Budget Technology

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Budget Technology The State of the
Market Florida GFOA
2
Agenda

• Part I The Budget Process Technology
• Part II The Marketplace
• Part III Top Requirements
• Part IV Going Forward

3
Budget Process Technology

• The budget process is idiosyncratic
• Fitting a technology system can be challenging
• The following slides describe key process
  characteristics

4
Process Characteristics

• Wide range of participants
• Contributions take place at single point in year
• Users must collaborate use historical data
• Process must be orchestrated through budget
  versions

5
Process Characteristics

• Requests must be negotiated, approved,
  consolidated
• Print the budget document
• Process changes with political and management
  priorities

6
Part I Take-Aways

• Accommodating all of these functions in a single
  and flexible solution will be difficult
• But, market is evolving solutions are improving
• Settle on budget process first, before technology
• Decide how you want to run the organization and
  then find the right technology

7
Part II The Marketplace
8
Main Players

• Excel
• Financial System Modules
• Custom Systems
• Corporate Performance Management

9
Whats Being Used?

• Operating Budgets

10
Whats Being Used?

• Capital Budgets

11
Excel

• Very commonbut not so popular!
• Not technically complexbut not sophisticated. It
  lacks
• Security
• Rule enforcement
• Strong reporting capabilities
• Everyone can use itbut not all at once

12
Financial System Module

• Widely used for operating budgeting, not for
  capital
• Advantages
• Integration to financial system
• Leverage common features
• May provide a great fit
• Disadvantages
• Advantages disappear in stand-alone environment
• Not optimized for reporting and analysis
• May not be flexible

13
Custom Systems

• Advantages
• Perfect fit with process
• Control over development
• Can develop/modify at your own speed
• Disadvantages
• Technical obsolescence
• Costly to maintain
• Lack of best practices

14
GovMax

• Developed by Sarasota County
• Shared with just under 20 other governments
• Maintained by Sarasota using ASP approach
• Collaboration mitigates many traditional
  disadvantages of custom development

15
Corporate Performance Management (CPM)

• Private sector import
• Excel pivot tables on steroids
• Advantages
• Built for budgeting and analysis
• Very flexible
• Built to maximize data accessibility
• Disadvantages
• Interfacing required
• Not purpose built for public sector
• Not proven for public sector budgeting on wide
  scale

16
Who are the Players?
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Part II Take-Aways

• Variety of options available
• Financial system modules are tried and sometimes
  true approach
• CPM is a new and exciting possibility
• GovMax shows what governments can go by working
  together

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Part III - Top Requirements

• Use this list to start building your own
  requirements
• Compare requirements to current process
• Where might you have to change your process to
  meet the ideal?
• Use requirements to evaluate technology

19
The Basics

• System must do the basics of budgeting
• Inputs Outputs
• MS Excel-like Pivot Tables Functionality
• Labor Costing Multi-Year Contracts
• Performance Measures
• Version Control

20
Other Key Features

• Budgeting Scenarios
• Asses impacts of different futures
• Version Control
• Track statuses of the budget
• Collaboration
• Between contributors and between central budget
  office and contributors.

21
Other Key Features

• Interfacing
• Automated and manual, especially for performance
  data
• Strategy Mapping
• Provide context for how dollars link to
  programmatic purposes
• Personalized Reporting
• When users get information thats useful, they
  give data thats useful

22
Other Key Features

• Project View
• Look at projects outside of bounds of fiscal year
  and cross-organizationally
• Integration
• Accounting system and project management system
• Scenario planning
• Especially for capital planning

23
Other Key Features

• Technology Platform
• Modern and open
• Content Management
• Accommodate free-form text
• Central Data Store
• Keep all budget and performance data in one
  shared location

24
One last key feature

• Printing the budget book
• GFOA hasnt seen a great solution
• Standard reporting tools just arent powerful
  enough
• Specialized tools are very expensive and
  complicated
• Especially given they are only used once a year

25
What Does it Look Like?
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Part IV Going Forward
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Steps from Here

• Identify key requirements
• Get executives involved
• Form partnership between IT and finance
• Find out where market can help you and where it
  cant
• Initiate procurement process
• Business case
• Use best people

28
Key Lessons

• Manage expectations for what project will
  accomplish
• Understand vendors assumptions
• Follow iterative development process
• Design and commit to budgeting and performance
  management strategy first!
• Will drive desire for technology

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The End

• Thank you for your time
• Additional GFOA resources
• Budget technology market research report
• GFOA system selection advisory
• Visit www.gfoa.org or see me afterwards