| ITEM #: 2. DATE: 10/06/2025 AI #:2667 |
 |
CITY COUNCIL ACTION REPORT
| SUBJECT: | FINANCIAL SYSTEM INTEGRATION STRATEGIC PLAN UPDATE |
| STAFF PRESENTER(S): | Jared Askelson, Finance Director; Lisa Faison, Chief Information Officer |
Summary
Council will receive an update regarding the FY26 Strategic Plan Action item for the Financial System Integration. (Jared Askelson, Finance Director; Lisa Faison, Chief Information Officer)
FISCAL IMPACT
There is no direct fiscal impact to this item at this time.
BACKGROUND AND PREVIOUS ACTIONS
On November 18, 2024, the City Council adopted the Fiscal Year (FY) 2025-2028 Strategic Plan. The plan included a FY2026 action item to evaluate integration of financial systems as a process improvement.
In FY2018, the city implemented a new core financial software system, which is considered an enterprise resource planning (ERP) system that allows for the consolidation of multiple previous systems under one software platform. Due to operational needs, not all processes could be consolidated, including scheduling and timekeeping, document management, and associated billing. For those systems, processes were developed to transfer the appropriate data into or out of the core financial system. The methods of transfer include data integration, data import, and manual entry of data. Data integration is a process of continuous updating of data from both systems. Data import involves extracting data from one system and loading it into another system. Manual entry involves an individual entering data in each system.
The FY2026 budget includes funding to acquire Application Programming Interfaces (API) for the various modules of the core financial system. The API's will allow for greater data integration between various systems and the core financial system.
In FY2018, the city implemented a new core financial software system, which is considered an enterprise resource planning (ERP) system that allows for the consolidation of multiple previous systems under one software platform. Due to operational needs, not all processes could be consolidated, including scheduling and timekeeping, document management, and associated billing. For those systems, processes were developed to transfer the appropriate data into or out of the core financial system. The methods of transfer include data integration, data import, and manual entry of data. Data integration is a process of continuous updating of data from both systems. Data import involves extracting data from one system and loading it into another system. Manual entry involves an individual entering data in each system.
The FY2026 budget includes funding to acquire Application Programming Interfaces (API) for the various modules of the core financial system. The API's will allow for greater data integration between various systems and the core financial system.
STAFF ANALYSIS
Staff began the evaluation of potential integrations with the city's financial system by mapping out the modules of the core financial system and the processes that interact with them. The focus was then to identify the types of data transfer that currently exist between the systems. Once the modules and processes were mapped, potential improvements in data transfers were identified and prioritized. The prioritization took into account the potential risk of errors in a process, the impact of those errors, potential time savings from an improvement, and the timing of resources to complete the improvements.