How to add AI agents to Deltek Costpoint
Short answer
Add AI agents to Costpoint by giving them a narrow tool layer over a read replica or the Costpoint web services, then routing every proposed write through a human approver. Start with read-only agents for ceiling and funding watch, timesheet exceptions and indirect rate variance, and only later allow drafts that a person posts in Costpoint.
Costpoint is the system of record for a lot of government contractors and project-driven manufacturers. The data is dense: project and WBS structures, organization and account hierarchies, labor, subcontract and purchase commitments, indirect pools, billing and revenue. The people who live in it, project controllers, contract administrators and program managers, spend much of their week reconciling and chasing exceptions rather than deciding anything.
That makes Costpoint a good fit for agents that do the tedious part: gather the evidence across screens, compare it to a rule, and write up what needs a human. An agent is not a chatbot with a database password. It is a loop that plans, calls a small set of tools, checks its own results and stops at an approval gate. The tool layer is where the safety lives.
Because contractors often carry DFARS 252.204-7012 and CMMC obligations, and Costpoint data includes cost and pricing information, the architecture matters more than the model. Where the data cannot leave your boundary, an open-weight model served on your own GPUs keeps the whole loop inside it.
What teams use it for
Funding and ceiling watch
An agent compares project funding, contract value and cumulative billed or incurred cost, then drafts a notice to the program manager when a project approaches its funded limit, with the numbers and the query attached.
Timesheet exception triage
Each cycle the agent reads unapproved, late or corrected timesheets, flags charges to closed or unfunded charge codes, and drafts a per-supervisor list. It never edits a timesheet, since compliant labor records need an auditable correction trail.
Indirect rate variance explainer
When provisional versus actual pool rates drift, the agent pulls pool and base amounts by period and account, ranks the accounts driving the variance and writes a short controller memo.
Open commitment follow-up
For subcontract and purchase order lines past due or near period end, the agent drafts supplier or subcontractor confirmation requests and logs the replies for a buyer to apply.
Billing pre-flight
Before a billing run, the agent checks for unbilled labor on projects with missing billing terms, expired rate tables or holds, and produces a checklist of what to fix first.
Deltek Costpoint integration surface
- The underlying relational database (Oracle or Microsoft SQL Server depending on the deployment). A read replica or reporting copy is the safest read path for agents. Core tables include project (PROJ), account (ACCT), organization (ORG) and timesheet line tables, but exact names and columns vary by version, so confirm against your data dictionary.
- Costpoint web services and the REST and SOAP style interfaces Deltek exposes for integration. Availability and scope differ between Costpoint 7 and later releases and between on-premises and Deltek cloud, so check what your version licenses.
- Costpoint's own workflow and notification features, useful as an approval hook so an agent's proposed action lands in a screen your people already use.
- Scheduled report and export options (flat files, CSV output of reports) as a fallback when direct access is not allowed in your environment.
- Costpoint security: user and role definitions, and application-level security by project, organization or account. Agents should act under a service identity mapped to a deliberately limited role.
How it works
- 1
Pick one workflow and one rule set
Choose something with a written policy, such as the ceiling-warning threshold or the timesheet late rule. An agent without a crisp rule drifts into guesswork.
- 2
Create a read path
Stand up a read replica or a nightly extract of the needed tables, and expose it through a handful of named, parameterized queries rather than free SQL.
- 3
Define tools, not access
Write tools like get_project_funding, list_unapproved_timesheets, get_pool_variance. Each returns bounded rows with identifiers the agent can cite.
- 4
Add a planner and a verifier
The agent plans which tools to call, then a second check recomputes totals from raw rows so a wrong number cannot reach a person unchecked.
- 5
Insert the approval gate
Anything that would change Costpoint becomes a draft item with the evidence, approved by a named role in Costpoint workflow, email or a chat tool. The posting itself stays a human action or a signed, narrow API call.
- 6
Log everything
Store prompt, tool calls, rows returned and the approver for each run, so a DCAA or internal audit question can be answered later.
