anything. Take four weeks and run three tests on your own data. If ERPNext fails any test that matters to your revenue, stop and upgrade to Vantagepoint. If it passes, you have a real comparison.
Test 1: project structure and project accounting
Pick five live projects that represent your mix: a small fixed-fee job, a large multi-phase project, a time-and-materials project, an overhead or promotional project, and one with consultants. Rebuild their structure in ERPNext as projects and tasks, with your phases and tasks mapped to tasks under the project.
Pass criteria
- Every phase and task that you report on in Vision has a home in ERPNext.
- Labour, expenses and consultant costs land on the right project and task.
- Project managers can see budget against actual at the level they manage today.
- Finance can reconcile project costs to the general ledger without spreadsheets.
Test 2: timesheets
Load one month of real timesheets for 10 to 20 staff. Set up activity types for your labour categories, with costing and billing rates per employee through Activity Cost. Include overhead time, leave and non-billable work.
Pass criteria
- Staff can enter a week of time in a way they will actually use, on desktop and phone.
- Billable and non-billable time are separated correctly.
- Costing rates produce the same labour cost per project as Vision for that month, within differences you can explain.
- Approval works the way your project managers expect.
- Utilisation reporting gives you the figures your principals look at every month. If it does not out of the box, you can build it as a report.
Test 3: billing
Bill the same month for the five projects in ERPNext and compare the invoices with what Vision produced. Use your real invoice layouts.
Pass criteria
- Time-and-materials invoices built from timesheets match Vision line for line.
- Fixed-fee and milestone invoices follow your contracts.
- Any billing pattern you depend on, such as billing a percentage of fee by phase, rate multipliers, marked-up consultant reimbursables or retainage, either works through configuration or has a clearly scoped custom build. Write down which.
- Draft invoices can be reviewed and approved before they go out.
- Your invoice print format matches what your clients expect to see.
How to read the result
If billing needs extensive custom code, count that as a cost and a risk, because you will maintain it through every ERPNext upgrade. A Vantagepoint upgrade that keeps your billing working is often worth more than a licence saving.
Mapping Vision concepts to ERPNext
| Deltek Vision | ERPNext | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Projects with phases and tasks (WBS levels) | Project with tasks and sub-tasks | Agree the reporting level before loading; do not copy every historic task |
| Clients and vendors (separate info centers in Vision) | Customer and Supplier, with Contacts and Addresses | A firm that is both becomes a linked customer and supplier |
| Employees and labour categories | Employee, Activity Type, Activity Cost | Rates per employee per activity |
| Timesheets | Timesheet | Billable flag, billing hours and rate, costing rate |
| Expense reports | Expense Claim | Linked to project for costing |
| Billing and invoices | Sales Invoice from timesheets or from a sales order; payment terms for milestones | Complex fee billing needs design (see the fit test) |
| AP vouchers | Purchase Invoice | Consultant costs coded to project |
| General ledger, organisations and offices | Chart of Accounts, Company, Cost Centers and Accounting Dimensions | Use dimensions for office, discipline or practice reporting |
| Opportunities and CRM | CRM: Lead, Opportunity, Quotation | Proposal tooling is simpler; check if you rely on Deltek’s proposal features |
| Custom SSRS reports | Report builder, query reports, script reports, print formats | Rebuild only the reports people still use |
| User-defined info centers | Custom doctypes | Rebuild only what is still needed |
Two tips from migrations of this kind. First, decide your reporting dimensions (office, discipline, practice area) up front, because they drive both the chart of accounts and the project structure. Second, keep your project numbering scheme. Staff remember project numbers, and changing them causes more friction than any feature gap.
Cost: what you can and cannot compare
Here is what is published, checked on Nov 13, 2026:
| Item | Vantagepoint | ERPNext |
|---|---|---|
| Upgrade or licence | No cost to upgrade from Vision (per Deltek); ongoing Vantagepoint subscription or maintenance is quote-only | No licence fee (GPL-3.0) |
| Hosting | Deltek Cloud or on-premises; quote-only | Frappe Cloud sites from $5 / month, servers from $40 / month (USD), or self-host |
| Implementation | Upgrade preparation; CAP sessions are complimentary; partner fees vary | Full implementation and data migration; partner fees vary |
Frappe Cloud publishes USD prices: site plans from $5 a month (about £3.76) and servers from $40 a month (about £30.12), checked on Nov 13, 2026. The GBP figures are indicative conversions, not Frappe prices.
Indicative GBP conversions use the Bank of England daily spot rate (series XUDLUSS) of US$1.3282 per £1 for 11 Nov 2026, the latest published figure when we checked on Nov 13, 2026. They are not official UK prices: the vendor does not publish a GBP list price for these items, and your invoice currency, rate and VAT treatment may differ.
Because Vantagepoint pricing is not published, the only honest comparison is two written quotes on the same scope. Ask Deltek or your partner for the Vantagepoint subscription for your user count and modules over three to five years. Ask an ERPNext partner for hosting, implementation and support over the same period. Then add your own staff time for each project, which is usually much higher for a replacement than for an upgrade.
