REQUEST FOR PROPOSALS
REPLACEMENT OF ERP
(Enterprise Resource Planning)
for
City of Sierra Madre
RETURN PROPOSAL TO:
City of Sierra Madre
ATTN: Karin Schnaider, Director of Administrative Services
232 W. Sierra Madre Boulevard
Sierra Madre, CA 91024
(626) 355-7135, Ext. 301
DEADLINE FOR PROPOSAL SUBMITTAL:
4:00 p.m., Thursday, October 1, 2009
REQUEST FOR PROPOSAL
COMPREHENSIVE CITYWIDE USER FEES AND CHARGES RATE STUDY
TABLE OF CONTENTS
I. INTRODUCTION 3
A. Organization Overview 3
B. Project Overview & Objectives 3
II. SCOPE OF SERVICE 4
A. Project Tasks 4
III. BID EVALUATION PROCESS 6
A. Evaluation Procedures 6
IV. RFP PROCESS AND INSTRUCTIONS 7
A. Schedule of Events 7
B. Submission Deadlines 7
C. Inquiries 7
D. Submission Requirements 8
E. Format and Content 8
F. Administration and Contractual Obligations 10
City of Sierra Madre
SECTION 1 – INTRODUCTION
Organization Overview
The City of Sierra Madre, California, hereinafter referred to as “City”, is a community of approximately 11,600 nestled at the base of the San Gabriel Mountains in Los Angeles County. It is a General Law city operating under the City Council/City Manager form of government. The five-member Council is elected at-large. The community encompasses 3.2 square miles, and is bordered on the west by the City of Pasadena, on the south and east by the City of Arcadia, and on the north by Mount Wilson and the San Gabriel Mountains.
Sierra Madre has a small but lively downtown commercial district, 35 miles of streets, four parks, its own water production and distribution system, and an active population which is interested and involved in the decision making processes of the City. Sierra Madre is a full service city, providing services through its own Police, Fire, Public Works, Library, Finance, Development Services, Administration, and Recreation Departments. The City has approximately 60 full-time employees.
Project Overview and Objectives
The City of Sierra Madre requests proposals from qualified bidders for professional services to replace the current accounting software (ACS) and to provide support and maintenance through the next five to seven years. To that end, the City is seeking proposals to engage the services of a qualified professional firm(s) experienced in conversion of historical data, general guidelines for proper work flow and security, templates for utility billing and invoicing with ability to self-modify to match City expectations, start-up training and on-going support and maintenance of all applications.
By definition, an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system is a City-wide computer software system used to manage and coordinate all the resources, information, and functions of a business from shared data stores. An ERP system has a service-oriented architecture with modular hardware and software units and "services" that communicate on a local area network. The modular design allows the City to add or reconfigure modules while preserving data integrity in one shared database that may be centralized or distributed. The purpose of this contract is to ensure that the City is accurately accounting for all City provided services through one comprehensive accounting software purchase.
The City currently has General Ledger, Payroll, Utility Billing, Cash Register, Accounts Receivable including Animal and Business Licenses, Accounts Payable/Purchasing, and Budget Modules. In this RFP, the City is looking to expand the current ERP system and add Personnel (HR) including Recruitment, Building Permit or Planning modules with consideration of GIS interface, Code (By-Law) Enforcement, Project/Grant Management, Work Orders, Bank Reconciliation, Requisitions, and E-Government Solutions including Web Payments and remote customer access.
SECTION 2 – SCOPE OF PROJECT
1. Project Tasks
Project tasks shall include, but are not necessarily limited to, the following. If the firm feels that additional tasks are warranted, they must be clearly identified in the firm’s proposal.
1. The consultant will be expected to convert historical records from the current accounting software (ACS) back at least three fiscal years in General Ledger applications and five years in Utility Billing.
2. Evaluate the business environment and make recommendations for work flow and security levels.
3. Evaluate the current accounting applications and make recommendations for enhancements based upon system strengths.
4. Evaluate the current accounting structure and make recommendations for enhancements based upon system strengths.
5. Evaluate the current accounting reports and make recommendations for enhancements based upon system strengths.
6. Evaluate the current accounting procedures and make recommendations for enhancements based upon system strengths.
7. Provide step by step consultation and training throughout implementation, including but not limited to testing accuracy of data, sampling reports, and testing staffs understanding.
