Why Cloud-Based Budgeting Outshines ERPs and Spreadsheets

When it comes to budgeting tools, legacy tools like enterprise resource planning software (ERPs) and spreadsheets are typically the fan favorites among local governments and school districts. 

They’re also manual, inefficient, and cumbersome. Yep, we said it.

But there is a better way to build budgets: modern budget cycle management (BCM). 

BCM is a strategic framework that transforms budgeting into a holistic, streamlined set of planning and budget management practices that any public agency can implement. The goal of BCM is to ensure a seamlessly integrated approach to budgeting that involves all relevant teams with as little friction as possible — and it leverages the power of cloud-based software to do so.

Read on to learn why ERPs and spreadsheets are hindering your finance department, and how BCM can propel you forward.

Traditional Budgeting’s Limitations

When it comes to budgeting, ERPs and spreadsheets may have worked well in decades past. But your VHS, your Palm Pilot, and your phonebook also worked well in the past. 

You never questioned rewinding a movie after you finished it, writing emails with a stylus in a tiny box, or thumbing through pages of tiny print just to order takeout. But would you put up with it now?

Time is more valuable than ever in our fast-paced, highly connected, digital-first world. And isolated departments, communicating via endless emails, and manual approval processes with minimal transparency slow budgeting down. 

ERPs and spreadsheets compound budgeting inefficiency in your organization even more. Here’s why.

ERPs: Mincing Melons with a Multitool

ERPs are versatile — they’re practically the Swiss Army knives of public administration software. Instead of housing a knife, scissors, and screwdriver in one enclosure, EPRs offer budgeting, HR management, asset management, and other tools within one software solution. 

Like multitool knives, ERPs tend to prioritize convenience over performance. And sure, both are fine for certain uses. But when you’re chopping vegetables, using scissors on plastic packaging, or working with screws, are you really reaching for your tiny Swiss Army knife? 

Your fingers deserve purpose-built tools. And as the bedrock of your public administration, so does your budgeting. 

Spreadsheets: The Worn Pair of Sneakers You Just Can’t Toss Out 

The real crowd favorites for traditional budgeting are digital spreadsheet programs like Microsoft Excel. They’re familiar and comfortable — like that fond, old pair of sneakers you can’t seem to get rid of.

But those shoes had their day, and that day has passed. Now, the soles are worn, and the laces frayed. Also, they stink a little bit.

Spreadsheets stink, too — at public budgeting. Here’s why:

• Formulas for disaster: Complex Microsoft Excel formulas heighten the risk of errors that can have major financial consequences.

• Losing (version) control: Multiple users working on different versions of the same spreadsheet can lead to confusion and data inconsistencies.

• Trials and errors: Poor data quality leads to flawed analysis and unreliable budget forecasts. Broken spreadsheets, manual processes, and poor data quality lead to flawed analyses and forecasts, as well as errors in your spreadsheets.

• Low sighs for silos: Information scattered across numerous disconnected spreadsheets naturally produces data silos and prevents a holistic view of budgeting.

• Manual stalls: Manual actions lie at the heart of spreadsheet budgeting. They’re time-consuming, prone to errors, and inefficient.

Inefficient processes like these not only slow things down; they take over headspace. Budgeting has plenty of high-level challenges, such as navigating changing regulations, economic volatility, political influence, citizen or enrollment issues, and grant management challenges. 

But these challenges are even more difficult when manual, inefficient processes force you to fixate on low-level issues. Taking longer to do day-to-day budgeting tasks prevents financial professionals from focusing on the strategic initiatives that matter.

Modern Budget Cycle Management to the Rescue

Public leaders deserve to focus on the issues that will make the difference in their communities — not on fixing Microsoft Excel formulas or chasing down bids. That’s where BCM comes in.

Whereas traditional budgeting is often carried out in disjointed silos, a modern BCM framework replaces these isolated areas with four key, interconnected phases of the budget cycle process: Planning & Tracking, Budgeting, Reporting, and Engagement. Embracing modern BCM results in automated processes, seamless collaboration, a stronger relationship with stakeholders, and future-focused budgeting. 

