This Request for Information (“RFI”) is an invitation on behalf of our client to prospective proponents to submit responses to replace or upgrade our client’s existing Financial Management System.
The core business of our client is making grants for community-based projects throughout Ontario. With yearly receipt of approximately more than 2,000 applications, and millions in grants awarded to public benefit non-profit organizations, our client uses research to guide decision-making to review applications and guide granting decisions. It is key for our client to have a financial management system that will enable them to have accurate and timely financial information to support their decision making.
We are seeking for a single vendor to provide a strategic statement of interest, highlighting capabilities to replace or upgrade the client’s existing financial management system. The input from this RFI will assist the client to understand their options for a better Financial Management System. This RFI does not contain final system requirements.
The client’s current accounting system is Sage 100, supported by Sage Intelligence for reporting. Although they can meet their monthly and annual reporting obligations with timely and accurate information, many processes are manual and need to be modernized (e.g. there are many journal entries each month). The client spends approximately $20 Million annually in operations. There are several different funders and programs, and the organization is required to report on individual funders. Some granting programs involve planned payments spanning multiple years, but allocated from a certain year’s funding.
There are about 120 or more staff primarily located in Toronto and regional offices throughout Ontario. There are approximately 10 or more users that will require use of the financial system.
Our client follows the International Financial Reporting Standard (IFRS) for non-profits - Canadian accounting standards and terminology.
They are interested in a Financial Management System with financial capabilities that have the following key features and functionality:
● Budget Management,
● Accounts Payable and disbursement,
● Bank Reconciliation,
● General Ledger
● Fixed Assets
● Must integrate with our main GMS (Grants Management System) SmartSimple.
● Integrates with a travel and expense management system
● Integrates with PowerBI for visual dashboarding
● Integrates with ADP, our payroll system
● Cloud-based solution
● Paperless workflow processing and approvals, including online payment approvals
● Document management capabilities i.e. stores documents at transaction level
● Eliminates manual processes
● Meets all existing financial reporting requirements and enables multidimensional reporting
● Ability to configure role-based access to functionality and data
● Enable users and report owners access to financial reports as per their needs
● Enables real time financial information and data visualization
● Enhances our procurement processes, particularly in contract management
● Scalable system allowing for future changes in business and reporting needs
● User-friendly, efficient and transparent
Our client intends to achieve several objectives through the implementation of a modernized Financial Management System:
o Integration with other systems, mainly SmartSimple, that will be a key source of accounts payable transactions
o No loss of information
o Reduce number of manual journal entries
o Improved Financial Reporting, in particular to help the organization better understand allocation of transactions across multiple dimensions and multi-years, and more easily predict its expected cash flow needs
o Reduce manual process of monthly financial reports distribution
o Reduce number of cheques
o Paperless processing of travel approvals, booking and reimbursement
o Enhance contract management process
