Existing Process

The Australian Government Department of Finance performed their budgeting using Microsoft Excel, as many businesses did in the late 90's/early 2000s.

Problem

Using Excel provided great flexibility but also meant that changes to workbooks made consolidation and auditing an administrative challenge. It also meant that updates were very dofficult and there was no summary until all workbooks had been consolidated.

Solution

On request of the Department Isidore built a web based solution as an interim while the DEpartment looked for an off-the-shelf solution. Isidore implemented our Budgeting solution with all of the intricacies required by DoFA.

Being web based, it allowed for easier deployment, maintenance and instant real time analysis and reporting. Isidore's solution reduced the time required to collect, consolidate, report and analyse their budget data for their intial budget from a 3 month period to a 2 week process. Communication during the budgeting process between the users deriving the individual cost centre budgets and corporate finance was vastly improved with the CFO being able to see the live Budget being built as users entered their data.

Integration with SAP, QSP and COGNOS has enabled their Budgeting Processes to be fully integrated with their existing Financial Management Systems. Isidore has been in use since 2001 and is used by over 150 staff. Isidore continues to support DoFA and adapts the solution to meet their ongoing and changing needs.

Result

The project to build the software took 9 months and was on time and on budget. This was one of the first web-based solutions for the Department in 2001. The Department used the solution for 16 years!