TBM for State Government: Recover Costs, Manage Demand, Drive Results

For many state and local governments, billing for IT services is a constant struggle. Agencies often wait months to receive invoices, and when they do, the charges can be hard to trace back to actual usage. Disputes slow payment, cash flow suffers, and confidence in the IT function erodes.

Nicus solves this with Modern TBM capabilities purpose-built for the public sector’s chargeback model. With automated Bill of IT, agencies receive clear, timely, and interactive invoices that break costs down into terms anyone can understand. Payments can be accepted even on disputed items, with adjustments automatically applied to the next billing cycle. The result is a faster, more predictable cash flow and stronger trust between the technology function and its agency “customers.”

• Deliver consistent, accurate invoices on time
• Provide role-based dashboards for cost transparency
• Maximize traceability for compliance and audit readiness
• Accept and process payments from multiple funding sources
• Reduce disputes and speed resolution

When technology costs are scattered across departments, systems, and spreadsheets, leaders in state agencies, large counties, and major cities can’t see the full picture — making it nearly impossible to manage IT as a shared service for the entire organization. This lack of visibility leaves departments working in silos, duplicating spend, and missing opportunities to align investments with strategic priorities.

The Nicus Modern TBM platform eliminates these blind spots by consolidating all IT cost, consumption, and performance data into a single, decision-ready view. Leaders can drill into costs by service, agency, or program, compare trends over time, and link spend directly to the services and outcomes delivered. This enterprise-wide visibility makes it easier to identify underused resources, prioritize investments, and ensure every technology dollar is delivering value.

• Integrate financial and operational data across agencies and departments
• Track costs and consumption down to service-level detail
• Link spend directly to business outcomes and public services
• Enable cross-department comparisons to drive efficiency
• Provide decision-makers with real-time dashboards and reports

Setting service rate cards 18–24 months in advance is one of the toughest financial challenges state and local governments face. Without accurate forecasting, fixed rates can drift far from actual costs, creating budget gaps or overcharging agencies.

Nicus Modern TBM, combined with IT Financial Management best practices, enables government IT leaders to set defensible, data-driven rates with confidence. By merging historical spend, consumption trends, and forward-looking scenario modeling, decision-makers can anticipate changes in demand, labor costs, and vendor pricing before they impact budgets. This proactive approach ensures rate cards remain fair, predictable, and aligned with the true cost of delivering services — while avoiding costly surprises.

• Build accurate, fully burdened service rates with complete cost visibility
• Run what-if scenarios to assess impacts before finalizing rates
• Align rates with market benchmarks for fairness and transparency
• Defend rate-setting decisions with clear, auditable data
• Reduce the risk of budget shortfalls or excess reserves

For states, large counties, and major cities, technology budgets are always under pressure — yet opportunities to free up resources often hide in plain sight. Legacy applications that no longer deliver value, underutilized services, or duplicated contracts across departments can quietly consume millions each year.

Modern TBM and ITFM insights makes it possible to continuously monitor service adoption, unit rates, and total cost of ownership across the enterprise. By identifying inefficiencies, consolidating demand, and negotiating better vendor terms, governments can unlock substantial savings. Those funds can then be strategically reinvested — funding new citizen-facing services, accelerating digital transformation initiatives, or strengthening cybersecurity posture without requesting additional appropriations.

Governments that consolidate IT services and modernize their cost recovery approach can see dramatic efficiency gains. For example, one city government freed more than 3,000 analyst hours annually by replacing manual, spreadsheet-driven processes with Nicus.

• Identify and retire underutilized or redundant services
• Optimize vendor contracts and licensing agreements
• Reduce unit costs by scaling high-value services
• Track savings and reinvest strategically for maximum impact
• Fund innovation without increasing budget requests

• Automated Bill of IT generation with interactive, role-based dashboards
• Fully burdened cost modeling for accurate service rate setting
• Granular funds tracking and audit-ready reporting
• Dispute tracking and resolution to reduce manual investigation time
• What-if and scenario analysis for proactive planning
• Multi-year forecasting with real-time variance tracking
• Service P&Ls and consumption-based reporting
• Vendor, labor, and project expense management
• Drill-down views to connect charges back to the book of record