Connect the source data
A scheduled extract from the ERP or general ledger, plus the adopted budget and the most recent audited statements. No changes to the source systems are required.
Risk Monitor
Fiscal risk indicators that a finance director can explain to a governing body, line by line.
Fiscal risk
What it does
Risk Monitor computes a standard set of fiscal indicators from an entity's general ledger, budget file and audited statements, and tracks how each moves over time. It is designed for the situation most public finance officers are actually in: the warning signs were present in the data for several years before anyone assembled them in one place.
Every indicator resolves to the underlying records. There is no composite score whose derivation cannot be shown, because a score nobody can explain is a score nobody can act on.
Interface mockup. Values shown are illustrative and do not represent any entity.
Capabilities
What is included
- Structural balance tracking. Separates recurring from non-recurring resources and uses, so a balanced budget financed by one-time revenue is visible as such.
- Liquidity and cash-cycle indicators. Intra-year cash trough, days of operating expenditure on hand, and reliance on short-term borrowing.
- Reserve adequacy against policy. Fund balance by GASB 54 classification measured against the entity's own adopted floor, target and surplus rules.
- Debt and long-term obligation capacity. Debt service as a share of own-source revenue, rapidity of repayment, and net pension and OPEB liability trends.
- Deferred cost indicators. Contributions below the actuarially determined amount, and capital renewal funded against the asset management plan.
- Peer context, clearly labelled. Comparison against entities of similar type and size, presented as context rather than as a target.
Implementation
How a deployment runs
Typical first deployment reaches steady state within one to two quarters, depending on the state of the source data.
Map the chart of accounts once
Accounts are mapped to reporting categories with a documented crosswalk that the entity owns and can amend. The mapping is the entity's, not a black box.
Review the indicator set
Thresholds are set from the entity's own policies where they exist, and documented as assumptions where they do not.
Publish and monitor
Indicators refresh on the entity's close cycle, with change alerts and a quarterly summary suitable for a finance committee.
Limits
What Risk Monitor does not do
We publish this section for every tool. It is the section we would want to read first.
- Risk Monitor does not produce credit ratings, and its indicators are not calibrated to any rating agency methodology.
- It does not predict default, insolvency or fiscal distress. It measures indicators associated with fiscal stress and shows how they are moving.
- It does not replace an audit. Indicators are computed from records the entity supplies and inherit whatever quality those records have.
Talk to us about your oversight programme
Walk through the platform with your own chart of accounts, or start with the research library. Both routes are free to begin.