STATE OF TENNESSEE

DEPARTMENT OF FINANCE AND ADMINISTRATION, STRATEGIC TECHNOLOGY SOLUTIONS

REQUEST FOR INFORMATION

FOR

STATEWIDE CASHIERING SYSTEM

RFI # 31701-03850

09/11/2026

1. STATEMENT OF PURPOSE:

The State of Tennessee, Department of Finance and Administration, Strategic Technology Services, Edison Resource Planning (“State”), issues this Request for Information (“RFI”) for the purpose of seeking knowledge from the vendor community regarding cashiering system offerings and implementation services. We appreciate your input and participation in this process.

2. BACKGROUND:

The State of Tennessee’s Strategic Technology Solutions division administers a cashiering solution used to record and process deposits within the State’s ERP application. Existing system limitations include reliance on separate systems for cash/check and credit card payments, outdated hardware, and configuration processes that are time‑consuming and unable to support immediate changes. The system also has limited enhancement options and constrained reporting capabilities. The State is seeking to better understand modern cashiering solutions that can improve the end‑user experience, expand reporting capabilities, and streamline back‑office processes within the State ERP system.

3. COMMUNICATIONS:

3.1. Please submit your questions and response to this RFI to:

Rebekah Jenkins, IT Contract Specialist Department of F&A, STS Email: rebekah.w.jenkins@tn.gov Phone: 615-906-4840

3.2. For questions regarding this RFI, contact:

Rebekah Jenkins, IT Contract Specialist

Department of F&A, STS Email: rebekah.w.jenkins@tn.gov Phone: 615-906-4840

3.3. Questions should be directly emailed to the main point of contact above by the deadline listed below in Section 4: RFI Schedule of Events.

mailto:rebekah.w.jenkins@tn.gov mailto:rebekah.w.jenkins@tn.gov

3.4. Please reference RFI # 31701-03850 with all communications regarding this RFI.

3.5. Please limit all questions to one submission per vendor.

4. RFI SCHEDULE OF EVENTS:

EVENT

TIME

(Central Time Zone)

DATE

(all dates are State business days)

1. RFI Issued 09/11/2026

2.

Vendor Written Questions and Comments Deadline

2:00pm 09/25/2026

3.

State Response to Written Questions and Comments

10/01/2026

4. RFI Response Deadline 2:00pm 10/05/2026

5. GENERAL INFORMATION

5.1. Please note that responding to this RFI is not a prerequisite for responding to any future solicitations related to this project and a response to this RFI will not create any contract rights. Responses to this RFI will become property of the State.

5.2. The information gathered during this RFI is part of an ongoing procurement. In order to prevent an unfair advantage among potential respondents, the RFI responses will not be available until after the completion of evaluation of any responses, proposals, or bids resulting from a Request for Qualifications, Request for Proposals, Invitation to Bid or other procurement method. In the event that the state chooses not to go further in the procurement process and responses are never evaluated, the responses to the procurement, including the responses to the RFI, will be considered confidential by the State.

5.3. The State will not pay for any costs associated with responding to this RFI.

5.4. Any services or products proposed in this RFI, must be in compliance with the following security policy: All State data must remain in the United States, regardless of whether the data is processed, stored, in-transit, or at rest. Access to State data shall be limited to US-based (onshore) resources only. Configuration or development of software and code is permitted outside of the United States, however, software applications designed, developed, manufactured, or supplied by persons owned or controlled by, or subject to the jurisdiction or direction of, a foreign adversary, which the U.S. Secretary of Commerce acting pursuant to 15 C.F.R. 7 has defined to include the People's Republic of China, among others are prohibited. Any testing of code outside of the United States must use fake data. A copy of production data may not be transmitted or used outside the United States.

5.5. The State may request oral presentations from RFI respondents.

5.6. Responses should be prepared, with emphasis on completeness and clarity, and should NOT exceed twenty (20) pages in length. Responses, as well as any reference material presented, must be written in English, must be written on standard 8 ½” x 11” pages and all text must be at least a 12-point font and answers must be in Microsoft Word or PDF file format.. All pages must be numbered.

