Case Study: City of Somerville uncovers hundreds of thousands in revenue and accelerates financial decision‑making with DataRails

Hundreds of Thousands of Dollars in Revenue Uncovered for the City of Somerville

The City of Somerville’s Water & Sewer Department, led by Finance Director Alex Lessin, was overwhelmed by manual reporting while needing fast, reliable snapshots of top-line finances to inform the Mayor and other decision makers. To gain automation and at-a-glance visibility, the city turned to DataRails’ financial reporting and visualization tools to replace time-consuming spreadsheet work and provide up-to-date fiscal insight.

DataRails implemented automated reporting, custom visual dashboards (including fiscal-week overtime tracking) and expense/payment-batch monitoring that let Alex quickly see budget capacity and drill into underlying adjustments. The solution uncovered “hundreds of thousands of dollars” in revenue, saved at least two hours per week, sped monthly reporting and decision-making, and even enabled the city to move forward on a water meter replacement pilot.

City of Somerville

Alex Lessin

Director of Finance Water & Sewer Department