8. Provide one point of contact throughout implementation for which information should flow freely.
2. Timeline
The City intends to complete the process using the following schedule.
Request for Proposal Release August 15, 2009
Vendor Proposal Responses Due October 1, 2009
Finalists Notified October 20, 2009
Vendor Demonstrations Completed November 2009
Contract Awarded/Council Approval December 8, 2009
Implementation/Training January - July 2009
Go Live with General Ledger/Utility Billing July 1, 2009
SECTION 3 – CURRENT AND DESIRED ENVIROMENT
1. Current Environment
As indicated in Section 1, the scope of this RFP is to address the financial and administrative needs of government, customers and employees. This section provides an overview of the current environment of those organizations.
The following figure provided a high-level outline of Sierra Madre's Organization Chart:
Sierra Madre City Government Profile
The City is comprised of nine departments, each with a one-six subdivisions. The city has 70 full time employees, 29 of which are exempt; approximately 65 volunteers; and average of 100 part-time expanding to 150 part-time during the summer.
The City is a full service organization offering Police (including Code Enforcement), Library, Recreation, Administration, Development Services (including Building and Planning), and Public Works (including Water, Sewer, Streets, and City Maintenance and Engineering).
The City has approximately 4400 Water/Sewer Customers that are billed bi-monthly. The rates are billed both by connection fee and usage.
The City contracts with CALPERs for both retirement and health benefits (PEMCHA). The City reports electronically to CALPERs currently. Additionally, the City reports electronically to both the IRS and California Tax agencies for vendors 1099, sales taxes and employee taxes.
Government Technology Environment
The City main platform is Microsoft Office and Operating System. The accounting software is ACS on an AS-400 server which the City installed approximately eight years ago. The City uses GIS, RecWare (recreation class’s software), and Millennium (library inventory system). The City manages it own website. The City maintains it fleet and infrastructure reporting for GASB 34 on Excel.
Existing ERP Applications
The City currently has General Ledger, Payroll, Utility Billing, Cash Register, Accounts Receivable including Animal and Business Licenses, Accounts Payable/Purchasing, and Budget Modules.
Hardware and Systems Software Environment
Communication and Systems Software Environment
The City currently used COMCATE to track work orders, resident inquiries and resident e-blasts/press releases.
2. Desired Environment
The following is a general overview of what we are looking for in both application and functionality. It is not meant to be comprehensive. Additionally, terms used here are meant to be broad so that it applies to all ERP systems. They may or may not match the terms used in your ERP system. Please contact, Karin Schnaider, Director of Administrative Services, for any clarifications.
Sierra Madre City Government Profile
The City desires to move as many of its current work flow to a paperless environment. Please describe in your RFP, how your applications can eliminate the creation of paper and will facilitate a paperless workflow.
The City currently has five employees in Finance: the Director and Deputy Director are the only accountants on staff, and three clerks: Payroll/Accounts Receivable; Accounts Payable and Grants; and Utility Billing and Business Licenses. The City will be providing access to other employees (approximately 20 additional employees), none of which will have any accounting background. These employees will be using the Requisition application, Time Keeping application (approx 70 employees), Building Permit application, Code Enforcement application, and reporting/inquiry features of each module. In addition, some users will be data entry users and some will be administrators who only provide approvals or want to complete analytics of the data. Please describe in your RFP how your products will enhance our work flow without overwhelming the end user who is not familiar with the accounting side of your product. Additionally, please describe the cost structure for user licenses.
The City has three off-site locations, Library, Recreation Center, and City Yard. All should have to access to the same information and transmit the same information. Provide the best way to service these areas.
Government Technology Environment
Financial System/Security and Safeguards should be interfaced and compatible with all modules provided by firm. It should be made very clear if any modules sold by firm are not fully integrated with any other modules sold by firm. Security should be covered in depth by firm, including but not limited to, restricted access to individual user IDs, administrative override functions, internal control over confidential information, and audit trails of user ID actions. Highlight any safeguards such as journal reconciliation, confirmation of active accounts, offset of cash or total fund caused by user input, or any other safeguards the firm wishes to highlight.
