Application Modernization

County Government Office

A large county government requested assistance in the development of a budgeting application to replace their existing budget tool, which had been created by the county staff using a Microsoft Access database. That budget tool consisted of input screens, queries, and reports. The County’s budget cycle encompassed four individual processes and the organization and account structure was tied to the County’s financial accounting system.

Business Challenge

The Department of Information Technology for the County had an initiative to migrate all mission critical applications out of Microsoft Access. With this new requirement, the County requested Ascendra’s assistance to replace their staff-created, Microsoft Access budget tool, using an approved technology. The original budget tool had been designed to mimic the County’s legacy mainframe budgeting system which was retired due to high operations and maintenance costs as well as its rigid structure. The County’s budget cycle encompassed four individual processes. The Access database contained data tables, queries, input forms and reports. Budget master data was harmonized with the County’s financial accounting system within the Access application.

Their existing Budget tool was cumbersome and inefficient and characterized by the following:

A series of disconnected flat tables
Hardcoded and inflexible budget processes
Manual and time-consuming synchronization of budget master data and financial data
Manual data processing activities that stretched over several days
Lack of security module for access or privileges
Limited scalability of users or data
Prone to issues with database corruption
Lack of formalized data import functionality
Reporting through multiple Access databases,
Access Reports, or data dumps

The County chose Ascendra to design, develop and deploy a custom budget solution that would closely follow their existing budget cycle and processes, that was aligned with IT’s processes and requirements.

Solution

Based on the County’s requirements and existing information technology infrastructure, Ascendra recommended a custom .NET budget solution connected to a Microsoft SQL Server database. Ascendra’s solution contains the following features:

Configurable Budget Processes
Flexible Data Format
Scalable Data Structure
Centralized Data Security
Employee Salary and Budgeted Positions Module
Multiple Data Input Modes
Centralized Budget Input Forms
Distributed Departmental Input Forms with Workflow Approvals
Automated Excel Import Process
Configurable Batch Processing Engine
Standard Reporting through SQLServer Reporting Services
Custom and Ad Hoc Reporting using Microsoft BI

Benefits

By implementing Ascendra’s custom budget solution, the County has made significant strides in streamlining and automating their budget processes. The tools are now in place to effectively budget, report, monitor and analyze the County’s budget data at all levels of the organization. Immediate benefits derived have been:

Budget processes are completed in a matter of minutes that took several workdays to run and validate in the previous system.
Master Account and Organizational data is automatically synchronized with the County’s financial data warehouse.
The budget system is connected to Active Directory to provide secure access control.
Database and application backup routines are handled using scheduled processes by the IT Department.
Appropriate users can access budget data through a series of flexible and scalable reporting views.
The Budget Department was able to quickly add an additional Budget Cycle to help the county budget in response to the COVID 19 pandemic.

Services & Technologies Utilized

Ascendra provided the following consulting services for the County Budget Solutions:

Project Management
Budget Process Engineering
Database Architecture Design and Deployment
.NET Design and Development
Reports Design and Development

Software:

Windows Server 2018 R2
Microsoft SQL-Server 2018 R2
.NET Framework
Telerik Control Libraries
SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS)
SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS)

Let's Talk

Ascendra, Inc.
3900 Jermantown Road, Suite 160
Fairfax, VA 22030
Phone: 571-375-2461 | Fax: 703-991-2495