How to Build Budgets with BCM Best Practices

Applying modern BCM to your budgeting means streamlining communications, organization, and processes. It also means limiting silos, inefficiency, and confusion. BCM’s goal is to ensure a holistic approach to budgeting that involves all relevant teams with as little friction as possible.

BCM also prioritizes future planning to mitigate harms from unexpected changes. In addition to aligning budget goals with strategic planning, this means budget teams should practice thorough scenario planning and revenue forecasting. 

You can ensure modernized budgeting with the following strategies:

• Use scenario planning to model different outcomes and plan against the big picture of your budget.

• Prioritize revenue forecasting and expenditure projection five to 10 years in the future to ensure accurate budget predictions and efficient resource allocation.

• Engage department heads by documenting and communicating the budgeting process and expectations.

• Ensure all supporting documentation (bids, photos, testimonials, etc.) is digitized, organized in shared folders, and attached to each budget request. 

• Clearly communicate deadlines for requests and automate reminder emails to department heads.

Having the right tools for the job is always essential. And implementing BCM effectively requires leveraging the power of cloud-based software. This opens up the possibilities of what you can do.

Leveraging the right cloud-based software allows budget teams to:

• Maintain a single, living source of budgeting truth, which allows for tight version control and improved security/access controls.

• Effortlessly track person-by-person budget changes, which provides easy, automatic access to audit trails.

• Automate calculations, which reduces human error by eliminating formulas and linked spreadsheets.

• Prioritize real-time collaboration by consolidating communications within the platform in which you create budgets.  

Applying BCM principles to cloud-based budgeting ensures a caliber of organization, efficiency, and accuracy that will transform the way you build budgets.

How Christian County, MO, Harnesses the Cloud to Slash its Budgeting Time by 100 Hours

Christian County, MO applied BCM principles and cloud-based budgeting software to its budgeting process — and the results speak for themselves.

For a long time, Christian County’s budgeting process was inefficient for a few reasons. First, it involved over 200 individual Excel spreadsheets between different funds, departments, and payrolls. Second, these spreadsheets took countless hours to manually prepare and were prone to errors. 

Third, it was difficult to track changes within the spreadsheet, and the risk of overwriting data added hours of reconciliation. And lastly, citizens found it difficult to understand the final budget, which consisted of numerous numbers on a spreadsheet.

So, Christian County used ClearGov Operational Budgeting to consolidate its 200 spreadsheets into a single source of truth. The county also automated much of their manual tasks, and Christian County Auditor Amy Dent uses automated reminders to keep department heads stay on track with completing tasks. 

According to Dent, adopting this cloud-base platform and BCM practices reduced Christian County’s budget creation time by 100 hours in its three-month process. She also estimates that the software bought the county 2-3 years of not having to bring on additional staff. View Christian County’s budget timeline and process.

“The communication with our taxpayers and citizens is much clearer, and the time my staff puts in during the budget cycle has been reduced by 100 hours over the three month process” 

– Amy Dent, Auditor, Christian County, MO

Budgeting with ClearGov Capital Budgeting, Personnel Budgeting, and Operational Budgeting

As Christian County and over 1,300 communities experienced, ClearGov’s budgeting solutions leverage the cloud and BCM best practices to streamline and modernize budgeting. ClearGov Capital Budgeting allows you to automate the way you prioritize capital requests to streamline your CIP process. With ClearGov Personnel Budgeting, you can build your personnel budget with powerful tools that ensure you’ve calculated every layer of cost. And using ClearGov Operational Budgeting lets you eliminate spreadsheet errors and version control issues with cloud-native budgeting:

Can you imagine returning to using a Nokia brick phone today? Not even playing Snake would be fun. Cloud-based budgeting tools are the same way. Once you experience streamlined, automated budgeting you’ll have a hard time going back to the way things were.
Our public finance experts are here to help you apply BCM principles to your budgeting. Reach out to us for a demo to see how BCM can work for your organization.