By COLE REIF
Great Bend Post
The City of Great Bend’s current finance software is through Tyler Technologies. The current solution includes general ledger, payroll, accounts payable and utility billing. The software company notified the city that their solution would reach its end of life and retired by the end of 2026.
Great Bend staff sat through three software demos with different companies, and City Clerk Shawna Schafer said staff liked the product from Edmunds GovTech.
"My staff all sat in on the demo," said Schafer. "It was a majority...we all really liked the Edmunds GovTech. It looked a lot more user-friendly. They have a lot of features that I think will be beneficial for the city."
The Great Bend City Council approved the quote from Edmunds GovTech for the finance software for $98,778. Of the final cost, $59,715 is a one-time conversion fee and just over $39,063 is the annual fee.
"All of my bank reconciliations are manual, I do them by hand," said Schafer. "This will be automated for me. Our 941s, we do that manually, that'll be a click of the button. It auto-formulates for you. There are some features that are really going to speed up our processes."
The funding for the software is coming from a year-end transfer to the capital equipment fund. This was an overage in the police station sales tax money. The council had the consensus to transfer the money back to the general fund to replenish a portion of the $250,000 year-end transfer to the police station fund in 2023.