GWorks

If you work in city finance, you already know the QuickBooks workarounds.

Every year-end involves exporting to Excel to build the reports your auditor needs. Reconciling things by hand that should balance automatically. Tracking fund balances in a spreadsheet because the software does not actually do that part.

Intuit announced they are ending QuickBooks Desktop support in September 2027. Which means your city is going to be learning new software in the next year or two no matter what.

If you have to learn something new anyway, it is worth looking at systems that were actually built for how municipal finance works: fund accounting, utility billing, payroll, and audit-ready reports all in one place.

We put together a short guide that explains the difference between general accounting software and fund accounting, and what to look for when you are evaluating your options. No sales pitch, just the information.

Link in the comments.

See you in Savannah! 🌴

gWorks is sponsoring the ECG Engineering & Operations Conference on June 3–4 at the Marriott Savannah Riverfront.

If you are attending, stop by our booth and say hello to Erik Pound. We would love to catch up, hear what is going on in your community, and show you how gWorks Operations, including 811 ULOCO, can help your team stay organized in the field and in the office.

Looking forward to seeing you there.

Event details in the comments. 👇

Are you headed to MsRWA in Biloxi later this week? So are we.

Larry Barrett and Todd Barrett will be at Booth 921 on May 28 and 29 at the Mississippi Coast Convention Center in Biloxi.

Stop by to see how BBI's Utility software helps water and wastewater operators handle account management, meter readings, payment posting, customer billing, and work orders, all in one place. Also ask us about gWorks Operations and 811 ULOCO.

Hope to see you there.

That's a wrap on Public Works Week.

This week we shared stories from Public Works teams we work with every day. Crystal Draffkorn in Illinois. Zack Barrett in Spokane. The work is rarely glamorous, and it never stops.

Future Friday is about celebrating the next generation of this work. The future of Public Works is people like Zack and Crystal showing the next generation what the job looks like, and what the right tools can do for it.

To every team out there keeping things running this week, and every other week of the year: thank you.

Six years ago, Zack Barrett inherited the locate desk in Spokane. He also inherited a printer that ran all night, burning out a paper ticket for every email that hit the inbox. Every morning he sorted those tickets by hand into four bins. North, south, east, west.

His line: "If somebody asked me, hey, do you remember that ticket out on Fruitvale two weeks ago? No. I don't remember. That was 600 tickets ago."

Today his team handles the same volume in five minutes a morning using 811 ULOCO. The work didn't change. The tools finally caught up.

If your locate process still looks like Zack's old one, there are better ways to spend your mornings.

https://hubs.la/Q04hkBkC0

Six Years Ago in Spokane

Meet Crystal Draffkorn. She runs operations at North Park Water District, IL.

When Illinois amended the Julie law, Crystal's team kept working the way they always had. Their crews were already documenting locates from their phones using 811 ULOCO. When the new codes rolled out, the app updated and the team kept going.

Her words: "It really wasn't a big deal for us."

https://hubs.ly/Q04hkLWc0

Thank you, Crystal, and the entire North Park Water team. Happy National Public Works Week.

When the 811 Law Changed, Her Team Didn't Blink

I ❤️ Public Works because… when things go wrong in a community, it's the Public Works team that shows up.

Meet Zack Barrett. Zack is a locator in Spokane and a Navy Seabee veteran. He spoke at one of our webinars on disaster readiness, and this short clip is his best answer to the question of why this work matters.

https://hubs.la/Q04h1qpk0

The people who keep the lights back on, the roads open, and the crews moving after a disaster are almost always the Operations and Public Works Crews.

Thanks Zack. And thanks to every Public Works team out there.

Your Public Works Team is the first Response

National Public Works Week starts today.

This year's American Public Works Association theme is "Rooted in Service, Powered by Community." Public Works is the most rooted department in any local government. It's the team that knows where every pipe runs, which roads flood first, and what the community looked like before anything was paved.

This week, we're sharing stories from Public Works and Operations teams we work with across the US. Follow along.

Thank you to every Public Works team out there.