These mean, generally, no more holding onto a flurry of random receipts for the purchases of everything from food and gas to supplies. They can also mean a lot less paperwork flowing from one department to another.
“We’re not printing out paper. We’re not delivering that paper, via folders, in person. And then getting those folders back where someone has written the code, and signed it. And then, getting all those invoices, one by one, inputting them into our financial system,” Brent Davis, city finance director, said, describing Ketchum’s previous process for managing the many invoices his office handles.
Today, those invoices are managed through a new digital payments system provided by Ramp*, a platform for the management and reconciliation of credit card payments, invoices and other pieces of bookkeeping necessary to both public- and private-sector organizations.
Invoices sent to the city are reviewed by Ramp AI technology, which takes the lead on much of the invoice management, Davis said.
“Then all we have to do is assign that invoice to the appropriate manager. It’s all digital,” he said.
Ketchum began its partnership with Ramp in December 2024, following a pilot project aimed at reconciling city-held credit card accounts. At the time, Davis said finance officials were spending at least 20 hours a month reconciling credit card purchases. The process required that city workers hold on to receipts, and then turn them over to the finance department.
“Reconciliation was a problem because people wouldn’t keep their receipts,” he said. “And now, if they can just hold on to the receipt long enough to get their phone out of their pocket and take a picture, they can throw it away after that. I don’t care.”
The Ramp technology, which includes a user-friendly app, is now used by “hundreds of public-sector” organizations, Katrina Sheridan, Ramp public-sector lead, said, citing school districts, municipalities and others.
Public-sector and private-sector organizations are not that different in how they pay their bills, Sheridan said. However, the stakes can be higher when a school district or city delays bill payment.
“Small delays in payments and inefficient spend can result in millions of wasted hours and dollars, which impact community programs and erode public trust,” Sheridan said in an email.
Ketchum officials marvel at the time saved by introducing a digital payment management system. The time spent on managing credit card purchases was reduced “probably about 90 percent,” Davis said. Moving bill paying and accounts payable to a digital platform is saving the city more than 100 hours a month in labor, he said, adding the technology allowed the city to trim its workflow diagram by about 70 percent.
“Government, often times, can get stuck in their own way,” Davis said, calling attention to the benefits of being open to innovation. “This is a classic case where we were dared to be different. And I think we hit a home run.”
Trimming the time spent on mundane tasks like printing out invoices, walking them over to various offices, and manually keying that data into the system matters in a small city where staffing is not likely to grow. A 2023 study by the University of California, Berkeley, Labor Center found public-sector vacancies across all occupations and wage levels in California. In Idaho, public-sector job growth has lagged the private sector, in part, due to the “rapid wage growth” of the private sector, according to the Idaho Labor Market and Economic Report, 2024, issued by the Idaho Department of Labor.
“For us, in Ketchum, we’re small. We don’t have a whole bunch of extra people,” Davis said. “So how can we get better with what we’ve got? Because we all know personnel costs are expensive. This is utilizing technology to our benefit.”
*The Ramp technology is also used by e.Republic, publisher of Government Technology.
