Loren Saunders
Solutions Architect & ERP Consultant — Deltek Vantagepoint, Deltek Vision & Unanet A/E
Professional Summary
Solutions architect, database architect, developer, and ERP consultant with 20+ years automating business systems for architecture, engineering and construction (AEC) firms worldwide.
Serve mid-size firms as a consulting CTO/CIO, from process audit and operations strategy through design, build and rollout.
Working in Deltek Vision/Vantagepoint since 2003 and Unanet A/E (formerly ClearView InFocus) since 2019.
Focused on making the ERP something the firm can trust: billing, revenue and compliance first, with custom components engineered to survive platform upgrades.
Core Expertise
- Platforms: Deltek Vantagepoint and Vision; Unanet A/E
- Strategy: consulting CTO/CIO, business process audits, operations strategy, applications infrastructure strategy, key-personnel and methodology planning
- Implementation: fitment analysis, configuration, data conversion and migration, historical data cleanup, Vision-to-Vantagepoint migrations, vendor accountability
- Customization: custom user interfaces and setup wizards, cross-entity workflows, job cost modules, invoice design, purchasing and subconsultant management
- Reporting & analytics: custom reports and dashboards for project performance, utilization, financial reporting and compliance
- Integration & automation: application integration, workflows, notifications, data validation, ETL
- Technical: SQL Server, T-SQL, SSRS, SSIS, database and data warehouse architecture, C#/.NET
- Business analysis: requirements, process re-engineering, work breakdown structure design, training, documentation
Professional Experience
Owner & Principal Consultant — Saunders Consulting Group, LLC
2003 – Present
Independent ERP consultant serving firms of 35 to 2,500 employees across the U.S., Canada, the UK and Hong Kong.
Responsible for the full business: business development, estimating and proposals, delivery and client management, from C-suite to end users.
- Implemented Unanet A/E and Deltek Vision; led Vision-to-Vantagepoint migrations, including data conversion strategy and execution.
- Extended Unanet A/E past its standard UI with contract management and project setup wizards, dashboards, time/expense and line-item approval, and subconsultant management tools.
- Re-architected the Vantagepoint Purchasing module to manage subconsultant commitments, backfilling historical data for a clean go-live.
- Built custom job cost modules, invoice designs, cross-entity data entry and automated workflows that enforce business rules and cut manual effort.
- Designed, built and sell a line of Vantagepoint utility reports for administrators and developers (see Products).
Selected Client Engagements
Ghirardelli Associates (Pleasanton, CA) and RMF Engineers (Baltimore, MD)
2025 – 2026
Implemented the Deltek Vantagepoint Purchasing module at both firms to manage subconsultant budgets, contracts and commitments.
- Rebuilt purchase order history from existing transaction data, so at go-live each firm's PO records ran continuously back to its original Vantagepoint go-live, as if the module had been in use from day one.
- Built custom workflows for the Purchasing module, which Vantagepoint does not natively support.
- Built consolidated reporting that ties subconsultant commitments, pay-when-paid (PWP) status and payments back to actual POs and related vouchers, putting full purchase order history in one report instead of several.
I & S Group (ISG) (Mankato, MN · ~250 employees · 20 offices in nine states)
2019 – 2025
Unanet A/E.
- Rescued an at-risk conversion from Peachtree to Unanet A/E and reached go-live within 90 days.
- Re-architected the entire invoicing and contract management framework inside Unanet A/E to overcome limitations in the product's native design.
- Built custom workflows and project setup wizards to replace cumbersome UI elements.
- Built a custom timesheet review and approval solution to replace the out-of-the-box process.
Civil Engineering Consultants (CEC) (San Antonio, TX · now part of KCI Technologies)
2019
Deltek Vision and Unanet A/E.
- Migrated the entire enterprise from Deltek Vision to Unanet A/E.
- Found and corrected flawed historical transaction data in Deltek Vision before the transition.
- Rewrote the chart of accounts and project structure.
- Delivered custom solutions and reports as needed.
Valicooper & Associates (Emeryville, CA)
Custom-built a lights-out prevailing wage cost automation solution that handles all cost and benefit pay calculations for 500+ prevailing wage employees, integrated with a self-service benefit selection SaaS platform through SSIS ETL. Re-engineered labor cost tracking and project assignment, cutting time-entry errors from 50% to 10% and reducing admin hours for labor processing and payroll by 60%.
Ronald Lu and Partners (Hong Kong · ~300 employees)
Took the accounting department from 10% to 80% automation in six months; restructured the project work breakdown structure for current and legacy data, including project WBS and transactional data.
Andrews Engineering (Springfield, MO · ~150 employees)
Redesigned project structure, chart of accounts, timekeeping and accounting methods, moving the firm to a new configuration with business continuity and historical data intact.
MNS Engineers (Santa Barbara, CA · ~130 employees)
Rescued an at-risk Deltek FMS-to-Vision conversion in two months: legacy data scrub, GL account remap, re-architecture and user training. Successfully went live after 3 months.
FMV Opinions (Irvine, CA · ~75 employees)
Evaluated 40 ERP platforms, then led a two-year phased Deltek Vision implementation replacing every mission-critical business application with the Deltek Vision platform. Included custom infocenters, reports, workflows, data migrations.
Products & Articles
- SCG Deep Scan — Vantagepoint report that searches the entire database and returns hits with integrated data dictionary and schema context.
- SCG Column Analysis — impact analysis that maps a field's dependencies across stored procedures, views and workflows before configuration changes.
- Workflow Visibility Reports — searchable views of Vantagepoint automation: workflow hub, email verification and button logic documentation.
Articles at lorensaunders.com: implementing Vantagepoint Purchasing to manage subconsultants (Feb 2026); surfacing audit trail history in the Projects hub (Jan 2026).
Earlier Career
Database Architect, Senior Developer & Business Systems Analyst
1996 – 2003
Business systems architecture, databases, ETL and application development. At House of Blues (Hollywood, CA), architected a customer data warehouse for data mining, integrated Ticketmaster data feeds and automated in-house sales groups. Earlier roles: Millennium Applications (co-founder), Prosum, Data Dimensions, Mozart Systems, EDS and Davies Communications.
Education
- University of California, Santa Barbara — B.A., Business Economics; B.A., French Linguistics
- Institut d'Études Politiques, Grenoble, France — year of study abroad