ADMINISTRATIVE COMMITTEE

 

5.

CONSIDER EXPENDITURE TO ENTER INTO AGREEMENT WITH TYLER TECHNOLOGIES FOR PURCHASE AND IMPLEMENTATION OF INCODE UTILITY BILLING SOFTWARE

 

Meeting Date:

February 10, 2016

Budgeted: 

N/A

 

From:

David J. Stoldt,

Program/

Reimbursement

 

General Manager

Line Item No. 

 

 

Prepared By:

Suresh Prasad

Cost Estimate:

$15,000 (Reimbursed)

 

 

 

 

General Counsel Review:  Yes

Committee Recommendation:  The Administrative Committee reviewed this item on February 10, 2016 and recommended _________________________.

CEQA Compliance:  N/A

 

SUMMARY:  The District has been utilizing customized software to bill for water usage to the Reclamation Project customers.  In its current form, the software does not meet the needs of the District. Basic functionalities such as recording partial payment, inability to bill customers with outstanding balance, and basic reports are not available.  The lack of integration between the billing software and District’s current financial software creates a burden for the staff as the data entries must be manually posted into the financial software creating redundant data entries.  All of these routine transactions take an inordinate amount of time due to the inadequacies of the existing billing software.

 

In recognition of the fact that the current billing software is not suitable for the District's needs, staff included $15,000 in the Reclamation Project Budget for fiscal year 2015-2016 to fund the purchase of new utility billing software.  Staff recommends Tyler Technologies utility billing software as this will integrate with the District’s existing financial software and will help keep the costs down as the utility billing software will use the same resources as the financial software.  This purchase will be reimbursed to the District by the Reclamation Project.

 

RECOMMENDATION:  District staff recommends authorizing the General Manager to enter into an agreement with Tyler Technologies to provide Utility Billing software (Incode v.X) and implementation services for an amount not to exceed $15,000.

 

BACKGROUND:  The District has been using customized software to bill for Reclamation Project water use.  In its current form, several deficiencies have been identified that needs to be addressed.  These shortcomings cannot be addressed by upgrading the current customized software. 

 

Some of the inadequacies are as follows:

·         Inability to integrate with existing financial software.

·         Inability to post partial receipts to a customer accounts.

·         Inability to post adjustments to customer accounts.

·         Inability to generate new billings while customer has outstanding balance on their accounts.

·         Redundant data entries are required by staff by posting same data in the billing software and duplicating the effort by posting the data into the financial software.

 

Staff recommends Tyler Technology Incode software for the following reasons:

·         Utility Billing module will integrate with District’s existing financial software.

·         Keeping costs low as the utility billing software uses the same database structure as the District’s existing financial software.

·         Reduced software maintenance.

·         Reduced staff training due to familiarity of the software.

 

EXHIBIT:

5-A      Tyler Technologies Proposal

 

 

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