Streamline public sector contract and budget management

Esteban Salinas, Brian Sutter

The public sector is modernizing.

It has begun a digital transformation journey that uses technology to break down silos, improve efficiency, and increase transparency. Those who work in the industry know that manually updating spreadsheets and trying to stay on top of never-ending emails just doesn’t work anymore.

Crowe Contract Manager for public sector is a complete contract management solution for public sector agencies. We’ve built it to help resolve everyday issues related to tracking and managing a public sector contract.

Teams looking for ways to streamline their workflows can access features that apply to each stage in the life cycle of a contract. These features can help save time, reduce errors, and provide proactive management capacity, especially when integrated with other solutions available in the Crowe Government Hub.

A walk-through of the core budget and financial tracking features within Crowe Contract Manager for public sector highlights how public sector teams can use the tool to manage contract budgets.

Want to know what else Crowe Contract Manager for public sector has to offer?

Learn more about how our solution can help you manage contract budgets.

Dashboards

Crowe Contract Manager for public sector includes several dashboards to help teams understand the current state of their contract budgets.

Active business certifications

This feature shows the demographics of the vendors that have been awarded public sector contracts. For example, categories include “disadvantaged business enterprise,” “minority business enterprise,” “small business,” “veteran business enterprise,” and “women business enterprise.”

My active contracts

This feature allows users to view only the public sector contracts they manage. The system consolidates relevant information into a dashboard so that users can gain insight into the financial status of their contracts quickly, without having to dive into individual records.

Procurement projects

Within the public sector, most procurement projects must go through a formalized procurement process. As projects move toward contracts, contract managers can benefit by viewing high-level information on the procurement within the same system as their contract details.

Encumbrance status

While the encumbrance process typically takes place within an entity’s enterprise resource planning (ERP) system, this feature can help contract managers save time when they need to locate updates and information.

Contract managers can also use this feature to quickly determine whether funding for a project has already been set aside rather than having to search for status updates within the larger ERP system. This feature is particularly helpful for those managing five or more procurements at a time.

Contract setup

Contract categories

Crowe Contract Manager for public sector only shows users what they need to see based on the type of contract they are working on. The contract category selected when setting up a public sector contract will control the functions a user can see.

As an example, a deliverables-based contract and an orders-based contract will not reveal the same functionalities when visiting the execution tracking tab. This functionality streamlines how information shows up on a user’s screen, simplifying the contract tracking and management process.

A set of default contract categories is included as part of the base implementation of Crowe Contract Manager for public sector. Then, as part of the implementation process, Crowe specialists can help clients define what their categories are and how those categories map out to the specific functionality in the system.

Contract totals

To avoid the mismanagement of funds, it’s imperative users know where they stand financially at any given point in a contract’s life cycle. With this in mind, this feature provides a quick snapshot of a contract’s status from a financial standpoint without contract managers having to dig into the specifics of the contract.

This feature is designed to show how a contract is progressing through dynamic updates to contract totals that reflect their level of fulfillment. These updates are then broken down into categories including total estimated, approved, encumbered, and invoiced.

Contract funding

This feature allows users to assign specific funding sources to a contract. For example, in the contract shown here, funds were pulled from the 2022 budget and from the 2023 budget.

Contract managers can use this feature to track a breakdown of individual sources of funds being used for a particular contract. This information is especially beneficial for public sector organizations that often tap into different sources of funding and rely on multiple sources to secure enough money to cover the entire amount of a contract.

This feature can also identify where dollars are coming from when a contract covers several different types of services or items, which might necessitate the use of different funding sources based on the regulatory requirements a given agency must comply with.

Deliverables

Award and execution details

This feature shows users the total amount awarded to a vendor. It also auto-calculates the withhold percentage that can apply to some contracts. If the withhold percentage ever needs to change during the life cycle of a contract, it can be quickly updated within the system.

Note: This view is an example. Fields and available data within this feature dynamically change based on contract category.

Execution tracking

This feature shows what deliverables must be provided as part of the contract. Users can see the estimated cost for each deliverable, as well as if funds have been encumbered, approved, or invoiced.

It also provides insight into the dollar amount tied to each deliverable that’s expected as part of a contract. This information helps contract managers understand from a processing standpoint what is coming next for any given contract. From a financial standpoint, this feature can help agencies anticipate invoices that are approaching soon and better manage their cash flow.

An additional helpful feature is the ability of Crowe Contract Manager for public sector to point out a red flag if something seems amiss. For example, a large discrepancy between $5,000 estimated and encumbered and $25,000 approved would be highlighted in red as a potential error. This solution also would post a warning at the bottom of the screen such as “Total approved is greater than expected.” Warnings like this help users with data entry and integrity.

Invoices

Crowe Contract Manager for public sector can track vendor invoices and the dollar amounts that tie into them. It provides a snapshot of what was received from the vendor and how it links back to a deliverable within a contract. Ultimately, this information is presented at the summary level on the contract record, and it helps teams manage the financial elements of a contract.

We can help you streamline

These are just some of the beneficial features your team might appreciate. Crowe Contract Manager for public sector has even more features to help your business consolidate, automate, and standardize its public sector contract management processes.

No matter where you are on your digital transformation journey, Crowe can be your guide. We can help you better use technology to make a difference in the communities you serve.

Let us help you revolutionize the way you do public sector contract management so you can experience true efficiency.

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Esteban Salinas

Principal, Public Sector Consulting

+1 916 266 9596

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Brian Sutter

Public Sector Consulting

+1 317 269 2383

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