Government

Burlington, Ontario

Once the City of Burlington removed the heavy data entry involved, they were able to focus more time on analysis and on the continual improvement of their budget process.

Case Study: Burlington

Located in Southern Ontario, the City of Burlington is located on the north shore of Lake Ontario. Situated in Canada’s largest consumer and industrial markets, known as the “Golden Horseshoe”, Burlington’s success can be attributed to the combination of manufacturing, private and public sector businesses.

 

Recognized as a responsive community, Burlington is committed to maintaining an environment where residents and daily commuters to the city experience a high quality of life.

Population

165,000

Financial System

SAP

Business Need

With a population of 165,000, the City of Burlington is situated in Canada’s largest consumer and industrial markets. They had in house system that captured only limited budget information. It was unable to share that information between Divisions, and was very limited in its reporting capabilities.

Questica Budget Capital

The City of Burlington decided that Questica was best able to demonstrate a solution to their specific capital budgeting needs, and Questica Budget Capital was procured for that purpose.

Business Benefits

  • Flexibility within asset categories
  • Robust reporting capabilities
  • Reliable auditing and audit trails
  • Ease of installation
  • Easy-to-use application

Business Challenge

The City of Burlington capital budgeting process involves 14 departments and nine asset categories. Previously developed with the use of an in-house application written in FoxPro, the budgeting process was focused on the priorities of each division. Once budgets were completed by departments and had received the approval of the division, Finance would compile the data in preparation for review by the Executive Budget Committee, followed by Council. The process would follow a six-month cycle.

 

The application was limited in the amount of information that could be captured — enough to create some basic reports for individual divisions. There was no consolidation, so to create a report capturing multiple divisions, shared assets, or corporate wide information, the Finance department would need to extract data from multiple sources and building custom reports. This process was extremely onerous and time consuming.

 

Solution

The City of Burlington’s need for a capital budgeting solution was the catalyst for the creation of Questica Budget’s Capital product. The City of Burlington decided that their existing budgeting system was no longer viable and needed to be replaced. In the process, the decision was made to change the emphasis of their capital budgeting program from a departmental to a more progressive asset category perspective.

 

After reviewing the market options available, the City of Burlington chose to work with Questica to develop a solution to their budgeting challenges.

 

Business Benefits

Questica Budget Capital was developed to address the budgeting concerns faced by the City of Burlington. Now the city along with all our Questica Budget customers are enjoying its benefits.

 

Flexibility within asset categories

Questica Budget Capital allows each asset category team to use as many or as few of the application tools that will benefit them the most. Each can be customized to use document storage, project rankings, and settings that promote best practices.

 

Robust report capabilities

Questica Budget Capital provides the user with an easy way to run reports. This increases the number of reports that are available and significantly improves the speed with which they can be generated from by Finance and other users.

 

Reliable auditing and audit trails

The City of Burlington has seen a reduction in the number of errors generated throughout the budgeting process. With numerous checks and balances within the promotion/demotion levels, as well as throughout the application, errors can be caught and corrected quickly without impact on the budget.

 

Ease of installation

With the City of Burlington’s previous capital budgeting system, each time a new user came on board, or a software upgrade took place, the software had to be loaded onto each PC, which was very time consuming. Questica Budget Capital is web-based, so it’s easy to add new users or make upgrades. Access and robust security levels can also be refined to provide controlled access to budget data.

 

Easy-to-use application

The employees at the City of Burlington have found Questica Budget Capital easy-to-learn and navigate. It’s an application that has enabled the City to involve non-budget related engineering staff to relate their projects to a budget. In the process, they are enhancing their knowledge base with respect to the details of their project and the impact of their work on the capital budget.

 

Thanks to more efficient budgeting, Burlington is brilliant.

LinkedInTwitterEmailPrint