Accenture announced the competion of its recommended technology upgrade, as part of its work with the Commonwealth of Massachusetts Executive Office for Administration and Finance (ANF) to complete the Commonwealth's annual budget process using the new "Massachusetts Budget Application."
The system enhances the state's ability to provide a uniform, consistent and comprehensive budget process for the state's 156 agencies by creating a common approach to project budget needs and reviewing and approving budget proposals. A detailed workforce-planning capability now enables agencies to project spending by individual positions and full-time employee staffing levels.
The new system also provides administration officials with a powerful tool that creates the foundation for more informed decisions about allocations to support programs and services while providing increased visibility on how agencies match financial and personnel resources to critical services and needs.
"Our goal was to build a foundation for better analysis and continual enhancements of the state's performance, leveraging information to improve outcomes and fulfill missions of each state agency as well as the Commonwealth's fiscal responsibilities to its citizens," said Matthew Gorzkowicz, Massachusetts undersecretary for Administration and Finance.
Additional features and benefits of the new system include:
Ability to do detailed workforce planning and position-based budgeting
All funds (Operating, Federal, Trust) budgeting and reporting capabilities
Visibility into the budget development, review and approval process
Detailed point-in-time capabilities that reconcile budgeted costs to actual expenditures
Increased accuracy to project cash flow to better identify spending patterns
"State governments face new fiscal constraints and increased pressure to control costs," said Pallavi Verma, Accenture senior executive. "Massachusetts has demonstrated leading-edge fiscal management and a commitment to its citizens."
Accenture will continue working with the Commonwealth on other budget-related projects, including consolidating the state's budget technology platform, implementing a planning application for capital budgets, creating budget management dashboards for state executives and the production of the governor's budget.
