Integrated_Procurement_and_Financial_Workflow_Solution_RFI_(Addendum_#1_Revision).pdf

County of San Mateo

Request For Information (RFI) for Integrated Procurement and Financial Workflow Solution RFI

Procurement

RFI No. 2026-RFI-00413

RFI Contact: Connor Tsuruoka ctsuruoka@smcgov.org

1. Introduction and Schedule

The County of San Mateo covers most of the San Francisco Peninsula. The region covers 744 mi2 and is home to nearly 800,000 residents and 20 incorporated cities. The County provides health and welfare of all people within its borders and serves as the local government for the unincorporated areas. Innovation thrives here in industries including bioscience, computer software, green technology, hospitality, financial management, health care, education and transportation. The County prides itself on how that prosperity fosters its commitment to protecting and enhancing the health, safety, and welfare and natural resources of the community.

1.1. Summary

The County of San Mateo's Procurement Department is conducting market research to better understand available solutions that can support an integrated procurement and financial workflow lifecycle. The purpose of this RFI is to gather information from vendors regarding current systems, capabilities, and best practices in the marketplace.

The County of San Mateo is located in the heart of the Silicon Valley. As such, the County is committed to remaining informed of new technologies and evolving industry standards, and to conducting due diligence to verify its procurement processes reflect modern, efficient, and innovative practices.

All interested vendors should submit for this RFI, as it is not a requirement to have all the functionality listed.

No contract will be awarded as part of this Request for Information (RFI).

This RFI solicitation document is being issued for market research to obtain general information from suppliers about their products, services, and capabilities to assist the County in the development and issuance of a potential future Request for Proposal (RFP) solicitation for the Procurement Department.

Proposers may be requested to perform product demonstrations.

1.2. Background

The Procurement Department provides procurement services to all County departments and acts as a regulatory mechanism to help county departments obtain maximum value for each dollar spent while maintaining compliance with all relevant County, State and Federal, laws, ordinances and policies.

Procurement also connects with and assists vendors in doing business with the County.

This RFI is being issued to better understand current market offerings for solutions that may support a broader and more integrated procurement and financial workflow lifecycle. The County is interested in learning about the features, capabilities, services, and innovative approaches available from vendors in the marketplace.

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1.3. Contact Information

Project Contact:

Connor Tsuruoka Contract Administrator II Email: ctsuruoka@smcgov.org Phone: (650) 295-3751

Procurement Contact:

Connor Tsuruoka Contract Administrator II Email: ctsuruoka@smcgov.org Phone: (650) 295-3751

Department:

Procurement

Department Head:

Jas Sandhar Procurement Director

1.4. Timeline

RFI Released July 3, 2026

Deadline for Questions and Comments July 24, 2026, 12:00am

Submittal Due Date and Time August 7, 2026, 5:00pm

2. Scope of Work

2.1. Background Information

The County is seeking information regarding solutions that can support a broader, integrated procurement and financial lifecycle. The solution may be a Source-to-Pay platform, Procure-to-Pay, ERP, or another platform with a similar function. The County is interested in understanding whether available solutions can consolidate, replace, or integrate functions currently handled through separate systems, including requisition intake, financial approvals, solicitation management, contract management, purchase order creation, and invoice processing.

The County of San Mateo operates under a hybrid procurement process. Goods are centralized, whereas services are decentralized. As such, the solution may be used by multiple County departments, including the Procurement Department and department-level procurement staff. Each department will designate a lead procurement staff member that will be trained on the platform. Therefore, the County requires a mailto:ctsuruoka@smcgov.org tel:(650)295-3751 mailto:ctsuruoka@smcgov.org tel:(650)295-3751

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2.2. Integrated Procurement and Financial Workflow Solution Requirements

The solution should include, but is not limited to, the following components:

General Solution Requirements

The solution should:

• Provide a centralized, configurable, and user-friendly platform to support procurement, contracting, purchasing, and related financial workflow activities across County departments.

• Support role-based access controls and configurable permission levels.

• Provide reporting/auditing/control functionality based on permission levels.

• Support use by multiple County departments, including Procurement and department-level users.

Requisition Intake and Financial Approval

The solution should:

• Support the submission, review, and approval of requisitions or purchase requests before the start of a solicitation or purchasing process.

• Support budget approval workflows based on County-defined policies, thresholds, funding sources, or purchasing authority.

• Allow approved requisitions or purchase requests to move into the appropriate next step, such as solicitation or purchase order creation.

Solicitation Assembly, Evaluation, and Award

The solution should:

• Ability to draft, post, submit, and evaluate RFI, RFP, IFB, etc.

• Support informal purchasing, price-only bids, and other purchasing processes.

