Christian County, MO

Primary Objective

Eliminate multiple spreadsheets and save time by modernizing and automating the budgeting process.

Challenge

Historically, Christian County, Missouri’s budgeting process involved 70-80 Excel spreadsheets and countless hours of manual work. It was time-consuming and error-prone, difficult to track changes, and the risk of overwriting data added hours of reconciliation. At the end of the process, citizens had a hard time understanding the budget when they were just looking at a bunch of numbers on a spreadsheet. As county auditor, Amy Dent, stated, “There’s gotta be a better way.”

For governments considering modernization, you won’t regret ClearGov. It is absolutely worth a little bit of effort on the front end. It basically runs itself after the initial setup, and has saved us a ton of time.

Amy Dent
Christian County Auditor

Solution

Christian County was already using ClearGov’s Transparency solution because citizens and elected officials liked neighboring Cass County’s Transparency page. The transparency page is clearer to citizens versus trying to make sense of spreadsheets.

They also adopted Operational Budgeting to eliminate messy spreadsheets and save time during the budget creation process. Department heads were quick to onboard and agree it was a fantastic idea to switch to ClearGov and easier to use than their manual spreadsheet process. Dent appreciates ClearGov’s automatic reminders that she used to help department heads stay on track and ensure tasks were completed on time.

Most notably, ClearGov saved Christian County a ton of time. Additionally, Dent estimates that the software bought them 2-3 years of not having to bring on additional staff. The county is already looking forward to using ClearGov’s Capital Budgeting solution, as that process was also previously done in spreadsheets.

To hear more about how ClearGov impacted Christian County’s budgeting process, listen to this short testimonial video from Christian County Auditor, Amy Dent.