5.7. Prohibited items within a response submission include embedded external links that re-direct to a new landing page or static website. Respondents must provide all response in text.

5.8. Response submissions are required to reference the question numbering along with associated subsection referenced within the Technical and Cost Information Form. If responses are missing question numbering references the State may request for the submission to be revised.

5.9. Respondents may, at their discretion, use this template to prepare their response or use a template of their own choosing, provided their response satisfies all of the requirements set forth above.

5.10. The State of Tennessee, Department of Finance and Administration, Strategic Technology Services, Edison Resource Planning, is requested to review software applications available to meet the needs addressed in the list of Business needs (Attachment 1).

6. INFORMATIONAL FORMS:

The State is requesting the following information from all interested parties. Please fill out the following forms:

RFI #31701-03850

TECHNICAL INFORMATIONAL FORM

1. RESPONDENT LEGAL ENTITY NAME:

2. RESPONDENT CONTACT PERSON:

Name, Title:

Address:

Phone Number:

Email:

3. Please provide a brief description of experience providing similar scope of services/products.

4. Please describe your implementation approach of the proposed solution along with a general timeline of an estimated implementation schedule.

5. Is your solution available for purchase through public sector cooperative agreements (NASPO, GSA, etc.)?

6. Provide promotional and other materials, which include details on the software, including, but not limited to, key features, screenshots, workflows, and information flow diagrams.

7. Describe your User Acceptance Testing (UAT) and training approach, including resources necessary for the implementation of this scope and size. What are the recommended State resources needed to assist in UAT and training?

8. How do you ensure business operations are not impacted during roll-out of the solution?

9. Describe your methods and strategy in providing maintenance and support of the solution?

10. Describe your Service Level Agreements (SLAs) standards for ongoing system maintenance.

11. Provide the solution’s historical uptime metrics and availability statistics, including any standard SLA commitments.

12. Describe your release management process for updates, current releases, maintenance, and customizations required for compliance with federal and state law. What are your communication methods for maintenance, support, and system updates? Will you use business partners for maintenance and support?

13. Describe your approach to the sustainability and ongoing maintenance of your solution?

14. Describe any resources, capabilities, or features not included on Attachment 1 that differentiate you from others who provide a similar service.

15. Define RTO/RPO, backup frequency/immutability, geographic redundancy, DR testing frequency, failover/failback procedures, and evidence from the most recent DR test.

COST INFORMATIONAL FORM

1. Describe what pricing units you typically utilize for similar services or goods (e.g., per hour, each, etc.:

2. Describe the typical price range for implementation. Please include a breakdown to include cost per case type, if applicable.

3. Please provide a breakdown of all pricing models for your offerings.

4. Outline your tiered pricing for services and support, including specific information provided in each tier.

ADDITIONAL CONSIDERATIONS

1. Please provide input on alternative approaches or additional things to consider that might benefit the State:

Attachment 1

Requirements – Business Needs

Requirement

# REQUIREMENT DESCRIPTION

REQUIRED?*

("N" indicates Not Required)

Abstract: The State is seeking information from qualified vendors on a technology solution to support the administration and management of a Cashiering solution.

AUDIT & SECURITY

Security that meets all the requirements listed at the following location:

https://www.tn.gov/finance/strategic-technology-solutions/strategic-technology-solutions/sts-security-policies.html.

2 System backup and recovery must adhere to State regulations.

Audit trail must record all changes, including timestamp and user associated with the change.

4 Online tool must allow viewing of audit trails.

5 Support for date and time synchronization across multiple time zones.

Confidential data encrypted at rest and in transit, using the current version of Federal Information Process Standard (“FIPS”)140-2 or 140-3, specifically designed to safeguard PII, PHI, CMS, SSA, HIPAA, PCI-DSS and other confidential Federal and State data. (Data encryption in transit and at rest)

The vendor must maintain Cyber Liability Insurance if the solution involves access to or collection of confidential, privileged, or sensitive personally identifiable information, to ensure coverage in the event of a data breach. Coverage requirements must align with guidance outlined in the State’s Reference Guide to Commercial Insurance for State Agencies (available on the CPO TeamTN “Learning and Development” page).