• Allow previous solicitations and related records to be viewed, searched, and referenced within the platform.

• Allow County staff, non-staff evaluators, and other authorized participants to use the platform for evaluations.

• Support different evaluation methods, including weighted scoring, numerical scoring, bonus points, pricing evaluations, and allow scores to be calculated and documented within the platform.

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• Support award workflows.

Contract Lifecycle Management

The solution should:

• Support the creation, review, approval, execution, storage, tracking, amendment, renewal, and closeout of contracts.

• Assist users with creating contracts using County-provided templates, standard language, or forms.

• Track contract terms, expiration dates, renewal dates, amendments, performance measures, and other key contract information.

Purchasing, Purchase Orders, and Invoice Processing

The solution should:

• Support purchasing activities after requisition, solicitation, contract, or other approval.

• Support purchase order creation, approval, issuance, tracking, modification, cancellation, and closeout.

• Allow purchase orders to be generated from approved requisitions, contracts, quotes, solicitations, or other approved purchasing records.

• Support invoice submission, invoice intake, invoice review, approval routing, and invoice status tracking.

• Provide visibility into purchase order status, invoice status, remaining balances, payment status, or other related transaction history.

Workflow, Approvals, and Collaboration

The solution should:

• Support internal and external collaborations.

• Allow redlining and document collaboration for contracts, solicitations, amendments, and other related documents.

• Support workflows with checkpoints at various stages of the procurement, contract, purchasing, and financial approval process.

• Support general County-wide approval workflows and unique departmental workflows.

• Notify users when corrections, approvals, or additional actions are needed based upon standards set by the County.

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• Guide users through processes using prompts, templates, required fields, workflow steps, or similar tools.

Vendor Engagement and Participation

The solution should:

• Support a free and accessible public facing portal for all vendors interested in conducting business with the County.

• Support the submission of questions, proposals, bids, invoices, and any other related action item through the platform.

• Support vendor questions and answers, addenda, notices, proposal or bid submissions, and receipt acknowledgements.

• Support DBE, LBE, etc. certifications, including but not limited to State, Federal, and Local designations.

AI Functionality

The solution should:

• Include available automation or artificial intelligence, where applicable.

• Support AI-assisted drafting of requisitions, solicitations, contracts, and purchase orders.

• Support compliance checks, error detection, validation tools, recommendations, analytics, or insights based on procurement and financial data.

Security, Access, Compliance, and Records

The solution should:

• Provide security and data protection appropriate for public-sector procurement, contract, purchasing, and financial workflow activities.

• Provide functionality to assist with Public Records Act request responses. (This could be removed to encourage more responses to solicitation from private sector vendors.)

• Provide information regarding system availability, backup and recovery, and disaster recovery.

Implementation, Training, Support, and Continuous Improvement

The solution should:

• Be updated regularly with:

o Bug fixes o Deploying new features

Page 7 of 11 Release date of July 3, 2026 o Commitment to continuously improve the platform

• Be compatible with and capable of integrating with other systems and applications used by the

County.

o Includes, but not limited to: Single Sign-On solutions (Okta)

• Include a sandbox/test environment

• Support training for County staff, hosted by the solution provider.

• Provide guides, manuals, and other resources that can assist users.

• Contain a live support system that is available for users to troubleshoot.

2.3. Presentation

The County may schedule up to ten (10) firms to provide demonstrations of their solutions.

The presentation should be a high-level overview of the solution as it pertains to the details listed in the

SOW above, or any other added benefits. Presentation shall include a demonstration of workflow, functionality, etc. for requestors, fiscal approvers, department approvers, executives, etc. Please include roadmap of future innovations, including but not limited to, AI assisted functions, integration efforts, etc.

3. Submission Requirements

3.1. Submission Deadline

Proposals must be electronically received by 5:00 pm, on Friday, August 7, 2026 via the County's eProcurement system.

Allow sufficient time for the upload to complete by the Due Date and Time. Partial uploads will automatically terminate, and proposals will be rejected. The eProcurement system submission time will be the official submission time. The County will not be responsible for and may not accept proposals that are late due to slow internet connections or for any other failure of the eProcurement system.

