Located northwest of Minneapolis, the City of Buffalo in Minnesota is known for its mix of small town community charm and convenient suburban amenities. Close to both Lake Pulaski and Buffalo Lake, the city was recognized by the America in Bloom national contest for its area improvement and beautification practices. With over 15,000 residents, the City of Buffalo is a thriving, progressive community that has enjoyed ongoing steady growth and development.
Buffalo wanted to find a budgeting solution that was more efficient and inclusive for their finance team. After using Excel spreadsheets with their Incode financial system for some time, the city was concerned with how personnel budgeting was being captured and secured. Referred to Questica by the City of Plymouth and City of Waconia (also Questica customers), Buffalo learned how Questica Budget’s suite of products could improve and shorten their budgeting cycle by offering a flexible, collaborative system for preparing and managing their budget. Questica OpenBook, our transparency tool that integrates seamlessly with Questica Budget, also caught their attention for sharing budget information with citizens, including their 20-year capital improvement program.
By creating a single source of data truth, Questica Budget can reveal key budget insights that may have been hidden in a spreadsheet and will help the City make better data-driven decisions. With assigned levels of security and a system for submitting and approving proposed changes, Buffalo’s departments can work together on the budget more efficiently. Staff planning in the Salaries module can compute salaries, wages and benefits for both salaried and unionized hourly paid staff for easy staff planning. Staff data can be viewed in summarized form by the City at any time with a simple click. With Questica Budget, Buffalo can be confident their budget is accurate and capturing important data to help the City continue to grow and thrive.
