“Having Questica Budget has given our team more time to focus on managing the budget now that we
spend less time assembling it.”
Ann Sheridan, Budget Manager, Sound Transit
Sound Transit is the Regional Transit Authority
that is designing, building and operating in
Washington State’s Central Puget Sound.
It comprises express bus, commuter rail, and
light rail service and has a daily ridership of
over 100,000.
Sound Transit begins work on their budgets
in April and May, submitting them in June and
July. Review meetings are held throughout the summer, and a final proposal presented to the Board
in September. Revisions to the proposed budget are submitted in late October, and the final budget
plus revisions is adopted by the board in December. The budget goes live in January.
Sound Transit develops their budget in three distinct segments: Administrative divisions, Transit
Service divisions and Capital Projects divisions. Added to this, the Capital Projects divisions submit
multi-year budgets for each project. In addition to the annual budget process, project budgets are
approved in parts as projects reach one of three different milestones. Each milestone requires a
separate budget amendment that needs to be approved by the Board. This leads to a constant
stream of budget amendments to manage throughout the year.
Each segment of the agency had their own methods and tools for preparing their budgets including
spreadsheets, Access databases, and custom tools. This disconnected approach came with a
number of inherent challenges and meant that budget preparation and analysis was difficult.
Consolidating the budget for the budget book required a lot of time consuming re-entry of data into
a database to produce reports. This also opened the door to clerical errors.
There was no integration with the agency’s financial system, so an IT resource was required to
import actual spending into an access database to begin the budget process each year. With no
way to integrate amendments into the budget, “trueing-up” the budget at the beginning of the next
budget cycle was extremely difficult.
Sound Transit had a Crystal Reports resource on staff to prepare reports as required. This was
costly, and left them vulnerable if that resource was no longer available.
Sound Transit’s staffing has increased by 50% over the last 3-4 years, and all salary and benefits
planning was still being handled manually, in spreadsheets. Accounting for all the elements and
factors that contribute to salary and benefits was extremely time consuming and subject to errors.
Without a proper application, the position and employee information in the ERP system could not
be leveraged.
Sound Transit knew they needed a single system that would provide connectivity, visibility, and
would save them time and money. Additionally they needed a way to roll forward their budget into
subsequent years rather than having to recreate the budget each time.
100,000
JD Edwards E1
Sound Transit provides bus, commuter
rail, and light rail services in Central Puget Sound.
Sound Transit was looking for a solution
that would provide connectivity, visibility,
and would save time and money.
Sound Transit implemented Questica
Budget during their budget process, and
saw immediate benefits in a number of
areas resulting in at least three manmonths of time saved.
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Integration & Collaboration
Easier to Manage
Data Integrity
Report Flexibility
Roll Forward Budget Year
Allocations
Further information on the Questica
Budget Suite can be obtained at:
Sound Transit issued an RFP and received responses from 15
organizations. They reviewed the options, and liked Questica
Budget because it was simple and the process similar to their own
budget development process.
Sound Transit implemented Questica Budget during their budget
process, and saw immediate benefits in a number of areas
resulting in at least three man-months of time saved. As they
continue to refine their process to take advantage of the new
system they anticipate further significant improvements and
savings.
Questica Budget ensures “one source of truth” with all budgets
originating in the one system. Divisions use the same budget
system and process, providing a collaborative environment for
budgeting and decision making.
Questica Budget is integrated with Sound Transit’s E1 financial
system, and automatically updates actuals and changes to the
custom chart of accounts nightly, so staff can be confident that
the account data they’re seeing each day is current.
Managers can follow the status of their budget as they advance
through the various stages of review and approval. Budget changes are made directly into the system, ensuring the impact is
understood immediately.
Advanced searches are simple with all the data in one database,
and have eliminated the need to slice through massive quantities
of data to find what the organization is looking for. This has saved
Sound Transit approximately one man month.
Questica Budget eliminates the need to re-enter budget data
multiple times, an exercise which inevitably results in human error
and broken data links.
Sound Transit no longer needs to rely on a single person to provide reports. Questica Budget’s large selection of ready-made
reports and custom reports that Questica created for Sound
Transit means that users can easily produce the reports they
require.
Questica Budget’s roll-forward budget year feature will improve
the process drastically, saving time and frustration. Users simply
roll it forward, and make any necessary adjustments, and the
budget path, links, and business rules are already established.
Sound Transit made good use of the Allocations module with this
past budget cycle. The module allows divisions performing the
work to include costs in their own budget and then transfer the
charges to the divisions the work is being managed for. Changes
made to the original division budget after the initial transfer trigger a recalculation based on the established percentage. Questica
Budget also offers the flexibility to freeze the allocation so recalculations don’t occur.
Once allocations are set up, they can be rolled forward to subsequent years, and recalculated if required. This exercise alone will
save a great deal of time in coming years.
In addition, not having to re-key the summary data from spreadsheets into a database has saved the Budget Analysts approximately one man month.
Questica Budget’s automatic and on-demand update of actuals
means no more running crystal reports to determine current year
spending.
Since everyone is using the same system, knowledge transfer is
simple. Questica Budget’s intuitive, yet sophisticated system
reduced the learning curve and users were able to use the tool
with just 90 minutes of hands-on training.
The Questica Budget Suite is a secure web-based solution structured on a proven capital and operating budgeting model.
Working in conjunction with the public sector, Questica Budget Capital and Operating were designed to solve the cumbersome process
of assembling, tracking, analyzing and reporting of capital and operating budgets.
Further information on the Questica Budget Suite can be obtained at questica.com.