Agenda - 06-14-2001-4d - Laserfiche WebLink

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a 2 Lack of Sy~tem_Integration The business system covers these functions of General Ledger. • .Accounts Payable • Payroll • Purchasing , • Budgeting • Personnel • Fixed Assets These functions intersect at several points throughout the various business processes. Far example, information to make purchases for departments must be keyed at the department level, re-keyed in the Purchasing Department and then keyed again at time of payment by the department. Continually keying identical information into different applications of the current software wastes valuable worker time as well as provides multiple opportunities for error. Similar examples of duplication of effort occur in the Budgeting system and the Personnel function as well. A new business system software would support a common database that allows different applications access to the same information, within certain security parameters. This would eliminate the need to maintain identical information in separate systems and would eliminate duplication of effort in a number of applications. An#iquated Software The current business system software has received numerous patches since its development in late 1970's in order to keep it somewhat effective in the basic operations. However, the system is outdated, inflexible, inefFicient and is extremely limited in the capabilities that are widely available in can-ent software packages that take advantage of the tremendous advances in technology over the past 15-20 years. Missinq„Functionalty Limitations in the legacy system have prompted the development of alternative applications outside of the legacy system. For example, the creation and maintenance of the County's budget is performed through a complex application using Excel spreadsheets, pivot tables and Microsoft Word. This method was necessitated over a decade ago due to, but not limited to, the system's inability to track multiple years' expenditures and present the information in an understandable format. Further, anew standard of the Government Accounting Standards Board (GASB 34), requires, among other things, the County to depreciate all fixed assets beginning in FY 2002-2003. The fixed asset program within the legacy system was abandoned several years ago in favor of a system of'Excel spreadsheets that would allow easier manipulation of data and report formulation. While this allows more flexibility and accuracy of the reporting, it does require substantially more labor since items must be manually keyed into the system rather than the data automatically integrated when the item is purchased. Other areas of missing functionality are being offset by manual processes. For example, the lack of employee history requires manual file research to gather necessary data ar manual adjustments to automated reports to provide complete data.