Ledgers and sub-ledgers should have drill down and drill up capability. A user should be able to pull the high summary report and drill down all the way to posting entry. Software should also cross drill into other applications. For example an expenditure/revenue account should drill down to detail ledger then cross over to A/P or A/R to see vendor/customer detail. This process should be easy to use for non-accountants, but detailed enough to support audit work.
Budgeting/Forecasting should integrate with historical information in Financial System and Payroll/HR; should allow for multiple “trial” budgets to be open simultaneously; should allow for both flat or percentage scenarios applicable to individual accounts or a group of accounts; should import and export easily to Excel; should import directly to financial system once budget is finalized.
Account Receivable/Cash Receipts (POS) should fully interface with the Financial System (both General Ledger and Subsidiary Ledgers). It should track at a minimum by customer name, account number/name, date, and amount. Interface with other modules very desirous. Platform should be adaptable so as to allow for invoicing of Animal Licenses, Business Licenses, Paramedic Subscription program, NSF and other fees and fines. It should interface with RecWare import files. Cash Register (POS) desired at one on-site and one off-site location; should have real-time and bacth features, please describe both; and should be able to reprint receipts upon demand with unique date/time and receipt numbers printed on receipt. General Ledger and sub-ledgers should be able to trace back to batches reported in Cash Register (POS) for cross reference between receipts and daily deposits preferred. Describe if your products can interface with Bank Reconciliation to post ACH/EFT deposits.
Utility Billing should interface with Cash Receipts (POS) and fully interface with Financial System. Interface with other modules very desirous. City should be able to customize bills to add comments, graphs or other information. City should be able to bill for both Sewer and Water or just one utility if desired. City should be able to implement tiered rating fee structure as well as base connection fee; and utility bill should be able to reflect these rates for customers. City should be able to add penalties for late bills, generate shut off list, and make any manual overrides when necessary. The accounts should be traceable through both the customer and through the property address. It should track at a minimum by customer name, property address, account number/name, date, and amount.
Reports should support audit of water accounts such as: providing high/low usage; accounts showing Water without Sewer accounts; when connection fee types do not match; change out requests for new customers or new meters; accounts that come in without readings; track shut-off accounts; aging reports and more.
The City uses Sensus water meters and Utility billing application must be compatible. City desires to use remote water readings in 3-5 years. Please describe how your firm will meet this change.
On-line bill pay is a must have for utility billing. Customers should be able at minimum pull up their account information and view history of usage, invoices and payments. It is desirous to provide other services through E-government platform such as, open new account, change billing information and make service requests. Should these services be provided please explain their interface with work orders and utility billing. Discuss real-time or batch process that would take place. Describe how the on-line information is extracted and imported into ERP.
Requisition/Purchasing/Accounts Payable Interface is needed so that information is typed in at the department level, processed through a determined work flow, and finalized in Accounts Payable. The application must be easy to use for non-accountants to utilize and approve. These modules should be fully integrated to the General and all subsidiary ledgers in the financial system module. Warrants should also be linked to Bank Reconciliation module with ease of determining outstanding checks. Accounts Payable must be able to transmit electronic files to IRS and California tax agencies for vendors 1099 and sales taxes. System should be able to produce batch transactions, ACH transactions, and real-time (or manual) transactions for individual transactions. Requisitions/Purchase Orders and Invoices should allow for one-time or reoccurring options; should allow for multiple accounts to be charged; and should allow for percentage/distribution charges.
Timekeeping/Payroll/HR should be interfaced so as to allow employees to enter time electronically (on/off site), processed through a determined work flow, and finalized in Payroll. The time entry portion should be easy to use for non-accountants. Payroll should interface electronically with California State taxes, Unemployment Insurance, Medicare, IRS, and other mandated agencies for general reporting purposes. A firm’s familiarity with CALPERs will set them apart from competing firms. Warrants should also be linked to Bank Reconciliation module with ease of determining outstanding checks.