Public Finance Manager

Governments are demanding greater transparency, traceability and confirmation that public money is being spent well and delivering on the objectives and outcomes that it has been allocated to deliver. With EY Public Finance Manager, governments can spend money more effectively and efficiently. The solution helps public finance managers overcome long-standing barriers, such as lack of timely and accurate reporting of value for money.

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Featured Thinking

How New Zealand can make public spending more accountable

Eric Chapman 20 Mar 2023
A lighthouse beacon under the night sky

Your organisation challenge

Those responsible for managing public finances face persistent challenges that hinder effective decision-making and financial management:

  1. Disconnected insights: Difficulty linking financial and non-financial data obscures value and ROI, complicating investment prioritization and contract management.
  2. Delayed reporting: Inaccurate and untimely reports can lead to unexpected budget surprises - whether it's overspending or underspending making financial oversight a constant struggle. 
  3. High overhead costs: Reconciling and exchanging transactional information incurs significant costs, diverting resources from impactful initiatives.
  4. Data quality issues: Manual data collection often results in poor quality, leading to unreliable insights that cloud decision-making.

Solution benefits

The EY Public Finance Manager enables evidence-based decision making and more efficient and effective allocation of taxpayer funds through: 

  • Timely and accurate reporting of outputs and outcomes 
  • Timely reconciliation of reporting information 
  • Improved speed to value through access to real time data
  • A complete view of financial and nonfinancial information

Solution features & functionality

The EY Public Finance Manager is redefining public finance management by aggregating and processing data from diverse systems, delivering a comprehensive suite of visually enhanced reports to monitor performance. Key features include:

  1. Efficient onboarding: The solution streamlines the onboarding process for new organisations, programmes, and users, with appropriate security and privacy
  2. Seamless integration: It integrates seamlessly with existing enterprise resource planning and financial management systems, capturing both financial and non-financial transactions in real time.
  3. Comprehensive insights: Users can access detailed information on purchase orders, paid invoices, receipts, and other relevant documents. Enhanced visualisations support informed decision-making and facilitate the audit process.
  4. Robust analytics: Using advanced analytics to assess spend efficiency, fund allocation, and programme performance. It offers insights, including budget-to-actual comparisons, performance metrics, reliable financial forecasts, and total cost of ownership for assets.
  5. Mobile functionality: The mobile app for suppliers, contractors, and grant recipients lets them easily interact with the solution to submit invoices, check payments and check services that have been delivered.

Elevate your public finance management practices with the EY Public Finance Manager, leveraging data-driven insights to support strategic decision-making.

Client Stories

How a large North American city managed to reduce administrative effort from160 hours a month to less than 1 hour a month.

The better the question (the problem):

A large city in North America wanted insight into its recent expenditure trends and forecasted financial position that could assist the city in moving towards a sustainable financial footing.

 

The better the answer (how we helped):

The city engaged the EY team to develop a proof-of-concept (PoC) to assess the viability of using the EY Public Finance Manager solution to streamline the administration of shared services. Fleet services were chosen as the test case. The EY team developed the solution to facilitate the tracking of funds and vehicles, as fleet services are provided through the following activities:

  • Establishment of vehicle asset inventories by division
  • Work order creation for a vehicle undergoing maintenance
  • Work order execution for a repaired vehicle
  • Fuel consumption per vehicle
     

The better the world works (result/impact):

Availability of information from historical to real-time to make informed decisions on allocations and forecasting, reducing lag from 30 days to a few minutes. Improving transparency into service consumption and increasing traceability of true cost allocation. Streamlining of manual processes related to journaling charge-backs and reducing administrative effort from 160 hours/month to less than 1 hour.

 

 

People at warehouse

How an international aid and development financing institution achieved 100% end to end disbursement and traceability of funds

The better the question (the problem):

One of the world’s largest international aid and development financing institutions wanted to improve end-to-end traceability of loan disbursements. The client had different financial systems, methods of reporting, documentation practices etc, which meant they lacked end-to-end tracking of development funds, and the outcomes generated.
 

The better the answer (how we helped):

The EY team provided a prototype and over the course of 11 weeks, onboarded six distinct disbursement types across global projects to showcase the unique proposition of the technology in tracking and reporting fund disbursements until the last mile.
 

Benefits

100% end to end disbursement and traceability of funds across the client’s global ecosystem of borrowers, implementing agencies, suppliers and beneficiaries. Enhanced transaction analysis capabilities to monitor the flow of funds and associated KPIs till the last beneficiary. End-to-end fund allocation, disbursement and invoice management capabilities using fungible tokens

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How a public authority managed to go from 30 days to less than 5 minutes to verify and make payments to external agencies

The better the question (the problem):

A public authority in Western Australia was looking to improve productivity, offer more transparency in information and better manage public funds.
 

The better the answer (how we helped):

The EY team developed a Proof of Concept (PoC) to:

  • Track expenditure from budget allocation through to service outcome
  • Identify tasks within the process that can be reengineered and automated
  • Extend the solution to external participants outside the department and
  • Streamline reconciliation and payment processes

The PoC involved building a simple web application to provide near real-time insights on exceptions in work orders, purchase orders, invoices, and the budget
 

Benefit to client

Coverage of all financial and non-financial transactions in near real-time eliminating need for costly audits of suppliers, contractors and other delivery agents. From 30 days to less than 5 minutes to verify and make payments to external agencies. Enhanced transparency, productivity, proof of work, vendor management, and effective access to data while reducing manual work at many key points across the maintenance process. Undertake informed and faster capital investment decisions due to the availability of information.

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FAQs

Alliance relationships

EY teams leverage Microsoft Azure and associated cloud technologies and services to build and deploy the solution.

The Team

Eric Chapman

EY New Zealand Director
Optimistic leader. Passionate about teamwork and building strong teams. Client-focused. Dedicated to delivering value.
Wellington, New Zealand

Andrew Burns

Associate Director
Passionate about improving public services and outcomes. Father of 2, history buff, struggling golfer and cyclist.
Wellington, New Zealand

How EY can help

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EY refers to the global organisation, and may refer to one or more, of the member firms of Ernst & Young Global Limited, each of which is a separate legal entity. Ernst & Young Global Limited, a UK company limited by guarantee, does not provide services to clients.