Campbell, California
A Suburban City Eliminates Spreadsheet Confusion and Version Control Errors with ClearGov Solutions

Primary Objective

Simplify personnel budgeting workflows

To modernize their existing Excel-based process, always have access to the most recently updated document versions, and have efficient and user-friendly software across the board for the small city’s resource-constrained departments.

Challenge

Excel was slow, confusing, and error-prone

Campbell, CA was struggling with spreadsheet-based budgeting. In particular, personnel budgeting was difficult to forecast — making manual adjustments in Excel was time-consuming, calculations had to be redone, and version control was a constant problem. Departments couldn’t reliably tell whether they were working with current data, and collaboration broke down.

Solution

Deploying ClearGov’s Personnel Budgeting + Budget Suite

Campbell’s Finance Director, Will Fuentes, was impressed by ClearGov’s intuitive, cloud-native design. The city initially adopted ClearGov’s Digital Budget Book and then expanded to the full Budget Cycle Management Suite, including the Personnel Budgeting module. Implementation took about one month, after which staff could instantly run “what‑if” scenarios for salary, FTE, and benefits, and immediately see the impact across the rest of the budget book.

• Rapid implementation — Personnel Budgeting module went live in about one month
• Real-time scenario planning — instantly see changes across the budget
• Seamless integration — updates automatically reflect in the Digital Budget Book

The software tightly integrates with the Digital Budget Book, removing the need for manual document juggling. This has allowed Campbell staff to work from the latest version at all times, improve collaboration across departments, and eliminate the errors and inefficiencies inherent in spreadsheet-based processes.

If you’re able to reduce the time you spend on entry, the time that you spend to control adjustments, the time you spend to put the book together, then you’re also able to take that time that you spent in Excel elsewhere. You can be more strategic, go through your expenses more, and really understand the implications of a new request.

Results

Better accuracy, faster decisions, and more collaboration

Campbell’s personnel budgeting is now:

• More efficient — real-time scenario planning means adjustments are fast, and updates cascade across the budget. 
• More reliable — version control issues are eliminated; every change is reflected instantly, reducing risk of errors. 
• Easier to communicate — department heads and budget staff can share insights more clearly because the software provides consistent, synchronized data across modules.

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