Payment card information must be treated as confidential when an individual's first name or first initial and last name are present in combination with an account number, credit or debit card number, required security code, access code, or password that would permit access to the individual's financial account.

Storage of a full Primary Account Number (PAN) is prohibited; only truncated PANs may be stored.

The proposed solution must support the organization’s compliance with PCI DSS v4.0.1.

The vendor shall identify any PCI DSS requirements for which the solution provides technical controls, any customer responsibilities, and any shared responsibilities. The vendor shall provide documentation describing how the solution addresses authentication, authorization, encryption, logging, key management, vulnerability management, secure configuration, and protection of cardholder data. The vendor shall provide its current PCI DSS Attestation of Compliance (if applicable) and describe any compliance limitations.

The Vendor shall maintain a current SOC 2 Type II report, issued by an independent qualified CPA firm, covering the Security Trust Services Criteria at a minimum. The report must be dated within the most recent 12 months and applicable to all systems and environments supporting the proposed cashiering solution. The Vendor shall provide a copy of the report under NDA upon request and maintain an applicable SOC 2 Type II report throughout the term of any resulting contract.

All State data—including production, backup, and disaster recovery environments— must be stored, processed, and maintained exclusively within the continental United States.

Ability to manage access to screens, tables, data elements, functions, and electronic documents.

The solution shall enforce a minimum password length of fifteen (15) characters for standard user accounts. Service, system administrator, and system/application account passwords may be configured as non-expiring where justified and approved.

15 Provide a minimum of fourteen (14) days’ notice prior to password expiration.

16 Ability to configure password expiration timeframe.

Ability for designated security roles to manage external user accounts, including logging out users, resetting passwords, and disabling accounts.

Provides the ability to support Enterprise Single Sign-On (SSO) for secure internal user authentication (i.e. Active Directory) or support multiple methods for Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) for all user access, including configurable authentication methods and enforcement based on role, risk, or access level with multiple options for forgot password functionality (i.e. email, SMS, App) https://www.tn.gov/finance/strategic-technology-solutions/strategic-technology-solutions/sts-security-policies.html https://www.tn.gov/finance/strategic-technology-solutions/strategic-technology-solutions/sts-security-policies.html

Record unsuccessful logon attempts and allow automatic account lockout after five (5) consecutive invalid login attempts.

Ability to configure automatic lock of user account upon System Administrator defined time of inactivity (days/weeks). N

21 Provide ability to restrict access by IP address.

Ability to generate security reports reflecting authorized use, security breaches or attempts.

23 Ability to segment user access/roles by office location.

The vendor shall disclose whether the proposed solution includes any artificial intelligence (AI) or machine learning (ML) capabilities. If AI/ML functionality is included, the vendor shall provide a brief description of all features and their intended use.

The solution must ensure that all data used, generated, processed, or stored by AI components—including training data, prompts, metadata, model outputs, logs, and intermediate datasets—is stored exclusively within the United States. No AI-related data may be transmitted to, processed in, or stored in locations outside the United States at any time.

Any AI or ML components shall not train on, store, or share state-owned data with external systems, services, or models. The vendor shall describe all data flows and any third-party systems involved.

Any AI functionality of the system shall be fully or partially disabled if desired. The vendor shall describe the methods available for disabling AI and any impacts on system functionality.

The vendor shall identify whether the AI components used within the solution are proprietary, closed-source, open-source, or supplied by third-party providers. The vendor shall provide details regarding ownership, licensing, and dependencies.

29 Ability to classify user types to distinguish between State employees and contractors.

30 Customizable security roles.

The vendor shall describe backup, disaster recovery, data breach and ransomware recovery capabilities, including Recovery Time Objectives (RTOs) and Recovery Point Objectives (RPOs).

COMPATIBILITY

The solution must support all major modern web browsers running current stable versions (e.g., Microsoft Edge, Google Chrome, and Mozilla Firefox). The Vendor should describe any limitations or security considerations associated with browser-based AI-assisted features or agents.

