CAFR RFI 5.1.17.docx

RFI# AAEA 2017 – 034

CAFR Software

Request for Information #: RFI AAEA - 2017 - 034 Colorado Comprehensive Annual Report (CAFR) Release Date: May 1, 2017 Submission Date: May 17, by 3:00 PM Colorado Time

THIS IS A REQUEST FOR INFORMATION (RFI) ONLY. IN ACCORDANCE WITH COLORADO PROCUREMENT CODE R-24-103-203-01 (e), THIS IS NOT A FORMAL BID OR SOLICITATION. NO AWARD WILL RESULT FROM ANY RESPONSE TO ANY VENDOR RESPONDING TO THIS RFI.

1. Purpose of this Request for Information (RFI)

This RFI is not a solicitation or Request for Proposal (“RFP”). No contract can or will be awarded based upon submissions. The RFI is exploratory, issued solely for planning and gathering information, and budgetary pricing. The purpose of this RFI is to gain a better understanding of financial report compilation and publishing options that the Department of Personnel and Administration (DPA) could potentially use for creating and publishing the State’s annual CAFR report. The Department will use the information obtained from this RFI to provide additional guidance in developing a solicitation, if the Department decides to publish a solicitation.

2. Background

Colorado’s Office of the State Controller (OSC) reports directly to the DPA and has been tasked with several duties including financial reporting and analysis. The OSC’s Financial Operations & Reporting team manages the financial affairs of the State of Colorado. The office promulgates the State Fiscal Rules, performs statewide financial reporting, maintains liaisons with State agency financial personnel, oversees the State end-of-year financial close, manages the State contraction process, performs target audit and review activities, maintains central aspects of the State’s financial system, such as Form 1099 reporting and warrants (checks) issuance, manages central payroll functions, and generally establishes policy relating to the State’s financial affairs. Pursuant to CRS 24.30.204, the OSC annually creates and distributes the Comprehensive Annual Financial Report (CAFR) to the Governor and General Assembly of Colorado no later than September 20th each year.

3. Overview

The State of Colorado, Office of the State Controller, seeks to acquire a software package to compile and publish the State’s annual financial report, Comprehensive Annual Financial Report Attached as Exhibit A. The CAFR is the primary financial report issued by the State for use by all interested parties. It includes the common financial statements and related notes, statistics, and explanations. The Department currently compiles and publishes the CAFR using a manual workflow that begins with ERP system generated financial statements. These statements are saved as Excel spreadsheets. The Excel versions of the statements are copied into a Microsoft Word document. Notes, graphic illustrations, tables, artwork, certifications, and other necessary documents are provided by numerous contributors and are combined into this MS Word document. Finally, the completed CAFR in MS Word is published as a PDF document and via print. The final data that the State and Vendor will use to create the CAFR will be delivered June 30; however the State anticipates significant prep work prior to that date. The State’s deadline for the final report is on or before December 15.

The current workflow for compiling and publishing the State’s annual CAFR does not adequately support the Department’s needs. The State’s needs are:

· Project management - the system should have different sections. The system should allow the State to assign authorship responsibility, editing responsibility, final approval responsibility, and (optionally) audit ability.

· Distribution of input – the system should compile different data from different sources into one document. The system should automatically update the document as sources submit data.

· Virtual update of data – ability to re-import financial-statement data and automatically update / replace all prior data.

· Ease of publishing – system’s ability to provide templates to users and create a standardized look and feel for the final publication.

The timeline:

8/17 – most of the final data used in the CAFR will be available.

9/20 – basic financial statements are due. Basic financial statements, included as Exhibit B, consist of unaudited basic financial statements, notes, required supplementary information, and supplementary information.

Schedule of RFI Activities

Deadline for Inquiries Submit inquiries by e-mail to: Joshua.benn@state.co.us

5/8/17 3:00 PM, Colorado Time

RFI Responses due by COB:

1. Submit electronically by email as an attachment in Microsoft Office format

2. Indicate the Title of the RFI in the subject line as: Annual Financial Report Compilation and Publishing Software RFI

3. E-mail: dpa_contracts@state.co.us 5/17/17 3:00 PM, Colorado Time

4. Requirements – please respond in the text box below the question. Responses that include a substantial amount of descriptive literature or marketing and sales brochures may make it difficult to determine the actual requirement being addressed.

4.1 Technical Requirements

a) Potential vendors must confirm their ability to meet the cyber security policies specifically as it pertains to protecting sensitive data. The policies can be found at the OIT website at: http://www.oit.state.co.us/about/policies

4.2 Summary of Required Services

Vendors responding to this RFI should demonstrate how they are able to meet the identified system and business requirements, identify any requirements vendors are unable to satisfy.

The Department requests the following information in response to this RFI:

1) Description and explanation of system: Provide a description and explanation that will allow the Department to understand the general nature and architecture of the system. Literature, specification sheets, handouts, and other pertinent information may be included directly in your response or submitted as an attachment.

