Enterprise Resource Planning Financial Software Systems Environments

The Vendor is required to provide satisfying the needs for software and consulting services to implement a new software systems environment to address the county’s needs related to enterprise resource planning (ERP) – financial system.
- The County is planning to replace its current software systems environment with a new system or combination of software systems, and to adopt systems functionality to support core processes.
- Key Objectives and Outcomes:
•    Enhance operational effectiveness with an online portal by making more timely, accurate, and complete information available to citizens, county personnel, and vendors.
•    There is an opportunity to create a centralized customer file for commissioner of records and treasury use. The county is unable to view customer information, including outstanding tax bills and tax payment information, in one location. 
•    There is an opportunity to digitize building department applications.
•    Enhance workflows to support increased automation and operational efficiencies by streamlining business processes.
•    Increase productivity by eliminating redundancy and unnecessary and manual tasks.
- Currently uses several fragmented systems to execute processes. This setup often leads to conflicting figures, duplicate or outdated records, or missed information altogether.
- General Ledger (GL) and Financial Reporting
•    The system shall provide a general ledger that is integrated with all other proposed system modules so that reconciliation between applications is user friendly and efficient.
•    The system shall produce statements at any county-defined interval (i.e., daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, and annually) in summary or detail and can be subtotaled at multiple levels in the chart of accounts.
•    The system shall allow month end closings to occur in a new fiscal year without having to close the previous fiscal year, including producing all month end financial statements.
•    The system shall note on the balance sheet financial statements that the prior fiscal year has not been closed and balances are subject to change.
•    The system shall perform a soft year end close and lock balances in place for balance sheet balances as well as close the revenues and expenditures into the balance sheet zeroing them out for the New Year. 
•    The system shall support multi-year funds.
•    The system shall produce balance sheets and other financial reports from a prior closed year and period with an option to include inactive accounts with activity or a balance.
•    The system shall automatically roll forward balances for balance sheet accounts at year end for a soft close.
•    The system shall perform "soft closes" on periods so that a period may be opened again with proper permissions for the purposes of posting activity to that period.
•    The system shall provide a period close workflow, prompting the user to review trial balances and purchases.
•    The system shall provide messages or warnings for items in or out of balance.
•    The system shall provide clear documentation or instruction on how to close periods.
•    The system shall limit account inquiry access to the balance/summary level.
•    The system shall restrict GL posting (i.e., live or batch) by account number with appropriate security permissions. 
•    The system shall store at least 10 years of transactional data in a live or transactional environment with the ability for the county to determine when data will be archived based on the number of years. 
•    The system shall flag an account as inactive based on a specified effective date.
•    The system shall carry the entire chart of accounts forward to eliminate the need to manually key these accounts into the system.
•    The system shall carry a range of the chart of accounts forward to eliminate the need to manually key these accounts into the system.
•    The system shall perform automatic posting of recurring journal entries with appropriate security permissions.
•    The system shall flag a journal entry as a reversing journal entry and identify the new journal entry number and date.
•    The system shall perform automatic reversals of month-end accruals at the beginning of the next period.
•    The system shall provide notification upon receiving a purchase.
•    The system shall allow users to retrieve GL related information a minimum of ten years old. 
•    The system shall perform basic validation routines before data can be entered (e.g., data type checking, account validation, project numbers).
•    The system shall allow the produced reports to be editable by a user for formatting and final edits.
•    The system shall track pooled cash by fund for a singular bank account.
•    The system shall track multiple pooled cash by fund for multiple bank accounts.
•    The system shall provide a pick-list of reasons for rejecting general ledger transactions.
•    The system shall display county-defined reasons for rejecting general ledger transactions.
•    The system shall provide at least 14 periods, including one for beginning balances (period 0) and for audit adjustments (period 13).
•    The system shall move a division or project from one department to another and carry over all associated history.
•    The system shall attach documentation to an account based on account access permissions. 
•    The system shall enter comments at account set up based on account access permissions.
•    The system shall add user date and time comments per GL account.
•    The system shall add user date and time comments per GL account transaction.
•    The system shall capture comments added for audit trail purposes.
•    The system shall support the county processes of serving as fiscal agent for separate legal entities.
- Budgeting: Operating and Capital
•    The system has the ability for the budgeting module to use the same chart of accounts as the rest of the system (e.g., when preparing a capital budget). 
•    The system shall create all budgets by county-defined period.
•    The system shall allow departments to further drill down to at least one level below the county's lowest level of chart of accounts for detailed tracking purposes.
•    The system shall provide a framework or model for budgeting, so that once a budget model is built, changes to the budget only require entering variance amounts.
•    The system shall store year’s budget-to-actual results at any account level based on the retention policies of the library state. 
•    The system shall create and enforce the budget at any segment of the chart of accounts.
•    The system shall budget at any level with budgetary control at the line item level based on county-defined criteria.
•    The system shall provide online budget entry and reporting capabilities for individual departments with appropriate security permissions.
•    The system shall provide a long and short description field of a minimum of 256 and 50 characters (respectively) to store notes for each budgeted account with the ability to roll over to the general ledger, at all levels/versions of budgeting.
•    The system shall calculate a total for multiple sub-entries for each budgeted account line to identify the budget line detail.
•    The system shall display, inquire, and report on budget-to-actual with percentages of available or expended budget for an account or group of accounts at any time.
•    The system shall "roll" the budget through at least five process levels (e.g., budget entry, administration review, etc.).
•    The system shall add attachments at the detail level of the budget such as Microsoft word, Microsoft excel, and adobe pdf documents.
•    The system shall support roll-up codes for grouping accounts together for budgeting.
•    The operating budget preparation system should at a minimum, contain at least three previous fiscal years, current fiscal year, and at least five future fiscal years.
•    The system shall facilitate creation of the capital budget and store data for, at minimum, ten previous fiscal years, the current fiscal year, and five future fiscal years. 
•    The system shall accommodate multi-year projects for budget purposes by year with appropriate detail, to include life-to-date budget appropriations, adopted budget new appropriations, and be fully integrated with the financial system and other modules. 
•    The system shall provide a variety of management tools to support tracking and monitoring of budget activity (i.e., percentage used in a period).
- Accounts Payable
•    The system shall provide an accounts payable module that is integrated with all other proposed system modules including (but not limited to) general ledger, budgeting, purchasing, and grants.
•    The system shall allow vendors to maintain county-defined information through a vendor self-service web portal.
•    The system shall accommodate three-way matching of purchase order, receiving documents, and invoice.
•    The system shall produce and transmit 1099 forms electronically, per federal government regulations.
•    The system shall attach digital copies of receipts and other supporting documentation to AP transaction records.
•    The system shall automatically (proactively) notify end users of pending approval actions.
•    The system shall support electronic workflow for approvals by commodity code.
•    The system shall support electronic workflow for approvals by dollar amount.
•    The system shall support electronic workflow for approvals by general ledger account number.
•    The system shall "add back" percentages or amount discounts previously taken (i.e., returned items) with appropriate system permissions.
•    The system shall import purchasing card transaction detail.
•    The system shall support "positive pay." the system shall send an electronic file of all checks, including system-driven manual checks, to the county's bank for comparison with checks being cashed in order to help reduce opportunities for fraud.
•    The system shall notify specified users when a payment is made based upon a project or grant number.
•    The system shall accommodate interdepartmental transfers/payments.
•    The system shall allow departments with county-defined permissions to view batch checks from other departments.