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BlogCounty finance managers and elected officials do their best to oversee programs that serve their citizens. While recent government funding sources have provided much-needed relief, they also have generated increased reporting as to how and when those dollars were used.Extinction Alert: County Financial Operations without Digitization
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Blog
Extinction Alert: County Financial Operations without Digitization
County finance managers and elected officials do their best to oversee programs that serve their citizens. While recent government funding sources have provided much-needed relief, they also have generated increased reporting as to how and when those dollars were used. Without digitized financial operations, county finance teams and programs are on the brink of burnout and obsolescence. That’s where “tools like AI drive increased productivity as well as enable rapid compliance with continuing emerging regulatory issues and so forth in a time when finance departments are not growing in size,” shared Chris Juneau of Oversight, in a recent podcast.
Robots vs Dinosaurs: Who’s Better At Fraud and Error Detection?
Even the strongest manual auditing programs can’t catch fraud or accidental reporting errors at the same consistency that tools supported by artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) can. The 2022 ACFE Anti-Fraud Technology Benchmarking Report shared that “the use of artificial intelligence and machine learning in anti-fraud programs is expected to more than double over the next two years.” Once leaders have clarity around patterns of fraud or errors, they can guide county finance teams to a secure and productive financial environment. This doesn’t mean financial operations and its analysis will run on autopilot through robots!
County leaders can best support their teams with machine learning assistance by identifying key risk areas to monitor for potential fraud. Potential data sources to look for fraud analytics are:
- exception reporting
- policy violations
- predictive analytics
- geographic data mining
- transaction analysis
- sentiment analysis
An ACFE report indicated that 21% of state government agencies reported a median of $91,000 in fraud losses in 2020 an 32% of local government entities reported a media of $75,000 in fraud losses.
Once counties can identify patterns of errors or fraud, they can focus their efforts to correct these areas, rather than constantly fighting to stay on top of monitoring every single area of spending.
Constant Evolution: Risk and Compliance
Regularly assessing your county’s level of operational resilience in preparation for the next disruption has become fundamental. To stay agile, county leaders can mitigate financial risk with tools that provide real-time analysis and optimized workflows in a way that protects financial information from being hacked or misused. Hybrid and remote work environments are also becoming the norm, causing county operations to move away from on-premise platforms to managing spend in the cloud.
Without digitization, mobile applications and cloud technologies in place to support hundreds of remote workers, it’s impossible to maintain “business as usual” for residents. Now is the time to digitize your county’s financial operations!
Learn more about transforming your county’s financial operations with SAP Concur solutions today.
Resources to Leverage
- 4 Keys to Optimizing County Spend
- Four Tips to Help County Leaders Maximize Budget
- 7 Ways Digitizing Spend Management Benefits State and Local Governments and Their Constituents
- How Digitizing Spend Management Supports the Government Mission
To learn more about how to digitize your county’s financial operations, visit SAP Concur partner page at the National Association of Counties.
County finance managers and elected officials do their best to oversee programs that serve their citizens.2022-03-21Blog2022-03-21
County finance managers and elected officials do their best to oversee programs that serve their citizens. While recent government funding sources have provided much-needed relief, they also have generated increased reporting as to how and when those dollars were used. Without digitized financial operations, county finance teams and programs are on the brink of burnout and obsolescence. That’s where “tools like AI drive increased productivity as well as enable rapid compliance with continuing emerging regulatory issues and so forth in a time when finance departments are not growing in size,” shared Chris Juneau of Oversight, in a recent podcast.
Robots vs Dinosaurs: Who’s Better At Fraud and Error Detection?
Even the strongest manual auditing programs can’t catch fraud or accidental reporting errors at the same consistency that tools supported by artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) can. The 2022 ACFE Anti-Fraud Technology Benchmarking Report shared that “the use of artificial intelligence and machine learning in anti-fraud programs is expected to more than double over the next two years.” Once leaders have clarity around patterns of fraud or errors, they can guide county finance teams to a secure and productive financial environment. This doesn’t mean financial operations and its analysis will run on autopilot through robots!
County leaders can best support their teams with machine learning assistance by identifying key risk areas to monitor for potential fraud. Potential data sources to look for fraud analytics are:
- exception reporting
- policy violations
- predictive analytics
- geographic data mining
- transaction analysis
- sentiment analysis
An ACFE report indicated that 21% of state government agencies reported a median of $91,000 in fraud losses in 2020 an 32% of local government entities reported a media of $75,000 in fraud losses.
Once counties can identify patterns of errors or fraud, they can focus their efforts to correct these areas, rather than constantly fighting to stay on top of monitoring every single area of spending.
Constant Evolution: Risk and Compliance
Regularly assessing your county’s level of operational resilience in preparation for the next disruption has become fundamental. To stay agile, county leaders can mitigate financial risk with tools that provide real-time analysis and optimized workflows in a way that protects financial information from being hacked or misused. Hybrid and remote work environments are also becoming the norm, causing county operations to move away from on-premise platforms to managing spend in the cloud.
Without digitization, mobile applications and cloud technologies in place to support hundreds of remote workers, it’s impossible to maintain “business as usual” for residents. Now is the time to digitize your county’s financial operations!
Learn more about transforming your county’s financial operations with SAP Concur solutions today.
Resources to Leverage
- 4 Keys to Optimizing County Spend
- Four Tips to Help County Leaders Maximize Budget
- 7 Ways Digitizing Spend Management Benefits State and Local Governments and Their Constituents
- How Digitizing Spend Management Supports the Government Mission
To learn more about how to digitize your county’s financial operations, visit SAP Concur partner page at the National Association of Counties.

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Webinar
The Analytics Your Finance Office May Be Overlooking
Jun. 30, 2022 , 1:00 pm – 2:00 pmDuring this presentation, you'll learn how to use and interpret liquidity data to enhance and complement how your finance office views cash, delivering significant returns to your taxpayers. -
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2022 #NACoAnn Spotlight: County Governance Nuts and Bolts
The NACo Annual Conference & Exposition is the largest meeting of county elected and appointed officials from across the country. -
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Urban county leaders stress ARPA flexibility during Hill visit
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State and Local Fiscal Recovery Fund Resource Hub
Explore NACo's resource hub for the ARPA State and Local Fiscal Recovery Fund.Reports & Toolkitsdocument010512:15 pmReports & Toolkits<table border="1" cellpadding="1" cellspacing="1" style="width:100%" summary="call-out transparent">
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NACo High Performance Leadership Academy
The NACo High Performance Leadership Academy is an online 12-week program that will empower frontline county government professionals with the most fundamental leadership skills to deliver results for counties and communities. -
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ClearGov
ClearGov® is the leading provider of Budget Cycle Management software, focused on helping local governments streamline the annual budgeting process by improving the collection, creation, and communication of their budgets.pagepagepage<p>ClearGov® is the leading provider of Budget Cycle Management software, focused on helping local governments streamline the annual budgeting process by improving the collection, creation, and communication of their budgets.
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Finance, Pensions & Intergovernmental Affairs Steering Committee
All matters pertaining to the financial resources of counties, fiscal management, federal assistance, municipal borrowing, county revenues, federal budget, federal tax reform, elections and Native American issues. Policy Platform & Resolutions 2021-2022 2022 NACo Legislative Prioritiespagepagepage<p>All matters pertaining to the financial resources of counties, fiscal management, federal assistance, municipal borrowing, county revenues, federal budget, federal tax reform, elections and Native American issues.</p>
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