Case study · Public sector
Government operations platform

One platform to run a government’s back office.

A First Nation government in British Columbia ran its Infrastructure department by hand — vendor invoices keyed in one by one, approvals chased across email threads, and no single system connecting a job to what it cost. We designed, built, and now operate one platform that does all of it: delivered phase by phase, with fixed scope and price at each step, and hosted on infrastructure the government owns.

Sector
First Nation government, BC
Engagement
Multi-phase program · ongoing
Commercial
Fixed scope & price per phase
Data & hosting
Canadian infra · client-owned
The challenge

A back office held together by hand.

The Infrastructure department ran on manual processes. Vendor invoices arrived by email and were keyed in by hand. Approvals were chased over email threads. Work orders, costs, invoices, and budgets lived in separate places, so no one could see a job from dispatch through to the dollar it spent.

Off-the-shelf software didn’t fit. A government’s approval chains, funding sources, and accounting aren’t the workflows a generic tool assumes. They needed a system built around how the department actually operates — and a supplier who could stand behind the numbers to a council, its funders, and its auditors.

The core change
Approvals used to live in inboxes. Now every approval is enforced in software and written to an immutable audit trail — a defensible record of who approved what, when, and against which budget, without anyone maintaining it by hand.
What we built

One system, built around how the department works.

A single platform with a shared core, so each capability connects to the next instead of becoming another silo.

01

One platform, not eight tools

A single platform with a shared core — identity, work items, notifications, scheduling, documents, audit, and AI services. Each new capability inherits that machinery instead of rebuilding it, so the department’s data stays connected end to end.

02

AI invoice intake & contract matching

Vendor invoices arrive by email and are read by AI — vendor, amount, date, reference, and a confidence score — then matched to the right contract before a person touches them. Ambiguous matches are flagged for a human, and a bad reading never stops the batch.

03

Enforced approvals, roles & secure sign-in

Multi-step approval chains with amount tiers are enforced in software, not in inboxes. Role-based access controls who can see and do what, and staff sign in with a passwordless email link — no passwords to manage, no shared logins.

04

Work orders & clean accounting export

Work orders, cover memos, and send-to-accounting packages move approved spend into the department’s accounting system cleanly. Verification pages — internal and public — let anyone confirm a record is genuine without exposing the system behind it.

05

Fund & grant roll-up

Spending is tracked two levels deep — from the funding source down through the ledger to the individual contract — so the department can answer, at any moment, how much of a given fund or grant has been committed, and against what.

06

Built to last, built to trust

Every change runs through automated tests against a real database and an automated code review before it ships. The AI is model-agnostic — the provider can be swapped by configuration alone — and Xerad hosts and operates the whole system.

What changed

From manual and scattered to automated and connected.

Invoices handle themselves first

Invoices are captured, read, and matched to a contract automatically — before anyone opens them. Staff start from a clean, pre-filled record instead of a PDF and a keyboard.

Approvals you can defend

Every approval is enforced by the system and written to an immutable log — a clear trail of who approved what, when, and against which budget, without anyone keeping it up by hand.

One connected operation

A job links to its cost, its invoice, and its funding source. The department sees its operations as one system instead of reconciling between spreadsheets and tools.

Delivered phase by phase

We shipped a working pipeline in the first build window and expanded from there — one shared platform growing capability by capability, rather than a big-bang rollout.

Why it holds up to scrutiny
Governance
Roles, enforced approvals, and a complete audit trail on every action.
Data residency
Hosted in Canada. The data stays the client’s, under the client’s control.
Assurance
Automated tests and code review on every change before it ships.
Operated
We host, monitor, and maintain the system — model swaps included.
Have an operation that answers to a council, a board, or an auditor?
admin@xerad.ca
xerad.ca · Port Moody, BC
Xerad · AI & software engineering studio
Client identity withheld for confidentiality