Local governments

Budgeting and planning season is here for local governments that have a Dec. 31 fiscal year-end. With 2022 on the horizon, some governments might be anticipating increases to certain revenues or planning changes to salaries and benefits. Our Financial Intelligence Tool's (FIT) “Add Projection” feature allows governments to adjust their known or anticipated revenues and expenditures, and then project those amounts into the future. Continue reading to learn how to access this feature and start projecting today.

How to create a projection

While every financial system's internal controls are important, establishing strong controls for your government's accounts payable process is particularly critical for preventing errors and deterring or quickly detecting fraud. From maintaining master vendor files to preventing duplicate payments and transactions, accounts payable requires a robust set of internal controls for ensuring your government safeguards public resources.

This is the fifth article of our seven-part K&P leadership series. Missed the previous article on enabling others to act? Read it here.

2020 was anything but normal, and we can look at the annual reports that Washington's cities and towns recently submitted to see how the COVID-19 pandemic affected their operations. How did the pandemic affect sales tax collections? How did federal funding support our cities and towns as they navigated the economic challenges of the pandemic?

Strengthening your government's guard against the threats that compromised passwords pose is a necessary control for decreasing the risk of unauthorized users gaining access to your computers, network or database. In this post, we explain how passwords get compromised and how multi-factor authentication (MFA) can help governments improve their account security to better protect their systems.

How passwords get compromised

With new annual report filings from nearly 200 governments across the state since June 30, we're excited to share our first quarterly update of the 2020 fiscal year financial data in the Financial Intelligence Tool (FIT).

This is the fourth article of our seven-part K&P leadership series. Missed the previous article on challenging the process? Read it here.

Smaller governments frequently procure goods and services without a procurement manager. While smaller governments can get by without designated procurement managers for their daily operations, they occasionally take on larger projects like new building construction that can strain their limited resources. The burden of managing these projects often falls to managers who have several other duties or lack procurement expertise. Whether you have small or large procurements, here are five survival tips to help you navigate the procurement process:

Looking for a way to improve your game when it comes to cash receipting internal controls? Add the double count to your arsenal. The double count is as easy as the name suggestions: money should never transfer from one employee to another without being counted and documented first.

Though it's simple, the double count is a necessary addition to your internal control processes for minimizing the risk of loss . Let's walk through a few scenarios to illustrate the concept and its importance.

Scenario 1: Fundraising in a school

This is the third article of our seven-part K&P leadership series. Missed the previous article on inspiring a shared vision? Read it here.