Example flows
Weekly funding exposure report
Trigger: Monday 06:00 scheduled run
- Agent calls get_project_funding for all active cost-type projects.
- It computes incurred plus open commitments against funded value.
- Projects over a configurable percentage are grouped by program manager.
- A verifier recomputes the sums from the raw rows.
- Drafts are emailed to each manager with the query attached.
Result: Managers see exposure before the funding limit becomes a stop-work conversation.
Timesheet correction chaser
Trigger: A timesheet is submitted charging a closed or unfunded charge code
- Agent reads the line, the project status and the employee's supervisor.
- It checks whether an approved alternate charge exists on the same task.
- It drafts a message to the supervisor with the likely correct code.
- The supervisor decides and corrects the timesheet in Costpoint.
Result: Exceptions are cleared before the labor distribution run, with the decision recorded by a person.
Keeping data on-prem
Many Costpoint customers run on-premises or in a controlled cloud because the data is controlled unclassified information or cost and pricing data. A fully private agent stack works: an open-weight model served with vLLM or Ollama on your GPUs, a tool service that connects to the read replica over the internal network, and an orchestration layer that stores traces in your own database. No prompt or row leaves the boundary, and the same stack works air-gapped if you ship model updates by media. If you are on Deltek's hosted environment, confirm with Deltek what network paths and authorizations are allowed before connecting anything, since direct database access is usually not offered there and the supported API route applies.
Security checklist
- Use a dedicated service account with a read-only role and application-level security limited to the projects and organizations the agent legitimately serves.
- Treat free text from timesheets, notes and vendor emails as untrusted input to the model, and never let it choose which tool runs next without a rules check.
- Keep cost and pricing data inside your authorization boundary; do not send it to an external model API unless your compliance team has approved that path.
- Record every tool call and approver for audit, and retain the logs on your own retention schedule.
- Block write tools by default and enable them one at a time with explicit approval roles.
Ways to get it done
Costpoint's own workflow and reporting features
Effort: Days to weeks, inside the product
Fixed-rule alerts and approvals that do not need reasoning across screens.
Build in-house with an open agent framework
Effort: Two to four months for a first production agent
Teams with a developer who knows both your data model and the compliance posture.
Work with a partner such as Netray
Effort: A scoped pilot of a few weeks, then iterate
You want a private, on-prem agent stack with approval gates and audit trails, delivered with a Costpoint domain expert.
Pitfalls
- !Giving the agent broad SQL access. A single bad join over timesheet history can return thousands of rows and the model will happily summarize the wrong ones.
- !Ignoring fiscal period and posting status. Unposted versus posted amounts differ, and an agent that mixes them produces confident, wrong totals.
- !Letting the agent edit labor records. Compliant timekeeping requires an auditable correction by the employee or supervisor.
- !Skipping the test on prior periods. Validate against a closed month whose answers you already trust before going live.
Frequently asked questions
Can an AI agent post transactions in Costpoint?
Technically it can if you expose a write interface, but most contractors should not start there. Have the agent draft and a person post. If you later allow a narrow write, scope it to one transaction type, require approval and log it, because accounting records are subject to audit.
Do I need Deltek's permission to connect an agent?
For on-premises installs you control the database, but check your license and support terms. For Deltek-hosted Costpoint you generally use the supported APIs or exports and need to confirm access paths with Deltek. Either way, involve your security and contracts teams early.
Which model should run the agent?
For controlled data, an open-weight model on your own hardware is the simplest to justify. Mid-size models handle tool calling well when the tools are narrow. Use a larger model only for the planning and memo-writing steps if evaluation shows you need it.
How is this different from Costpoint reports?
Reports answer questions someone already built. An agent can combine several of them, notice an exception and write a message. If a scheduled report solves your problem, use it; agents earn their place where the work spans screens and needs judgment.
How long does a first agent take?
A read-only agent over a replica with two or three tools can reach a working pilot in a few weeks, mostly spent agreeing on rules and validating numbers against closed periods rather than writing code.
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