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POLICY H6 12/14/05 • ITEM: Approval of expenditure for new finance package SUBMITTED BY: Roland Olson, Finance Director REVIEWED BY: Heather Worthington, City Administrator EXPLANATION: Summary: The city's current software package was purchased in 1995. While it has served the city well, it will not meet the future needs of the city. The maintenance support on this software package has always been exemplary; however, the city has not been able to purchase upgrades on the software to make it more efficient. There currently are not enough users of this software to justify the expense in programming the upgrades by the software company. The other cities that were once using this software package have already upgraded, and the software company will not support this software with any additional upgrades. Also, the current system is only capable of being accessed by one user at a time. If one staff member is using the software package, another staff member cannot access and use it. While we have successfully worked around this problem, it clearly is not very efficient. When staff started using the Microsoft XP professional office package in the office, additional problems occurred. Some of the reports could not be printed. It's not possible to view a complete screen's data on the CRT screens. Only the top half of the screen is able to display the data. Also, with the current system, direct deposit paychecks were not possible. • The financial software industry has been consolidating in recent years. Staff looked specifically for a firm that has several local customers so the city can benefit from a user group. There is strength in numbers to get the software firm to make improvements to their products at minimal cost to the users. Staff talked to several cities to find out what software packages they were using in order to get examples of actual user experience instead of just receiving the information from a salesman. Staff talked at length with three cities using Springbrook Software. The Cities of Roseville, Little Canada, and Rogers use this software. It is a very robust software package. It can handle many more multiple users at the same time than what we would ever need. Favorable comments were made. However, it is quite high in price and the city doesn't need a system that is that robust. Another vendor considered was the In Code Division of Tyler Technologies. This is our current vendor. An upgrade to their In Vision Software package would be needed. The City has had very good experience with In Code. In Code has 58 installations throughout the state of Minnesota using their various products. They have a 99% retention rate since 1999. The support that the City receives from In Code is exemplary. When staff would experience a problem, we could almost always get a support person on the phone when we called them. Or if staff couldn't get a live person, we would leave a message and would receive a call back within an hour. Staff talked to three cities using the In Vision software package from In Code of Tyler Corporation. The city of Rosemount has been using this In Vision software package for approximately two years. They reported that the conversion went through with very few problems and they are extremely pleased with the software. They were able to convert in the middle of the year and the history data was preserved. The 35 ~CHG02:40069922.v1 ~9/28/OS 11:33 AM