Most firms find the upgrade cheaper in year one, because the software move costs nothing and the data comes across. ERPNext tends to look better only over a longer horizon, and only if the fit test showed little custom billing work.
If you do move: a Vision to ERPNext plan
| Phase | Work | Done when |
|---|---|---|
| Decide (4 weeks) | Run the three fit tests above on five projects and one month of time | A written go or no-go, with the Vantagepoint quote alongside |
| Discovery (4–6 weeks) | Billing rules per contract type, reports in use, integrations, history policy | Signed scope; every billing pattern has a configuration or a custom-build plan |
| Build (2–4 months) | Projects, activity types and rates, invoice formats, reports, approvals, integrations | User acceptance testing signed off by finance and two project managers |
| Dress rehearsals (2 cycles) | Full trial migrations of masters, open projects, unbilled time and opening balances | Unbilled work in progress and AR match Vision |
| Cutover (month end, ideally financial year start) | Close the month in Vision, load openings, go live | First month closed and first billing run sent from ERPNext |
These are our planning ranges for a 20 to 200 person firm, not a promise. The critical number at cutover is unbilled work in progress. Make sure every hour worked but not yet invoiced in Vision is either billed before cutover or carried into ERPNext as billable time against the right project. Load open receivables as opening invoices and post balances against a temporary opening account, as the ERPNext opening balance documentation describes. Use ERPNext Data Import documentation templates for masters.
Keep Vision available read-only for history and audit, or extract it to a reporting database. Do not try to migrate ten years of timesheets.
Vantagepoint or ERPNext: a decision table
| If this is true for you | Lean towards | Why |
|---|---|---|
| You are a Deltek Cloud customer and have not started planning | Vantagepoint | Access to Vision winds down in Q1 2027; the upgrade fits the window |
| You use Vision broadly: billing, resource planning, CRM and proposals | Vantagepoint | Rebuilding A&E-specific depth costs more than it saves |
| Your billing relies on complex fee rules your team will not redesign | Vantagepoint | Custom billing code is the main risk on the ERPNext side |
| You use Vision mainly for project accounting, timesheets and simple billing | Price both | ERPNext covers that core with no licence fee |
| You need one ledger with a non-A&E business that has stock or manufacturing | ERPNext (price both) | One system for projects, stock and manufacturing |
| You want to self-host or control the code and data | ERPNext | Open source; self-host or pick a Frappe Cloud region |
| Several Vantagepoint eliminations hit you at once | Price both | The upgrade is a real project anyway |
Best for, and wrong choice when
Vantagepoint is the right move when
You are broadly happy with Deltek, use more than project accounting, depend on A&E-specific billing, or run Vision in Deltek Cloud and need to be safe before Q1 2027. The upgrade is free, keeps your data and most custom reports, and Deltek offers complimentary help through CAP.
ERPNext Projects is the right move when
You are a 20 to 200 person firm that mainly needs project accounting, timesheets and time-and-materials or milestone billing, you want to stop paying per user, and the fit test shows your billing works without heavy custom code.
ERPNext is the wrong choice when
You need to be off Deltek Cloud Vision within weeks, your revenue depends on billing rules nobody wants to redesign, or you cannot spare finance staff and project managers for a four-week fit test and two dress rehearsals.
Frequently asked questions
Is Deltek Vision end of life?
Deltek says Vision 7.6 received a final year-end update in January 2026 and then moved to Sustaining Support, meaning no new enhancements, hot fixes or regulatory updates. On-premises Vision keeps running, but Deltek is no longer fixing it (checked Nov 13, 2026).
When does Deltek Cloud access to Vision end?
Deltek’s upgrade FAQ says that for Deltek Cloud customers, access to the Vision instance will wind down in the first quarter of 2027.
Does the Vantagepoint upgrade cost anything?
Deltek’s FAQ states there is no cost to upgrade to Vantagepoint. Your ongoing Deltek subscription or maintenance is separate and is quote-only, and you should budget your own staff time for preparation.
Is Vantagepoint a reimplementation?
No. Deltek describes it as your next release of Vision: data, user-defined info centers, workflows and custom SSRS reports are upgraded, though you must prepare and make some changes, such as reviewing security roles.
Can ERPNext handle timesheets and project billing for an A&E firm?
ERPNext timesheets carry billable flags, billing and costing rates, and can create sales invoices; projects track cost, billing and margin. Complex fee billing such as percentage of fee by phase or multipliers should be tested on your own projects before you commit.
How much does ERPNext cost?
ERPNext has no licence fee under GPL-3.0. Frappe Cloud lists sites from $5 a month and servers from $40 a month (USD, checked Nov 13, 2026). Implementation and support are extra.
Should a Deltek Cloud customer move to ERPNext before Q1 2027?
Usually not. That window is tight for a careful replacement. Upgrade to Vantagepoint to stay supported, then evaluate ERPNext later if the business case still holds.