Provision of Finance System

Description

With Sage 1000 at end of life and support ceasing in December 2024, the Finance System Replacement Project will procure and implement a new and modern finance system, to replace Sage 1000 and V1. In addition, the project will review and refresh our processes and procedures, introducing new ways of working in Finance and Procurement, introducing automation where possible. The introduction of a modern cloud solution will enable improved integration, a functionally richer system minimising manual tasks, the introduction of data visualisations and reduction of organisational risk. This will improve productivity and produces cost efficiencies in the longer term. This will lead to effective use of resources, providing taxpayers value for money. In addition, post pandemic accelerated enhanced hybrid working, resulting in the need for flexible authorisation methods. A key requirement of the new system is to accommodate this way of working. As part of the procurement process, the Authority conducted preliminary market engagement in September and October 2023 to refine our requirement and as a fact finding exercise to understand the market, the types of solutions available, compliant route to market to conduct the procurement exercise, costs to procure the systems and cost, time and effort needed in implementing the system and whether our draft specification was clear and concise for the suppliers to bid for the tender. Prior Information Notice (PIN) was published on the Find a Tender portal on 29th August 2023 and a corrigendum changing the modalities of the market engagement exercise was published on 5th September 2023 to invite suppliers for market engagement exercise. The Authority utilised G Cloud 14 Framework under CCS to award the contract.