33 Support cross-platform compatibility providing equivalent functionality across desktop, mobile, and web environments.

The system should have the ability for the administrator to customize page layouts, fields, and workflows.

35 System should have the ability to integrate State branding to all pages. N

The solution shall comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and conform to Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1 Level AA standards, ensuring accessibility for individuals with disabilities across all user-facing components.

INTERFACES

Ability to exchange incoming and outgoing data with the State ERP and other State agency applications (e.g., via APIs) through automated, on-demand, and manual processes.

The Vendor must provide a detailed data dictionary for the data repository and a current Entity Relationship Diagram (ERD).

System must support database connection capabilities for data extraction and transfer.

At minimum, must support Oracle Database, Microsoft SQL Server, or cloud databases hosted on AWS and Google Cloud.

Ability to interface with the State's contracted payment card processor(s) (e.g., Worldpay, Fidelity Information Services [FIS]).

The system should provide cloud-based hosting options and identify the proposed hosting model and cloud provider(s) (e.g., AWS, Microsoft Azure, or Vendor-hosted).

The solution should support centralized integration for Check 21 images, eliminating the need for individual agencies to maintain separate image interfaces.

DASHBOARDS & REPORTING

43 Ability for users within a specific group to view shared dashboards and/or reports.

44 Dashboards and reports shall be available for all data.

45 Ability to create native low-code/no-code reports by selecting specific fields and filters.

46 Allow users to customize dashboards by selecting specific criteria.

47 Include predictive search or keyword-based search capabilities. N

Ability to view transaction history based on transaction attributes (location, date, payment method, etc.).

49 Ability to schedule reports for specified distribution lists.

50 Report output must support, at minimum: PDF, Excel, and HTML.

51 Ability to report cashier, location, agency, and organizational variance trends.

52 Ability to create configurable workflows.

The system should be able to generate reports of Image Cash Letter (ICL) files from multiple financial institutions.

Users shall be able to drill from batch summary totals to the individual transactions comprising those totals.

The solution shall provide detailed batch reports and batch inquiry capabilities. Batch reports shall support both batch-level summary and transaction-level detail and, at a minimum, include batch number/ID, batch status, cashier/user, collection point/location, Company, Business Unit, Department, batch open and close date/time, transaction date/date received, transaction count, gross amount, tender/payment type totals, accounting distributions, deposits, adjustments, refunds, reversals, voids, and over/short or other reconciliation variances.

DOCUMENT SOLUTIONS

Ability to store documents with their associated transactions (e.g., check scans with the transaction).

57 Ability to view documents within the platform.

58 Training materials and user support availability within the solution. N

Ability to purge data/images based on selected criteria. (i.e. purge backside of check scans while keeping scan of front)

FUNCTIONAL

Ability to accept and configure multiple tender/payment types, including cash, check, credit card, debit card, ACH/e-check, electronic payments, and other agency-defined tender types.

Support for multiple payment methods and split payments to fufill the total amount of the transaction.

62 Automated receipt generation and delivery (printed, email, and/or SMS).

63 Ability to regenerate/reprint receipts on demand.

Cash drawer management including open/close, balancing, and reconciliation workflows.

65 Ability to modify starting cash prior to daily transactions being processed.

Support for full or partial refunds, voids, reversals, and adjustment transactions and the ability to reference original transaction documents.

Ability for administrator to configure automated fee calculation, tax handling, discounts, and rules-based charges.

The solution must support configurable rounding of payment amounts (e.g., to the nearest cent or designated denomination) while retaining the original calculated amount, the rounding adjustment, and the final collected amount. The system must maintain a complete audit trail of all rounding transactions.

Ability to support multiple locations, business units, and departments with differing cashiering fields.

70 Customer account and invoice lookup from within State ERP sytem.

The solution should support both non-invoiced payments and customer account/invoiced payments.

Offline mode for payment intake with automatic synchronization when connectivity is restored.

