Request for Information
for
Billing System
for
Consolidated Technology Services
C17-RFI-071
Issued: June 8, 2017
T06-RFI-001
1) SUBJECT
This Request for Information (RFI) is seeking information that will assist in the prospective procurement to acquire a billing system. We are requesting that vendors ensure that the responses provided can meet the requirements identified by Washington State Consolidated Technology Services (CTS) doing business as Washington Technology Services (“WaTech”).
2) RESPONSES DUE
We are requesting that vendors respond with any preprinted materials that would provide the information we request, and short answers to the questions listed in the criteria section of this RFI.
Please provide your responses in an electronic format, such as Acrobat or Microsoft Word. This will assist in our review process. We value your time and do not want you to spend your time preparing lengthy responses. After reviewing the responses, vendors may be selected for presentations to be given locally in the Olympia area, or via the web. Please include in your response how you would propose to do a presentation if you are selected.
Vendors should also be prepared to provide fully-functional evaluation copies of any proposed software upon request, as a follow up to this RFI.
Responses to this RFI should be submitted to the Project Coordinator no later than June 30, 2017 at 4 pm local time, Olympia, WA.
Please do not cut and paste your responses into this RFI. Instead provide your response as a separate document and include numbers referencing the RFI section you are responding to. Only the one electronic copy need be submitted.
E-mail is the preferred method of delivery. Hardcopy responses and materials will be accepted; faxed responses will not. Please submit responses to the RFI Coordinator at the following address and/or email:
Mailing Address
Attn: Danielle Mortenson
Consolidated Technology Services
Office of Legal Services
1500 Jefferson Street
PO Box 41501
Olympia, WA 98501
Questions should be directed to the RFI Coordinator at or (360) 407-8782.
3) DESCRIPTION
CTS is evaluating possible solutions to replace its existing billing systems. The current systems contain financial and organizational information for:
- 88 cost centers
- 384 service offerings (fee-for-service and allocation-based)
- $145 million in annual billing
- 350 billed customers
The intent of this RFI is to determine the capabilities of the vendor community’s product suite(s) to fulfill CTS’s requirements. Included in this evaluation is CTS’s desire to determine sufficient financial information so as to make a financial evaluation of the viability of this effort.
Vendors may propose any solution that they have available to fulfill the requirements. This may be a product that is new to CTS or an upgrade to a product suite that is already implemented at CTS. If you are unable to fulfill a specific requirement with your suite, please indicate that in your response.
For each set of requirements, please describe if the solution operates in a Commercial Off The Shelf (COTS) fashion or is something that requires custom coding and design.
1. Please describe your solution’s capabilities and functionality around data interfaces:
a. Import data in a standardized format
b. Establish and configure data validation rules
c. Rejection of invalid data and notification around the rejection
d. External systems integration (Accounts Receivable, General Ledger)
e. Export data
i. Select and configure data to be exported
ii. Select and configure format of data to be exported
iii. Select file format of export from a variety of standard formats (XLS, PDF, CSV, etc.)
iv. Outside of the tool, ability to request export of all data for potential migration to new systems
f. Documented data interface functionality
2. Please describe your solution’s capabilities and functionality as a data repository:
a. Act as data repository holding data including, but not limited to, service billing and usage data, fiscal contact and account coding, etc.
b. Provide methods for storage and retrieval of historical data.
c. Allow auditing of data activities, including when fields are deleted or modified.
d. Save the specific details of any generated invoices into retrievable history. Overwritten names for items such as billing accounts will not change the details of what was listed in past invoices, but will allow for historic tracking of invoices over the life of a billing account as if name had not changed.
e. Provide a user-configurable method to store invoices allowing for global and customer-specific retention schedules.
