Case Study
San Mateo County, CA
San Mateo County moved Finance Enterprise to the cloud and saw some immediate improvements: stronger continuity, less IT overhead, saved time, and better support for departments under staffing and budget pressure.
About San Mateo County, CA
As one of the larger counties in the San Francisco Bay Area, San Mateo has to keep financial operations accurate and accountable for a wide range of services.
San Mateo County serves about 740,000 residents across 20 cities. County operations span 23 departments and are governed by a five-member Board of Supervisors.
Finance Enterprise serves as the countywide financial system. More than 400 users across the county use it to record financial activity, stay within budget, generate reports, and produce annual financial statements. The system supports departments across public safety, public works, human services, and administration.
San Mateo has partnered with CentralSquare for more than 20 years. But as staffing shortages and budget cuts intensified, disaster recovery and infrastructure upkeep became harder to manage internally. The county needed a trusted partner who would have its back every day, not just during implementation.
“The number one benefit is disaster recovery. We don't have to worry about it. We know CentralSquare has our back anytime anything happens.”
Ocean Sun, Controller Information System Division Manager
San Mateo County
The Problem
“Staffing shortages, budget cuts—especially budget cuts for the local governments—are happening everywhere. CentralSquare, fortunately, is able to help us by evaluating our business processes…how we can better leverage the system to automate and streamline.”
— Ocean Sun, Controller Information System Division Manager, San Mateo County
As a county serving nearly 750k residents, San Mateo couldn’t afford an outage. Finance Enterprise supported accounting for 23 departments. If the county went dark, departments couldn’t record financial activity, track budgets, or generate timely reports. Leaders would lose visibility into critical county services.
San Mateo’s on-prem system depended on local infrastructure to protect system architecture, servers, operating system upgrades, network connectivity, and disaster recovery. Any failure or disruption in that chain could take the entire system offline. With this risk in mind, disaster recovery became non-negotiable for countywide operations.
But continuity wasn’t the only challenge. It was also the ongoing burden of keeping an on-prem environment running.
Disaster recovery had to be planned, tested, and maintained. System architecture had to be managed. Servers required maintenance and eventual replacement. Operating system upgrades had to be scheduled and executed. For a county facing staffing shortages and budget cuts, that kind of infrastructure work pulled time and attention away from higher priorities.
Finally, San Mateo needed a long-term partner. Implementation is never simple, but what happens afterwards matters more. The county wanted dependable, daily support and a team it could trust to have its back—not just during deployment, but every day after.
Always-On Operations
Always-on access and disaster recovery for countywide finance operations
Lower IT Overhead
Less overhead for servers, OS upgrades, and architecture management
A Trusted Partner
Dependable long-term support from a trusted partner
The Solution
“We don’t have to worry about the system architectures anymore, including but not limited to server maintenance, operating system upgrade, replacing the servers or maintaining servers now.” – Ocean Sun, Controller Information System Division Manager, San Mateo County
In 2025, San Mateo County moved to Finance Enterprise in the cloud. Now all departments have a single place to record financial activity and manage accounting workflows. The platform supports the county’s budget tracking, budget reporting for department leaders, and annual financial statements.
The move to the cloud also changed what happens behind the scenes. Instead of managing local servers and operating system upgrades internally, San Mateo relies on CentralSquare to manage the hosting environment and overall system architecture.
With Finance Enterprise hosted on AWS, the county benefits from a standardized cloud environment. It provides an architecture built for continuity and recovery.
With that foundation in place, San Mateo is looking ahead. The county is working with CentralSquare to evaluate business processes and identify where AI and automation can streamline finance workflows. For example, flagging accounts payable issues before cash goes out the door or verifying vendor identity before the county does business with them.
The Results
“My tip is, when you look at the system, not just looking at what the system can do…but what the company can do for you in the long term.” – Ocean Sun, Controller Information System Division Manager, San Mateo County
Finance Enterprise in the cloud has improved operational continuity for San Mateo. Now departments can access the system during disruptions, and disaster recovery is no longer the county’s responsibility. When systems stay available, finance teams stay in control.
The move also saved staff time. San Mateo isn’t spending its days keeping servers running or planning maintenance around upgrades. CentralSquare handles upgrades and hosting, reducing the county’s technical workload. That frees teams to focus on improving processes, not maintaining systems.
In the middle of staffing shortages and budget cuts, that time matters. It helps San Mateo do more with limited resources. It creates room to automate routine work and move forward with AI initiatives.
San Mateo also gained long-term confidence in its partnership with CentralSquare. Support is available when the county needs it, not just at implementation. That trust matters when teams are under pressure and can’t afford to troubleshoot alone.
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