NOTE: The County does not maintain the eProcurement system and is not liable for site failures or technical problems. To resolve technical issues, contact OpenGov Technical Support directly by using the real time chat located in the lower right hand corner of the screen, or via email at procurement-support@opengov.com https://procurement.opengov.com/portal/smcgov

3.2. Pre-submission Registration

Organizations or individuals interested in responding to this solicitation must register online with the

County of San Mateo at:

• https://procurement.opengov.com/portal/smcgov

It is recommended that organizations complete this registration as soon as possible. The County will not be responsible for and may not accept proposals that are late due to a failure to timely register with the eProcurement system.

mailto:procurement-support@opengov.com mailto:procurement-support@opengov.com https://procurement.opengov.com/portal/smcgov https://procurement.opengov.com/portal/smcgov

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3.3. Submission via eProcurement Portal

Required Documents

Documents requested in the RFI

Electronic Submissions

Include the proposer name and the RFI title and number in each filename. Submit proposals via the eProcurement website, allowing sufficient time for the upload to complete by the Due Date and Time. As noted above, the eProcurement portal submission time will be the official submission time, and partial uploads will automatically terminate, and proposals will be rejected. Contact eProcurement Portal with technical questions regarding this site.

Conflicts between Certain Requirements

It is recommended that organizations complete this registration as soon as possible. The County will not be responsible for and may not accept proposals that are late due to a failure to timely register with the eProcurement system.

Format

Documents should be created in the following format:

• Text should be Times New Roman (12-point minimum font size) and unjustified (i.e., with a ragged-right margin)

• Pages should have margins of at least one inch on all sides (excluding headers and footers)

• If the proposal is lengthy, a Table of Contents should be included.

• PDF format is preferred.

Errors in Proposals

The County will not be liable for any errors in proposals. Proposals may be rejected as unresponsive if they are late, incomplete, missing pages or information, or cannot be opened for any reason. The County may waive minor irregularities, but such waiver will not modify any remaining RFI requirements.

4. Minimum Qualifications and Solution Summary

4.1. Minimum Qualifications

4.1.1. Firm has a minimum of three (3) years of providing an eProcurement, source-to-pay, financial, or other related solution to government entities.*

☐ Yes

☐ No

*Response required

4.1.2. Submit Appendix A - Solution Summary *

*Response required

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4.1.3. Name of Organization*

4.1.4. Name of Solution.*

*Response required

4.2. Technical Proposal

(Please see Scope of Work for reference to the below questions.)

4.2.1. Please describe how your solution meets the general requirements.*

*Response required

4.2.2. Does the solution support requisition intake and financial approval?*

☐ Yes

☐ No

*Response required

4.2.3. Requisition Intake and Financial Approval

Describe the solution's requisition intake and financial approval. If any required specifications are missing, please state below.

4.2.4. Does the solution support solicitation assembly, evaluation, and award functions?*

☐ Yes

☐ No

*Response required

4.2.5. Solicitation Assembly, Evaluation, and Award

Describe the platform's solicitation assembly, evaluation, and award features. If any required specifications are missing, please state below.

4.2.6. Does the solution support contract lifecycle management?*

☐ Yes

☐ No

*Response required

4.2.7. Contract Lifecycle Management

Describe the platform's contract lifecycle management features. If any required specifications are missing, please state below.

4.2.8. Does the solution support purchasing, purchase orders, and invoice processing?*

☐ Yes

☐ No

*Response required

4.2.9. Purchasing, Purchase Orders, and Invoice Processing

Describe the platform's purchasing, purchase orders, and invoice processing features. If any required specifications are missing, please state below.

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4.2.10. Does the solution have workflow, approvals, and collaboration features?*

☐ Yes

☐ No

*Response required

4.2.11. Workflows, Approvals, and Collaboration

Describe how the platform provides workflow, approval, and collaboration features. If any required specifications are missing, please state below.

4.2.12. Does the solution foster vendor engagement and participation?*

☐ Yes

☐ No

*Response required

4.2.13. Vendor Engagement and Participation

Describe how the platform supports vendor engagement and participation with County solicitations or purchase orders. If the solution is missing any required specifications, please state below.

4.2.14. Does the solution utilize artificial intelligence?*

☐ Yes

☐ No

*Response required

4.2.15. Artificial Intelligence

Describe how the solution utilizes artificial intelligence to enhance the user experience. If the solution is missing any required specifications, please state below.

4.2.16. Does the solution have security, access, compliance, and records features?*

☐ Yes

☐ No

*Response required

4.2.17. Security, Access, Compliance, and Records

Describe any security, access, compliance, or records features available on the platform. Please include example reporting, analytic, and dashboard functionality.

4.2.18. Implementation, Training, and Support*

Describe the solution's implementation, training, and support features. If the solution is missing any required specifications, please state below.

*Response required

4.2.19. Is the platform committed to continuous support?*

☐ Yes

☐ No

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4.2.20. Additional Features

Reference any additional features not listed here.

4.2.21. Additional Documents or Media

If there are any sell sheets or media prepared for the solution, please submit them here.

4.2.22. Current Innovations

Reference any notable innovations or improvements that you expect to provide (with respect to, for example, efficiency, technology, sustainability).

4.2.23. Name of Contact Person*

Name:

Title:

Contact Email:

Contact Phone Number: