Viewing Only the Fields That Are Relevant to a Particular Task and User

Business Function / Proposer’s Response
User Interface

1. Accessing the system from any networked workstation running Windows XP or Windows Vista operating system

1. Shortcuts to frequently used screens, operations, account strings, etc., with different shortcuts for different types of users

1. Viewing only the fields that are relevant to a particular task and user

1. Using pick lists and searches

1. Showing several attributes for each item on the list

1. Filtering the list based on user-selected criteria

1. Listing only items that are valid or authorized, so that after the user chooses one it will pass data validation

1. Having some fields pre-populated with default values

1. Entering a transaction for a future effective date

1. Entering a future transaction to an account that is not yet active

1. Ensuring that only valid data is entered

1. Allowing only valid values for a field

1. Allowing only valid combinations between fields—for example: a particular program may be valid for only one particular department; particular accounts may be valid only for particular types of transactions, etc.

1. Restricting certain users to certain account objects, funds, etc.

1. Preventing a transaction from being entered when the transaction date is before the effective date for an account, organization, project, etc., or after the inactive date for an account, organization, project, etc.

1. Validating data right at the point where data is entered into the system

1. Detecting potential duplicate journal entries, invoices, requisitions, vendors, customers, etc.

1. Saving a partially completed form (such as a requisition) before submitting it for further processing, so that it can be retrieved, edited, and submitted at a later time

1. Correcting previously posted transactions, generating adjusting entries with cross-references between original and correcting transactions

1. Viewing complete information about a project, work order, employee, vendor, etc.—including current status, balances, history, etc.

1. Customizing screens to hide unused objects

1. Online help

1. Context-sensitive help for fields or blocks on a screen

1. Tool-tips (also called cursor-hovers and mouse-overs) for fields and icons on a screen

1. Microsoft Excel interface

1. Downloading data into a spreadsheet

1. Uploading data from a spreadsheet into a journal entry, purchase order, budget, etc.

1. Accessing timekeeping via telephone keypads (future implementation)

1. Accessing some system functions via the Internet, with appropriate security (future implementation)

Attached Files

1. Attaching files (.doc, .jpg, .pdf, etc.) to a purchase order, payment, receivable, work order, master-file record, etc.

Workflow

1. Workflows for the following business processes:

1. Budget development

1. Budget transfers

1. Purchasing—submitting and approving requisitions; soliciting bids; issuing purchase orders; authorizing and making payments

1. Paying invoices for non-purchase-order items

1. Personnel actions

1. Employee-performance appraisals

1. Leave-of-absence requests

1. Submitting and approving timesheets

1. FMLA processing—letters sent, medical certification of the illness, expiration dates, etc.

1. Tuition reimbursements

1. Work order request, approval, assignment, completion, and closure

1. Building permits

1. Workflow administration to set up queues, routing, business rules, etc.

Data Analysis and Reporting

1. Running standard (“canned”) reports

1. Adding, deleting, and modifying standard reports

1. Creating ad-hoc reports and running ad-hoc queries (with user-selected data fields, values, date ranges, etc.)

1. Using an Excel spreadsheet (with the Microsoft Query add-in feature) to query data, and subsequently re-running the query to update (refresh) the spreadsheet (also see item # 14)

Access Control

1. Limiting users to authorized functions, screens, data, funds, and accounts

1. Restricting users to view only transactions for their own department

1. Preventing users from charging purchases and labor time to inappropriate accounts

1. Restricting what functions can be accessed from outside the City’s physical network (if Internet access is implemented in the future)

External Electronic Interchange

1. Electronically sending and receiving business-to-business transaction documents, such as purchase orders and invoices, with external parties who are set up to do this

Chart of Accounts

1. Employing a chart of accounts that identifies:

1. Fund

1. Organization: departments, with some departments divided into divisions

1. Object: breakdown of expenses, assets, etc. into categories such as salaries, benefits, office supplies, etc.

1. Program, with some programs divided into activities

1. Project, with some projects divided into phases, sub-projects, tasks, or milestones

General Ledger

1. Setting up fiscal years (July 1 to June 30) and accounting periods (13 or more periods)

1. Making journal entries

1. One-time

1. Recurring

1. Statistical

1. Setting up a template for a frequently used journal entry that spreads an amount among multiple accounts, so that when the template is called up and an amount entered, the template spreads that amount among the accounts

1. Automatically reversing journal entries for accruals

1. Cross-referencing correcting journal entries with the previous entries that are being corrected, with the cross-reference data available in report-writing

1. Rolling up accounting data from lower levels in a parent-child tree to higher levels, and drilling down from higher to lower levels

1. Distinguishing the transaction date (when money actually changed hands, a purchase order was issued, etc.) from the posting date (when system processed the data)

1. Apportioning transactions among multiple funds, based on formulas or business rules

1. Cost accounting

1. Distributing purchases, payments, and labor costs to organizations, programs, activities, and projects

1. Apportioning “general” time (timesheet hours that are not charged to a particular project or work order) among multiple programs, based on the programs’ funding percentages for that position

