Lantern Civic Solutions

Massachusetts Public-Sector Finance

Custom software & AI for Massachusetts public finance teams.

Bring us any problem in your business office — procurement, budgets, reporting, the manual thing nobody else will fix. Thirty minutes is all we need.

See Our Products
Built for Massachusetts Districts & Towns
SOC 2 & AES-256 Encryption
15+ Years Public-Sector Experience
AI That Explains, Never Decides

Custom Solutions

Whatever's broken in your business office, we can build the fix.

We're the team behind ProcureTrail and K12 BudgetBook — built because districts kept telling us procurement and budget season were broken. If your office is stuck on something else — a manual workflow, a reporting nightmare, a spreadsheet held together with hope — bring it to us. Thirty minutes is all we need to tell you whether we can fix it.

AI & AutomationCustom SoftwareReporting & DashboardsWorkflow DesignData Cleanup & MigrationTraining & Workshops

Our Process

How we work with you.

01

Discover

We learn how your team works today — the pain points, the workarounds, the things that slow you down.

02

Design

We map out a solution scoped to your budget and timeline. No surprises.

03

Build & Deploy

We ship in short cycles, test thoroughly, and launch to production with hands-on training for your team.

04

Support

We stick around. Maintenance, iteration, and ongoing improvements as your needs evolve.

Product

ProcureTrail

A compliance platform built on M.G.L. c.30B — the Uniform Procurement Act that governs every Massachusetts governmental body, school districts, towns, and cities alike. ProcureTrail runs the full purchase lifecycle, from quote-lane determination through budget encumbrance and approvals, and generates the audit packet automatically.

No more spreadsheets, no more chasing signatures, no more scrambling before an audit. Every purchase is classified into the right compliance lane the moment it's created. School districts get School Committee warrant generation; every organization gets continuous tracking of vendor documents, contract renewals, and grant deadlines.

  • Auto-classifies every purchase into the correct Chapter 30B lane
  • Construction under c.149 and c.30 §39M — prevailing wage, DCAMM, sub-bids
  • Auto-generates sole source and emergency determination memos
  • Configurable multi-step approval chains with delegation
  • Enforces budget balance and encumbrance before a purchase is approved
  • Flags cross-department vendor spend before it splits past a threshold
Visit procuretrail.com

Product

K12 BudgetBook

The daily financial platform for Massachusetts K-12 districts. Track burn rate and budget-to-actual in real time, model scenarios with live what-if sliders, extract salary schedules from union contracts with AI, and benchmark against all 442 Massachusetts districts — built for how school finance actually works here, from Chapter 70 aid to NSS compliance.

  • Real-time burn-rate tracking with alerts before an account runs dry
  • Upload a union contract — get an AI-extracted salary schedule in minutes
  • What-if sliders for live scenario modeling in committee meetings
  • Munis crosswalk, scheduled actuals sync, and budget-vs-actual variance
  • Chapter 70 aid, NSS compliance, and Prop 2½ levy limits, calculated for you
  • GFOA criteria checklist and AI assessment built into every budget book
Visit k12budgetbook.com

About Us

Built by people who understand public-sector finance

We've spent over 15 years building tools for public institutions — not from a distance, but side-by-side with the people who use them. We know your world because we've been in it. Today we focus on one thing: reliable software that helps school business offices and municipal teams work faster.

We Meet You Where You Are

We ask questions, listen, and learn your workflows before writing a line of code. No jargon, no assumptions — just real conversations about what's slowing you down.

From Headache to Handled

We design, build, train, and iterate — modern tools that make your day easier and your team's life better. Real results, real support, and a team that actually picks up the phone.

Let's talk about what's slowing your team down.

Whether you need a proven product or want something built just for your office — the first conversation is free, and it's thirty minutes.

Send us a message

Tell us about your project and we'll get back to you as soon as possible.