2) Government organizations previously provided system services: Provide qualifications and experience with any government organizations that have previously used your financial statement compilation and publishing software. Contact information for follow-up with these organizations is appreciated, if available.

3) Department Role: What role will the Department’s technical teams and program staff play during the project?

4) Implications of application rollout: Please provide a timeline and implementation schedule.

5) Multiple preparers: Describe how your proposed solution allows multiple State employees and the vendor to work simultaneously on the same document with real-time updating.

6) Security and audit capabilities: Describe the security, auditing, and internal control features of you product. Please note these must be in line with OIT’s policies found in §4.1.a.

7) Formatting: Describe how your solution can produce highly formatted report output. Describe any advanced formatting features, table of contents, page numbering, or “look and feel” standardization features. Please provide a sample report.

8) MS Compatible: Is your proposed platform compatible with MS-Excel and MS-Word?

9) Supported document types: Can users attach supporting documents within the platform? If so, which files types are accepted?

10) Data loading: Fully describe how data can be loaded into the application and then referenced throughout the document to automatically update numerical data, narrative text, and charts.

11) Updating data: Can users reload a new set of financial data into the application and update the entire report automatically? Can the reload of data happen at multiple times, in the process?

12) Data collection via user’s browser: Describe your proposed solution's ability to collect data from multiple users through their browsers, in real-time.

13) Adjustments: Describe how your solution supports creating financial adjustments?

14) Rounding: Describe how your proposed solution supports financial rounding?

15) Rollup hierarchies: Describe how your solution supports the creation of one or many rollup hierarchies and how financial data can automatically rollup along these hierarchies.

16) Document linking: Describe how your proposed solution allows multiple documents to be linked to the same source data.

17) Template capabilities: Describe how the prior period’s report can be used as a template for the next period’s report.

18) Chart and table footing and cross-footing: Describe how your proposed solution ensures that charts and tables automatically foot and cross-foot.

In addition to the points above, the Department would like the financial statement compilation and publishing system to provide the following:

· Enables the compilation of a large annual report (180+ pages)

· With diverse input material (Excel, Word, graphics)

· Collaborative tool

· Enables distribution of responsibility for content

· Provides tracking of content input/authorship, review, approval and audit

· Permissions based administration

· Cloud based

· Automated update of data

· Allows for data update/modification within the system

· Real Time results

· Dedicated Customer Service representative/assistance

· Comply with OIT standards found in §4.1.a

Respondents should identify and describe any additional functions that might also be provided and provide the extent to which additional costs may apply to the additional functionality.

4.3 Price/Costs

NOTE* All pricing estimates are strictly voluntary and are not required to be submitted.

The Department asks that Respondent provide the general, estimated budgetary pricing structure, including any potential costs based on usage, additional licenses needed over time, etc., hardware, software, hosting, training, data conversion, communications, project management, ongoing support, helpdesk support, design, and installation services program roll out and all maintenance required to operate the system (including ongoing maintenance). Costs should outline initial implementation and annual maintenance for described system and vendor requirements. The costs provided should be itemized to include the amounts associated with the different products and services listed in this paragraph. Please note; the costs provided are not confidential due to the Colorado Open Records Act (CORA) which requires most public records be made available to the public upon request.

The vendor is requested to describe what would be included in routine maintenance of the database management system and how frequently it would be performed; and include any other applicable costs not mentioned above and how these estimated price points were reached.

If a hosted solution is available, the vendor is requested to provide hosting costs which would include hardware costs, software costs, hardware maintenance costs, software maintenance costs, software upgrade costs, and disaster recovery costs.

5. Vendor Response

The State asks that Respondents address each of the components of § 4.1, 4.2, & 4.3 of this RFI. Please provide clear and concise answers. In addition to the specific requirements detailed below, respondents are encouraged to provide any additional information that will benefit the State such as governmental entity partnerships, cases, experiences, additional functionality, and newly emerging technologies.

Information submitted in response to this RFI may be considered during development of a future solicitation. A response to this RFI does not guarantee that the information offered will be integrated into a solicitation, nor will it prohibit responding vendors/firms from receiving or responding to a solicitation should one be issued. The State encourages respondents to register on Colorado VSS at: https://codpa-vss.hostams.com/webapp/PRDVSS1X1/AltSelfService to participate in future solicitations.

Registration with the Colorado Operational Resource Engine (CORE) Vendor Self Services (VSS) system is not required in order to respond to this RFI; however registration is currently a requirement for submission of a response to any solicitation that may be published in the future. The State of Colorado upgraded its financial system on July 1, 2014 to the CORE system. For more information about this change and the impact to you as a vendor, please visit https://www.colorado.gov/dfp/solicitations or the VSS website at https://codpa-vss.hostams.com/webapp/PRDVSS1X1/AltSelfService Any information about costs and pricing will be used solely for the purposes of establishing a target budget for the acquisition of the necessary products and services. The State will not consider cost information related to this RFI responsive to any solicitation subsequently issued and it is not binding for either party.

