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Following the City Council’s recent approval of a new financial software system, the city signed a contract with Springbrook Holding Company LLC that is expected to make the city’s financial and payroll system easier and more efficient.
Sundquist said the city has been using the same financial software since the early 2000s. The KVS financial software was originally provided by a local firm in the Western New York Region. Since the city originally purchased the financial software, the company has been bought on several times, according to Sundquist. The current owner of the software is Springbrook.
The City Council recently voted to allocate $106,286.50 for the purchase and maintenance of a new finance and payroll software with Springbrook. The new software will allow the city to move its current in-house software to a cloud-based system, which Sundquist said will allow the city to do several things.
“First and foremost, it will update and automate our payroll processing,” he said. “As a city, we have very complicated payroll requirements because we have different shift differentials, we have details that, for example, police and fire do, we pay different unions at different times per contractual requirements. Being able to switch to a more updated payroll system, first and foremost, is going to not only be a time saver for our staff clerks that process payroll, but also allows our employees to now have access to their payroll records not in paper form.”
With the new Springbrook software, Sundquist said employees will be able to access payroll records from a mobile app or website, as well as quickly make changes to employee tax forms or emergency reporting forms. Under the city’s current system, each of these actions would require employees to make an appointment with the finance office to access paper copies.
Sundquist said the new software will also allow the city to automate processes such as vacation requests and scheduling for employees, as well as allow managers to more easily approve time sheets and time off requests for employees.
“It’s going to not only allow our employees to have more access, but will allow managers to do so as well,” he said.
The Springbrook software will also allow the city to digitalize documents such as invoices. Currently, Sundquist said the city collects everything as paper invoices; however, in 2020 the city began scanning documents as well. While the city will retain paper records of documents, Sundquist said the new software will allow city departments to submit invoices and purchase requests directly into the cloud-based system. The city’s finance staff would then be able to review the documents, confirm the invoices or purchase requests and bill them to the right account, saving the city additional time.
“It’s going to allow us to do more purchase orders and will allow us to speed up some of that time,” Sundquist said.
Sundquist said the new software will also enhance the city’s reporting capability for its finances. While the city’s current software requires financial records to be exported from the software and formatted through Microsoft Excel, Springbrook’s new software comes with its own public reporting system.
“It would give us higher-level and lower-level overviews of not only finances, but does have an additional component that would allow us to make a basic financial data available to the public,” Sundquist said. “I’ve talked a lot about trying to be more transparent in city government, and that includes how we spend our funding, and one component of this software would also allow us to do that.”
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