3. Please describe your solution’s capabilities and functionality for invoicing based on billing data:
a. Automatically create billing invoices for all WaTech Revenue Sources. Revenue sources include, but are not limited to the following:
i. fixed amounts billed at a predefined recurring basis
ii. amounts billed based on calculation of unit count and rate per unit
iii. amounts that are billed based on quote or service level agreement
b. Allow for invoice viewing and reporting, including reports such as All Invoices in a Specific Date Range, Current Invoices, Year-end Invoices, and Outstanding Invoices.
c. Automatically create and include credit memo data on the customer invoice statement.
d. Link billing adjustments to specific invoices.
e. Distinguish between internal and external sales, and have the ability to suppress invoice creation for internal sales.
f. Calculate sales tax for applicable services and customers.
i. Display sales tax at the invoice level, indicating which item(s) the sales tax applies to.
ii. Display sales tax on detail reports generated from the solution.
iii. Clearly display as sales tax on invoices and reports.
g. Allow users to manage invoice templates. Management of recurring billing templates include, but is not limited to the following:
i. Update template
ii. Review template
iii. Copy template
iv. Delete template
4. Please describe your solution’s capabilities and functionality to deliver invoices to customers:
a. Email invoices to customers
b. Allow customers access to online eStatements
c. Provide user-configurable invoice design
5. Please describe your solution’s capabilities and functionality to manage and track foundational data:
a. Provide an interface to existing systems that support organizational structure, cost centers, account coding, service and service offering information. Alternatively, provide the ability to act as the source of record for organizational structure, cost centers, customer contact information and account coding, service and rate information.
b. Manage and track service rate changes over time.
c. Manage and track bundled services, such as allocations, over time.
d. Manage and track customer accounts billing data, inclusive of identifying who made the changes and restricting such changes only to those authorized.
e. Manage and track customer fiscal contacts data.
f. Act as a source of record for customer data, with the ability to view, modify, and create new custom fields.
6. Please describe your solution’s capabilities and functionality around its user interface:
a. Manage and control security roles and user privileges. Management of security roles and user privileges includes, but is not limited to the following:
i. Creation of security roles
ii. Assignment of privileges to security roles (data access, system functions)
iii. Assignment of users to security roles
b. Provides a process for approval of actions. Actions that require approval include, but are not limited to the following:
i. approval of customer credit
c. Provide a method for users to view data related to customer billing that is not made viewable to the customer. Data related to billing that is not viewable to the customer includes, but is not limited to the following:
i. Funding sources
ii. Allocations
d. Automatically add new users via syncs with outside systems.
i. This includes connecting to Active Directory Federated Services.
ii. This includes facilitation of single sign-on functionality.
e. Allow users to access internal sales billing data.
f. Configure new services and/or bundled services (e.g. allocations) with recurring or fee-for-service rates.
g. Provides a user interface to update any custom business logic. Examples of custom business logic:
i. Provide the ability to link allocations to service offerings.
ii. Set edits and generate notifications to prevent the system from billing customers separately for the services provided in an allocation.
iii. Provide for users to manually override duplicate billings.
h. Allow users to override invoice dates (back date).
i. Allow users to preview invoices prior to customer distribution.
j. Allow users and customers to print invoices.
k. Allow customers to manage their financial contact information and account codes. Management of account codes include, but is not limited to the following:
i. Create, update, and view their Account IDs
ii. Limit who can use/modify/delete account codes
iii. Prorate the account to redistribute by percentages
l. Allow customers to view all transaction audit history.
7. Please describe your solution’s capabilities and functionality to provide supporting reports:
a. Optionally import supplemental/accompanying data that would provide additional detail as required.
b. Automatically create billing usage variance reports. Creation of variance reports should include, but not be limited to the following features:
i. Create reports for test billing (prior to release to customers)
ii. Set the percentage of variance
iii. Set the variance percentage based at the service level
iv. Identify when customers are added or dropped
c. Include service detail on the customer invoice or supporting reports. The bidder will demonstrate the level of detail that the solution can provide on the customer invoice. The detail should include, but not be limited to the following:
i. Name of service
ii. How the service is being billed (allocation, fee for service, etc.)
iii. Usage to unit
iv. Rate of unit
d. Redact confidential or restricted data from reports based on role and permissions within the system.
e. Optimize the performance of any custom report queries.
f. Allow users and customers to print reports.
g. Allow users to view or extract billing data based on the level of detail needed.
i. Extract data for business areas including, but not limited to the following:
1. Staff person
2. Division
3. Program
4. Cost center
5. Project
6. Grant
7. Location
8. Service type
ii. Drill down on a single report from high to detail level.
h. Allow users to choose standard (out of box) reports or design their own reports.
i. Allow users to save report templates for consistency of use.
