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9b Financial Software Purchase9/0. CITYOF CHAN EN ;i~y Center D~qve, PO Box 147 ~nhassen, Minnesota 55317 Phone 612.93Z 1900 :eneral Fax' 612,937.5739 ineering Fax 612.937.9152 !lc SafeO' Fax612.934.2524 ~ w~vu: d. chanhassen, mn. us MEMORANDUM TO: FROM: Mayor City Council Scott Botcher, City Manager'-~q{~ DATE: October 21, 1999 SUB J: Financial Software Purchase Proposal As discussed at the work session Monday evening, I am seeking authorization to purchase a financial software package for utilization in the City of Chanhassen. As I have discussed with a number of you many times (privately) and as a group Monday evening, our current software program is fraught with difficulties and appears to have been purchased without much review or analysis for applicability to our needs by previous staff. The software is written in a combination of both COBOL and C+ language, both of which are now outdated. Our current software manufacturer represents that they are going to put what is called a GUI (pronounced gooey) front end on this software to give it the look and feel of a windows program. (One of the difficulties with our software is that it is simply user unfriendly.) I personally find it difficult to utilize this software. In its day, this was an acceptable software package; its day has long since past. I have talked many times about the necessity for myself, for department heads, and certainly for council members to receive accurate and timely financial data from the Finance Department. I have said many times that the current software package is unable to do this without an excess of personnel time needed to perform relatively simple tasks~ To that end, the Assistant City Manager, the Finance Director, and I have reviewed multiple software packages designed for local governments. We have also reviewed some that have represented to be applicable to local government but quite candidly, were not designed for the public sector. We also invited a vendor to make a presentation to the entire Finance Department staff to allow for a full day of interaction between the software manufacturer and the Finance Department staff so as to help ensure that the software can meet the needs of the Finance Department as they are entrusted to do their jobs. In conclusion, I am requesting authorization from the Council for utilization of an amount not to exceed $35,000 for the purchase of and training within a software product by the name of Fund Balance. We will be using their 32 bit product designed to run off of a Windows NT platform (a platform that this financial Yit~ of Chanhassen. A ~rowln~ cammunin, w/th clean lakes, aual&, schools, a cham~in~ downtown, thrivin~ businesses, and.beautiful oarks. A ereat vlace to live, work. and vial. Mayor and City Council Financial Software Purchase Proposal October 21, 1999 Page 2 software will mn in the City of Chanhassen is a Windows NT server)_ As discussed at the W~rk session Monday night, this company has approximately 1,200 installati0nsin 40 states through the United States and to my knowledge is the largest local government software provided im~is market roche in the United States. I personally have purchased their products several times past and have also participated in conversions from the original DOS base version to an intermediate version (Windows 3.1), now to a 32 bit version withprevious emploYers. We also move to bar coding utility bills for increased efficiency in handling. I found their softw~e to be of the highest quality, their support to be of the highest quality and their pricing to affo~ municipalities high value for the dollars expended. - I as much as anyone else would hope that we would not have had to perform this software conversion. No software conversion ever done is without the occasional difficulty. I would,ave hoped that when the city purchased software in the recent past it would have dOne a betterjol~ seeking out what was available in the market place and matching the city'sneeds to'thesoft~re package it was purchasing. I do not believe this was done. As such this expenditure is absol.:..~teI necessary. We simply cannot continue to run an-organization the size of the City of. Chanhas~e without the basic computing ability to manage our financial resources. While I answered m~y questions from the'Council on Monday night about this request, the FinanceDirector and I s~hd willing to answer any questions that you may have between now and Monday night. Please free to contact us.