Taming ACFR Chaos: A Better Way to Work Under Pressure
April 16, 2025Every city publishes an ACFR, but few discuss what it takes to create one.
Behind every clean, public-facing report lies a maze of spreadsheets, late nights, and formatting marathons. Finance teams spend hundreds of hours gathering data, reconciling numbers, and triple-checking footnotes — only to repeat the process the following year.
Many teams don’t realize how much time they lose until they see what a structured process can do. With Gravity, some have cut up to 85% of their ACFR preparation time by eliminating the manual work that eats up their day.
So, where does all that time go?
Scene 1: The Spreadsheet Web
It usually starts with a few spreadsheets. Then, a few more. Before long, finance teams juggle:
- Dozens of Excel files from multiple departments
- Different versions of the same dataset
- Copied numbers instead of connected data
- Formulas that conflict or quietly break
- Totals that don’t match — but no one knows why
When one number changes, it triggers a chain reaction:
- Teams rewrite footnotes by hand
- Analysts manually recheck totals across multiple tabs
- Report builders reformat charts to reflect updated values
No system tracks these dependencies. People do — with sticky notes, memory, and repetition. It works until it doesn’t.
Scene 2: The Formatting Fire Drill
Even when the numbers align, the finish line still feels far away.
- Someone adds page numbers manually
- Another team member adjusts every table to avoid awkward page breaks
- The document lead fixes headers that shift every time they export
- Someone else updates the table of contents again after another round of edits
- Meanwhile, new “Can you just tweak this?” requests roll in from all sides
Every change introduces a new risk. By the final week, even experienced teams and version 27 of the file were running on nerves.
Scene 3: The Hidden Cost
The real cost isn’t just hours lost — momentum, trust, and people.
- Errors in footnotes can jeopardize audit confidence
- Teams burn out from repetitive, low-value work
- Critical process knowledge leaves when experienced staff retire
- Strategy gets sidelined by survival-mode execution
Most teams don’t want more time — they want their time back.
Enter: Structure, Not Scramble
Gravity replaces the patchwork with a platform built for the real work of reporting.
At the center is our Multi-Dimensional Financial Model (MDFM) — a framework that gives every number a source and every update a path forward:
- Teams connect values to their origin, so totals always align
- Footnotes and tables update in real time
- Formatting stays consistent across the report
- Finance leaders control the flow and narrative without manual rework
This isn’t just automation. It’s an infrastructure shift that eliminates chaos and creates a process you can trust, scale, and reuse.
From Backstage to Center Stage
The ACFR says a lot about your government. It tells the public whether you’re accountable, transparent, and in control.
But behind the scenes, the current process requires too much time, risk, and patchwork.
Gravity helps public finance teams stop scrambling and start leading. Because the final product matters — and so does the process that gets you there.
Want to see Gravity in action?
Book a demo and learn how to reduce your manual lift, reclaim your team’s time, and deliver reports you can stand behind — every number, every footnote, every time.
