City hall’s buggy Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software project appears to be making progress toward completion, less than a month after a city councillor complained about the project’s continued delays.
City administration discussed the project’s status as part of an overall review of second-quarter activities at city hall, during the recent city council meeting.
“It has been a little bit slower over the summer, obviously with holidays on our part and on MNP’s (Meyers Norris Penny) part. But we are moving forward,” finance director Brian Acker said.
From April 1 to June 30, city hall fully implemented several modules related to the ERP system, he continued, including utility billing, cash handling, accounts receivables, licensing (dogs and business), Dynamics GP general ledger, Questica (operating budget), Questica (capital budget) and Caseware, a financial statement preparation software.
Meanwhile, city hall is working to implement a taxation system module that is expected to go live on Jan. 1, 2023.
“That is one of our more major systems, so there is a lot of effort going into that one,” Acker said.
Other modules that the city is working to implement include a virtual city hall program that should go live in mid-October, an electronic billing program that will go live once virtual city hall is active and a Business Central program that includes areas such as purchasing/inventory, project management/job costing, cash management, general ledger and accounts payable.
City hall has just completed a “discovery phase” for this project with MNP Digital, which is providing the municipality with a blueprint of the overall system based on discussions with the city, added Acker. Municipal officials will review that blueprint and either approve it or suggest changes. MNP Digital will then build the system and upload all the data that city hall provides.
“Good progress has been made. (We’re) pretty excited about the e-billing and virtual city hall,” said city manager Jim Puffalt. “We’re obviously near to being complete and so look forward to bringing further information out.”
The next regular city council meeting is Monday, Sept. 12.
