Case Study: Washoe County strengthens payment controls with Alessa by Tier1 Financial Solutions

Using Alessa for Controls Monitoring

Washoe County, which serves Reno, Nevada and a wide rural area, faced steep budget pressure, staffing cuts, and prior fraud losses that left its internal audit team with limited resources to monitor disbursements and prevent errors. To address this challenge, the county turned to Alessa by Tier1 Financial Solutions, using the platform previously known as CaseWare Monitor to strengthen controls monitoring around duplicate payments and other high-risk transactions.

Alessa was implemented to automate disbursement reviews, apply customized business logic, and send exception reports to the appropriate departments for follow-up. The solution gave Washoe County continuous monitoring over 100% of transactions, helped identify and resolve issues faster, and supported recovery of payments worth thousands of dollars; the county now reports about 20–25 issues per month and has expanded participation across additional departments.

Washoe County

Alison Gordon

Internal Auditor