Fund, Grant, and Project Accounting

1. Fund accounting

1. Project accounting

1. Project budgeting and allocation when a project is funded from multiple funds

1. Budgeting by tasks or milestone payments

1. Applying formulas or algorithms for apportioning project costs to funds, so that accurate project/fund balances can be maintained

1. Tracking project status

1. Tracking deposits due, activities, costs, fees, payments (or receipts), and balances for projects that are to be paid:

1. By external parties to the City (also see # 89)

1. By the City to external parties

1. Multi-year projects

1. Grant accounting

1. Tracking the grant-funding process: grant money budgeted, awarded, spent on reimbursable costs, matched with matching funds, claimed (reimbursement requests), and received—across multiple years

1. Track reimbursable costs

1. Applying a single grant’s funds across multiple organizations, programs, and projects

1. Applying multiple grants to a fund, organization, program, or project

1. Appropriately charging employee benefit costs to the grant that is fully or partially funding the employee’s position

1. When an employee’s position is grant-funded, associating that position or employee with a “home program” so that when the grant fund is maxed out any subsequent payroll cost is charged to the home program

1. Multi-year grants

Budgeting

1. Developing budgets on a two-year cycle

1. Calculating salary and benefit budgets based on human-resource and position-control data:

1. Authorized and funded positions, which may be limited to particular date ranges

1. Position grades, which may change on particular dates

1. Current pay of position incumbents

1. Projected future dates for transfers, promotions, vacancies, and hires

1. Supporting business rules about how to deal with delayed spending that crosses into the next fiscal year—for example, encumbered funds in open purchase orders are automatically carried over to the next fiscal year, but unencumbered money needs to be re-justified and re-budgeted

1. Supporting business rules about the process of budget transfers and adjustments during the current budget year (after the budget has been adopted)—for example, departments can transfer salary savings into contract labor, but other transfers within a department need City Manager approval, and interdepartmental transfers need City Council approval (see the “Workflow” section of this report)

1. Tracking changes from the original adopted budget to the current budget

1. Projecting the budget impact of a hypothetical change in compensation rates, etc. (“what-if” scenarios)

Purchasing

1. Maintaining a vendor master file

1. Subdividing a vendor into multiple branches or remittance addresses, so that when a vendor is selected for a purchase order, the branches are displayed and one is selected

1. Referencing a vendor by multiple doing-business-as (DBA) names and historical name changes

1. Setting up vendor payment methods including electronic payments

1. Checking for duplicate records in the vendor master file

1. Associating commodity codes to vendors to facilitate bid and RFP distribution

1. Vendor self-service for registering as a vendor in the City’s system, maintaining the vendor’s business information, viewing and responding to bid solicitations, etc.

1. Preparing and submitting requisitions

1. Searching and copying items from previous purchase orders

1. Selecting commodity codes for items requisitioned

1. Splitting charges among several organizations, programs, projects, tasks, or work orders

1. Preventing requisitions from being entered if:

1. There is insufficient money remaining in the budget line for each line item (budget amount minus amounts spent, encumbered, and pre-encumbered)

1. The requestor is not authorized to charge against the account selected

1. The commodity or fixed asset type is not consistent with the account selected

1. Routing requisitions through a workflow for multiple approval steps depending on the dollar-limit authority of approvers, the type of commodity, etc.

1. When a requisition is approved, pre-encumbering funds so that they are no longer available for any subsequent requisitions

1. If the requisition is later cancelled, reversing the pre-encumbrance so the funds become available again

1. If the dollar amount of the requisition is changed, correspondingly changing the pre-encumbrance

1. Inquiring into the status of a requisition, including approval status, purchasing status, and payable status

1. Querying the system to see prior orders, to aid in re-ordering

1. Flagging fixed assets so that they are automatically entered in the fixed-assets register when received

1. Indicating the fixed asset that is to be replaced by the requisitioned item, so that the new asset is linked to the asset it replaced, and as a reminder to track the old asset’s disposition

1. Preparing and releasing purchase orders

1. Recombining requisitions into purchase orders with a “many-to-many relationship” between requisitions and purchase orders

1. Choosing between either:
2. Charging the whole purchase order to one chart-of-accounts value
3. Charging each line item to a different chart-of-accounts value

1. Apportioning (distributing) sales and use tax to each line item

1. Splitting purchasing charges among several organizations, programs, projects, tasks, or work orders

1. For the whole purchase order

1. For one line item on a purchase order

1. Setting up a purchase order to span multiple fiscal years for multi-year contracts

1. Adding state sales or use tax if applicable

1. Processing change orders, using the same procedures as new orders, including approvals and encumbrance

1. Encumbering funds when a purchase order is released, and adjusting or relieving encumbrances when the purchase order is closed or change orders are issued

1. Issuing blanket purchase orders to set up terms for future releases drawn against the blanket orders

1. Choosing whether to fully encumber a blanket order when it is issued (“up-front encumbrance”), versus to encumber releases when they are drawn against the blanket order (“as-you-go encumbrance”)

