City of Fort Saskatchewan Speeds Reporting Tasks and Simplifies Audits with Caseware

C u s t o m e r S u cc e s s S t o r y

City of Fort Saskatchewan Speeds Reporting Tasks and Simplifies Audits With CaseWare

The City of Fort Saskatchewan is located 15 minutes northeast of Edmonton, Alberta and is home to 18,653 people who appreciate the natural beauty and CUSTOMER wealth of both indoor and outdoor City of Fort Saskatchewan activities. The City of Fort Saskatchewan provides residents with a multitude of LOCATION services and programs and receives its Fort Saskatchewan, Alberta $45 million annual operating budget from various sources including property taxes, Operating Budget provincial and federal grants, and user shorten and simplify the entire year-end $45 Million fees. The City’s financial team is charged process. They spoke to colleagues at with many tasks including preparing other municipalities to gain insight from year-end processes, working papers and their experiences. “We learned that other financial statements, and is assisted in its municipalities are using CaseWare,” says tasks by CaseWare Working Papers, and Holly Omelchuk, Senior Accountant for CaseWare Canadian GAAP Financials. the City. “And we know CaseWare is used by many accounting firms, including our A Time-Consuming Process auditors.” Until recently, the City’s staff relied primarily Based on the positive feedback received on spreadsheets to assemble the annual from colleagues and the product’s financial statements. “We experienced reputation, the City moved ahead with numerous delays preparing the financials,” the implementation of CaseWare. “We recalls Mirjam Brett, Finance Director installed the software ourselves but quickly for the City of Fort Saskatchewan. learned that we needed expert advice on “There were always manual edits and setup, and needed training to ensure we adjustments as we worked to ensure there used the product correctly and to its fullest were no errors. It was an extensive and potential,” says Mirjam. time-consuming process.” Expert Advice Enhances Value A Favorite Among Accounting Firms At a Government Finance Office The City’s finance team sought to Association (GFOA) conference, Mirjam

Challenge Solution Results Annual financial statement The City implemented CaseWare Overtime and weekend labor generation at the City of Fort Working Papers, GAAP eliminated. Significant labor Saskatchewan was a time- Financials, and Connector savings. Audit preparation faster consuming and burdensome with the assistance of F.H. and easier. manual process involving much Black & Company, a CaseWare overtime and weekend work. authorized consultant.

© 2011 CaseWare International Inc. All rights reserved. met F.H. Black & Company, CaseWare We are looking into using it to help monitor “Now, our financial statement authorized trainers and consultants. “We the costs associated with our infrastructure were impressed and asked them to come in projects.” generation is almost completely and help us,” says Mirjam. In addition to using CaseWare to create its automated. We import the data “The experience F.H. Black & Company annual PSAB-compliant financial statement, consultants have in setting up and using the City also is using the software to from our accounting software CaseWare is invaluable to us,” notes prepare its annual Financial Information and make all the adjustments Mirjam. “The bonus for us was their Return (FIR). knowledge and understanding of the An unexpected benefit of the CaseWare in CaseWare. It is much faster internal processes municipalities experience solution is its role in helping to train junior during year-end preparations and the audit. to work in CaseWare, easier to accounting staff members. “They are able This meant that we didn’t need to spend to immediately see the effect a journal entry time explaining how we operate.” troubleshoot and create any on- has on the financial statement,” explains the-fly reports we need.” Using the import functionality that is Holly. “It helps them understand the logic built in to CaseWare Working Papers, and relevance of their work.” the City imported its general ledger data Mirjam Brett, Financial Director and mapped its accounts, recreating Cost Savings City of Fort Saskatchewan the prior year’s financial statements as a Mirjam says that CaseWare is saving the test. “It worked! F.H. Black provided the City a tremendous amount of time. “Annual training and support to correctly group the report generation used to involve lots accounts, set up the consolidated structure of overtime and lots of weekends at the and worked through our year-end process office,” she says. “Since we started using with us,” notes Holly. CaseWare, we have reduced overtime.” “Now, our financial statement generation is Holly adds, “It is almost push-button easy. About CaseWare International Inc. almost completely automated. We import CaseWare is definitely paying for itself.” the data from our accounting software and Now preparing for annual audits is much make all the adjustments in CaseWare,” Accountants and auditors in simpler for the City, and it is anticipated says Mirjam. “It is much faster to work practices large and small, in that audit costs will come down in the in CaseWare, easier to troubleshoot and corporations, and government subsequent years. “Because our auditors create any on-the-fly reports we need.” recognize CaseWare International also use CaseWare, we can simply hand as the premier creator of assurance, All supporting information is scanned and them a memory stick with our data rather reporting and analysis tools. In electronically attached to the CaseWare than the stacks of paper files we used to,” over 130 countries, the CaseWare files, eliminating the need for thick file explains Mirjam. family of products helps accounting folders of supporting data. Recently, Mirjam attended the Western professionals perform their work Canada GFOA Conference, and was more easily and efficiently. Financial Reporting invited to speak about the City’s experience “We feel like we have only skimmed the with CaseWare at the conference. “I was surface of the power of CaseWare. We happy to do so. We are very pleased with plan to utilize it more this year to create CaseWare and the efficiencies it brings us,” monthly financials and quarterly reports. concludes Mirjam.

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