8. Please describe your solution’s capabilities and functionality to support accessibility, records retention, and security requirements:
a. Accessibility:
i. The bidder must provide a plan on how the solution complies with the state of Washington accessibility policy.
http://ocio.wa.gov/policy/accessibility
ii. The bidder must provide a plan on how the solution complies with the state of Washington accessibility standard.
http://ocio.wa.gov/policy/minimum-accessibility-standard
b. Data Retention:
i. The solution must provide a method for WaTech to comply with the state of Washington records retention schedule.
https://www.sos.wa.gov/archives/recordsmanagement/Managing-State-Agency-Records.aspx
c. Security
i. Comply with the state of Washington security policy 141.10.
https://ocio.wa.gov/policies/141-securing-information-technology-assets/14110-securing-information-technology-assets
ii. Require users to change passwords on a regularly scheduled basis.
iii. All data must be stored and transmitted in the contiguous United States of America only. (No offshore data transmission (e.g., for support services) or storage (e.g., hosted site or backup, disaster recovery or other locations) will be permitted.)
iv. All data transfers must be encrypted using 256 bit (or higher) TLS 1.2 for HTTP traffic and SSH version 2 for any batch or real-time non-http transfers. Furthermore, SSL certificates must be SHA2 and signed by a trusted third party; no self-signed certificates will be considered.
v. All data collected must be encrypted at rest and in transit.
vi. If SaaS, the solution hosting facility shall be SOC 2 compliant. Bidder to provide copy of certificate.
vii. The solution must use multi-factor authentication to secure all data collected and data transferred from unauthorized access.
viii. The solution must be compliant with Active Directory Federated Services for Single Sign-On capability.
9. Please describe your solution’s technical characteristics:
a. Includes a roadmap for staying on vendor-supported hardware and operating system platform.
b. Allow for updates without the loss of data or customizations.
c. Provide a complete historical log of all user activity (e.g. successful and failed access attempts, activity of users who have administrative permission).
d. Configurable security rights (e.g. read, write, modify, delete) to be associated with each user or user role.
e. Administrators are able to add, remove, or update data fields within the solution, without requesting a formal change request from the vendor.
f. Configuration of the solution without programming skills and vendor services once training and/or knowledge transfer has occurred.
g. Retain configuration settings during application version upgrades.
h. Meets the Business Continuity & Disaster Recovery minimum requirements of 72 hours Recovery Time Objectives (RTO).
i. https://www.ocio.wa.gov/policies/151-planning-it-disaster-recovery-and-business-resumption/15110-planning-disaster-recovery
j. Meets the Business Continuity & Disaster Recovery minimum requirements of 24 hours Recovery Point Objective (RPO).
k. In the event of termination of contract, all data must be returned to the state of Washington in a suitable standard format and wiped from the SaaS provider's systems. This may also include the removal of backup data from tapes if the retention period is too long for aging to occur naturally.
l. Vendor to provide a plan on how the solution would be recovered in the event of a disaster that adheres to the OCIO Disaster Recovery and Business Resumption Standard 151.10, at a minimum.
m. All data is exclusively owned by the state of Washington and a written agreement is required if the provider will use the data other than the primary purposes of providing all agreed services.
n. The solution is available for use 99.9% of the time during normal operating hours of Monday through Friday from 7 am to 6 pm Pacific Standard Time, with maintenance occurring outside these hours.
o. For on-premise COTS solutions, the infrastructure and application must align with WaTech-supported technologies (Windows Server OS, and Microsoft SQL). Note: This requirement does not apply to SaaS solutions.