Title
Software Reimplementation for Financial Management and Customer Information Systems (B)
Staff recommends transitioning the Financial Management System (FMIS) and Customer Care System (CCS) to the current product version.
Explanation
On August 22, 2005, the City Commission authorized GRU to replace its legacy customer billing system (CBIS) with an SAP customer care system (CCS) by conducting a competitive bidding process. The change was necessary due to the aging and increasingly difficult to maintain legacy system. On November 26, 2007 the City Commission authorized the replacement of the legacy financial management information system (FMIS) began and also resulted in an SAP solution. Today, GRU uses SAP for the CCS and FMIS as a primary means of tracking customer information, billing customers, managing the daily financials and reporting needs. Because of the staggered timeframe of when the two systems were installed, each system operates on different and distinct platforms.
The CCS, implemented in 2007, handles the daily operations necessary to input customer information, provide billing, post customer payments, track meter inventory and track and record utility usage. Since the initial implementation, no major upgrades or enhancements have taken place. The FMIS handles the daily financial activities of the utility including accounting, general ledger, assets, purchasing and inventory control. This system was implemented in 2009 and has not had any major enhancements.
Both systems are critical to managing the day to day operations and financial reporting/tracking requirements for GRU. To maintain service level expectations for our customers, these systems require an upgrade in order for the software systems to remain viable and sustainable.
This is a multi-year, multi-system project and as such, it is imperative to integrate all the required components over the next three years. The total project is estimated to cost $14 million with $6 mi...
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