73 Simple cashier interface with minimal clicks for high-volume processing.

Compatibility with receipt printers, cash drawers, card readers, credit card machines, and check scanners. Hardware support must remain current, with reasonable transitional support for legacy equipment.

75 Solution should have compatibility with barcode scanners. N

76 Kiosk or self-service station compatibility. N

Ability for an online self-service payment portal to accept credit cards, echecks, and other digital payment options. N

System must support electronic check draft delivery to financial institutions (Check 21 / Remote Deposit Capture).

The system should allow authorized users to complete check transactions when a check scanner malfunctions.

80 Ability to scan invoices to auto-populate payment information.

The system should allow receipt layouts to be configured by office location and include State branding.

82 The system should provide interactive tutorials and help content for end users. N

83 The solution shall have the ability to set configuration changes by an effective date.

Ability to restrict forms of payment by product or service being purchased and by related accounting rules.

Ability to correct transaction details (items purchased or accounting codes) in case of cashier error.

The solution should support archiving of historical data and continued retrieval and review of archived records, including attachments.

The solution should allow authorized users to close a designated period so that no additional transactions can be posted to that period.

The solution should allow users to flag a returned or dishonored check and its related properties.

89 Ability to auto-close batches.

Provide in-application messaging and alerts, including on-demand and persistent notifications.

91 Ability to copy and edit existing configuration.

92 Batches should be visible regardless of cashiers activation status.

The Vendor should describe its maintenance process, including bug fixes, security patches, release management, and customer notifications.

Ability to configure forms of payment by product, program type, or service being purchased and related accounting rules.

The solution must allow a payment type (e.g., service or transaction category) to consist of one or more allocation items. Each allocation item must support separate accounting distributions, revenue classifications, and reporting while remaining associated with the parent payment type.

Authorized administrators must be able to define allowable transaction date ranges, including restrictions on prior, current, and future dates.

Ability to create deposits from one or more cashier batches and consolidate batches into a single deposit where authorized.

Ability to maintain separate deposits by payment method, bank account, location, agency, business unit, or other configurable criteria.

99 Ability to configure batch numbering, naming, opening, closing, and approval rules.

100 Ability to manually or automatically open batches based on configurable business rules.

Ability to reopen a closed batch when authorized, with reason codes and full audit history.

Ability to prevent modification of finalized batches except by specifically authorized roles.

103 Ability to transfer responsibility for an open batch when a cashier becomes unavailable.

Ability to view batch status, transaction count, expected amount, actual amount, and variance.

Ability to search and retrieve historical batches across locations and agencies subject to security permissions.

106 Ability to calculate and record cashier overages and shortages during balancing.

Ability to require a reason code and/or explanation when a variance exceeds a configurable threshold.

108 Ability to configure approval requirements based on variance amount.

109 Ability to distinguish cash drawer variance from deposit variance.

110 Tender totals must reconcile to the batch total

The solution shall support configurable accounting distribution or equivalent predefined accounting distributions to facilitate transaction entry. Users shall be able to select a accounting distribution and have the associated accounting values automatically populated, including Company, Business Unit, Department, and other required ChartFields/accounting values. Authorized users shall also be able to allocate a single transaction across multiple accounting distributions by dollar amount or percentage.

Accounting distribution combinations can be restricted by collection point, cashier, location, Company, Business Unit, Department, product/service, or user role.

Users with appropriate security can correct or reallocate accounting after entry, subject to period/status controls.

FINANCIAL AND ACCOUNTING REQUIREMENTS

Seamless posting of transactions to the accounts receivable module of the State ERP system.

The solution should support scheduled daily synchronization of accounting distributions and real-time synchronization when configuration updates require it.

Provide daily reconciliation summaries, including cashier totals, variance reporting, and deposit logs.

117 Provide integrated bank reconciliation or compatible export capabilities.

118 Maintain audit trails recording every transaction, adjustment, and applicable user action.

Support compliance with applicable local, State, and Federal financial regulations and policies governing cash handling and receipts.

120 Ability to generate Image Cash Letter (ICL) reports.