The State will process any future procurement in accordance with the State of Colorado Procurement Code, C.R.S. 24-101-101 through C.R.S. 24-112-101.

6. Inquiries

7. Terms and Conditions

a) This RFI is issued solely for information and planning purposes and does not constitute a solicitation. Information about costs and pricing is submitted voluntarily and is non-binding on the respondent. Responses to this RFI will not be considered legal offers nor will they result in an award of any type of contract.

b) DPA is not responsible for any costs incurred by a vendor organization for the development and provisions of a response to this RFI.

c) DPA is subject to strict accountability and reporting requirements as a recipient of funds from Federal Grants (if applicable).

d) DPA reserves the right to copy any information provided by responding vendor organizations for the purposes of facilitating DPA’s review of use of the information.

e) DPA reserves the right to use information or ideas that are provided by the responding vendor organizations in the vendor’s response or product, system or solution demonstration. By agreeing to demonstrate its product, system or solution, the vendor represents that such copying or use of information will not violate any copyrights, licenses, or other agreement with respect to information submitted or product, system or solution demonstrated.

8. Disclaimers

DPA reserves the right for information submitted in response to this RFI to be reviewed by other entities within the State for purposes of compiling and analyzing possible options. Otherwise, materials submitted in response to this RFI will not be publicly disclosed until such time that a solicitation has been issued and an award has been made by the Department. At such time, all materials will be made available for public disclosure with the exception of those materials determined by the Department to be confidential/proprietary.

In the event the Department determines that a competitive solicitation will not be issued as a result of the RFI process, the materials submitted in response to this RFI will then be made available for public disclosure with the exception of those materials determined by the Department to be confidential/proprietary.

Any cost information submitted in response to this RFI may be used for the purpose of establishing target budgets for the acquisition of these services. Cost information submitted in response to this RFI will NOT be considered in connection to any future solicitations and is not binding on either party.

The contact name listed in section 11 of this RFI reserves the right to contact a respondent for additional information at its sole discretion and to issue additional RFIs.

9. Confidentiality

Responses and information/material submitted should be non-proprietary and non-confidential.

A. Confidential/Proprietary Information

Vendors must submit any restrictions of the use or inspection of material contained within the response must be clearly stated in the response itself. Vendors must submit all requests for confidentiality with its response, along with a justification for considering the materials confidential/proprietary. Vendors must state specifically what elements of the proposal are to be considered confidential/proprietary.

Confidential/proprietary information must be readily identified, marked and packaged separately from the rest of the response. Co-mingling of confidential/proprietary and other information is NOT acceptable. Entire responses will not be considered confidential and proprietary. Materials that would not be considered confidential in response to an RFP will NOT be considered confidential for the RFI response.

The State will make a written determination as to the apparent validity of any written request for confidentiality. In the event the Department does not concur with the potential offeror’s request for confidentiality, the written determination will be sent to the offeror. Ref. Section 24-72-201 et. seq., C.R.S., as amended, Public (Open) Records.

This RFI process, as described in Colorado Procurement Code R-24-103-203-01 (e). An RFI is a public process and all information received will be subject to the Colorado Open Records Act, Title 24, Article 72, Part 2, on public records and the Colorado Sunshine Law, Title 24, Article 6, Part 4, on open meetings.

10. Response Criteria

All responses to this RFI should include the following:

· Executive Summary to include documented experience with providing similar inspections for local jurisdictional authorities,

· Discussion Points – answers to questions in Section 4,

· Supporting Information

11. Submission Instructions and Single Point of Contact

The single point of contact for the State of Colorado during this RFI is listed below. All questions and inquiries shall be directed to the person listed below. Any vendor contacting any other State personnel to obtain additional information or clarifications may be found as non-responsible. A vendor found to be non-responsible would be eliminated from bidding on a future solicitation for this project.

Vendor responses must be received via email, mail, or hand delivered by the submission date and time listed on the first page of the RFI to:

Joshua Benn Procurement Director Email: DPA_Contracts@state.co.us

1525 Sherman Street, 5th Floor Denver, CO 80203

All responses, no matter the manner in which it is submitted, must indicate the RFI number in the subject line or on the envelope.

COVER SHEET FOR RESPONSES

SUBMIT THIS COMPLETED PAGE WITH RESPONSE.

THE REQUEST FOR INFORMATION NUMBER MUST APPEAR ON THE “SUBJECT LINE” FOR ALL E-MAILED RESPONSES. THE NUMBER MUST APPEAR ON THE OUTSIDE ENVELOPE OF MAILED OR HAND DELIVERED RESPONSES.

VENDOR INFORMATION

Vendor Name:

Address:

City/State/Zip:

Telephone Number:

Fax Number:

E-mail Address:

Federal Employee Identification Number (FEIN)

Printed Name:

Signature:

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