1. Tracking requirements for vendor insurance, performance bond, licenses, and certification that apply to a purchase order, and tracking vendor compliance with those requirements (tickler function)

1. Receiving purchased items into service, inventory, or fixed-assets register

1. Receiving a partial shipment, indicating backorders and/or order-quantity adjustments

1. At the end of the fiscal year, carrying outstanding encumbrances into the next fiscal year (after reviewing and closing purchase orders that are not to be rolled forward)—also see Functional need 44

1. Tracking purchases employees make using City credit cards, so that this information fits into the same framework as other purchases

1. Importing credit-card transaction data from the bank

Materials Inventory

1. Receiving items into inventory

1. Issuing stock to end-user departments

1. Controlling inventory at multiple locations including a central warehouse, departmental storerooms, job sites, trucks, etc.

1. Performing physical inventory counts

1. Calculating the value of materials based on actual cost

1. Returning inventory to stock or transferring inventory between locations

1. Maintaining and communicating information about hazardous materials, recyclable materials, etc.

1. MSDS (material safety data sheets)

Accounts Payable and Disbursements

1. Issuing payments for items purchased via purchase order

1. Associating a payment with a purchase-order line

1. Avoiding redundant data entry for information that is already on the associated purchase order

1. Applying the discounts or payment terms on the purchase order

1. Accounting for deposits and holdbacks (retentions)

1. Splitting a payment among several purchase orders, work orders, projects, tasks, organizations, programs, or accounts (when the purchase order is general and the invoice shows finer detail about items delivered)

1. Paying state use tax when applicable

1. Recovering reimbursable costs—see # 89

1. Paying invoices for non-purchase-order items

1. Splitting charges among several funds, organizations, programs, projects, tasks, or work orders

1. Combining several invoices into one check

1. Ensuring against duplicate payments

1. Querying the system for ordering and payment histories to see who paid what to whom, when, for what

1. Warning for duplicate invoice numbers (but not preventing the user from paying when appropriate)

1. Preventing payments from exceeding budgeted funds

1. Making recurring payments

1. Using templates—see # 32

1. Making corrections after invoices have been posted

1. Scheduling daily check runs and issuing checks(

1. Positive pay—sending the check data to the bank when the check is cut

1. Sending electronic payments (electronic fund transfers, wire transfers, e-checks, ACH, etc.)

1. Dealing with lost checks

1. Voiding

1. Reissuing

1. Importing check-clearing data from the bank

1. Reconciling bank statements

1. Tracing a purchasing or disbursement trail—starting from any point in the process, tracing backward to the initiation action (such as a requisition), and forward to checks and fixed-asset records

1. Viewing the status of all items in the purchasing process “pipeline”

1. Issuing 1099’s

1. Administering petty cash

Employee Travel Advances and Reimbursements

1. Administering employee expense accounts, advances, and reimbursements

1. Travel expenses

1. Tuition reimbursement

1. Deducting taxes for taxable tuition reimbursements—see # I.A.46

1. For travel expenses, showing an overall trip cost along with a detail breakdown:

1. By employee (traveler)

1. By expense category (lodging, airfare, conference fees, etc.)

1. By purchasing method (City credit card, employee reimbursement, purchase order, non-PO invoice, etc.)

Accounts Receivable

1. Entering receivables, deposits, payments, and credits

1. Setting up recurring receivables

1. Generating receivables based on recoverable (reimbursable) costs

1. Using projects and work orders to identify recoverable costs

1. Associating specific expenditures and labor charges with cost-recoverable projects and work orders

1. Tracing cost-recovery receivables to their source work orders, timesheets, purchases, etc.

1. Updating cost-recovery receivables when the source transactions are reversed, corrected, or changed

1. Generating and presenting invoices, statements, and remittance advice

1. Paper bill presentment

1. Electronic bill presentment

1. Fax bill presentment

1. Processing retroactive adjustments to receivables

1. Viewing or printing bills that have been previously sent

1. Setting up ticklers—for example, if a customer promises to pay in 10 days, setting up a tickler to remind a user to call the customer in 10 days to confirm that payment was sent

1. Issue delinquent billings for overdue invoices

1. Issue complete customer statements showing past-due invoices and related penalties, as well as payments received

Cash Receipts (Cashiering)

1. Recording cash receipts and applying cash

1. Handling credit-card payments

1. Over-the-counter

1. Web/online

1. Splitting a cash receipt among multiple tender types (cash, credit card, etc.)

1. Splitting a cash receipt among several receivables

1. Searching for the proper receivable(s) for cash application, when cash is received without a clear reference to one particular receivable

1. Reapplying misapplied cash receipts, with appropriate cross-referencing

1. Cash-register function (for Library)

1. Closing out cash drawers

1. Recording bank deposits

1. Issuing refunds and credits

1. Handling bad checks

Human Resources

1. Establishing and updating the basic personnel structure, made up of:

1. Bargaining units

1. Position grades within each bargaining unit

1. Steps within each position grade

1. Compensation rates (dollars per hour/week/month/year) for each step in each position grade