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WS –Item 8 WORK SESSION STAFF REPORT Work Session Item Date: September 3, 2013 To: City Council From: Al Rolek Re: Upgrading Financial Software Background As Council is aware, staff has been in the process of exploring an upgrade to the City’s financial software system. The current software, a Tyler Technologies Pace product, has been in use for 15 years. The system, while still functional, utilizes old technology and is no longer being updated by Tyler.The current system provides our basic accounting, financial and reporting needs but is limited in flexibility and does a poor job of integrating with other software products used by the finance staff. Government accounting and finance applications present a unique set of needs versus private, for-profit accounting and reporting. For example, where private, for-profit entities generally account for transactions and report on a full-accrual or cash basis, governmental accounting must report onboth a full-accrual anda modified accrual basis. This adds an extra level of complexity to the financial reporting functions that private business doesn’t require. Because of this, government finance software is specialized to the degree that many software companies write and market their software applications exclusively to governmental entities. The finance software upgrade projecthas been an extensive process which has involved product research, demonstrations, evaluation, site visits to current customers and follow- up with the software vendors.While there are many purveyors of government software applications, staff identified three software vendors that most closely fit the needs and level of complexity for the City to be included in our search. Upon performing initial research and demos, the vendor list was narrowed to the two vendorswho were considered to be the best fits for our needs. The two vendors, Tyler Technologies and Springbrook, have been offering government accounting software for many years andhave hundreds of installationsin the small to mid-size government segmentnationwide.Both vendors offer premises and cloud hosted solutions, interface with other software used by the city, and fully support their products. After completing a second round of demos, making site visits to existing users ofthe software, evaluating the data and site visit results, doing reference checks and compiling cost and other data, it was staff’s determinationthat upgrading our software with Tyler Technologies offered the best solution for the City. A score card comparing the outcomesis as follows: