06-24-2019 Council Packet - Laserfiche WebLink

Home Browse Search

()Civic Systems STRONG SOFTWARE, STRONG COMMUNITY Civic Systems' latest version of its financial and utility billing software suite, entitled Connect, provides enhanced internal controls allowing the Administrators to keep a watchful eye on every financial transaction. One of the major reasons for the enhanced security is to accommodate the new Risk Assessment Standards. Connect takes full advantage of the Microsoft SQL (SQL) database engine. The SQL engine provides enhanced security features to ensure that the raw data is secure and difficult to access providing better security and tracking capabilities to detect fraudulent activities in the financial system. The City/Village/County/Town's current system may lack these security features and, as a result, the raw data is susceptible to manipulation. Many legacy software packages that municipalities use lack security features that, if operated improperly, would not allow for the identification of changes made to the financial data and who made those changes. In addition to providing better security to data, Connect gives the system Administrator the ability to enforce login password rules. These password rules include such things as setting a minimum length password, requiring both alpha and numeric characters; establish the number of failed login attempts before the user is locked out, and mandating that passwords be changed regularly without the capability to reuse old passwords. Connect also provides better tracking of data changes within the software. Connect users have the ability to track changes or deletions on any field. The system will time and date stamp the user that made the modification. This log will provide you with what the change was, who changed it, when it was changed along with tracking the field's new and old values. The system can easily provide reports on the instances where changes occurred. Additionally, Connect has the ability to generate an email when changes are made on specific fields so that appropriate people are notified of the change. The following is an example of field level security tracking by Vendor name with Connect: Internal Controls Civic Systems, is a wholly owned Subsidiary of Baker Tilly, LLC with over 100 employees dedicated to public sector audits. We have worked with several communities on establishing Internal Control Committees and providing specific plans to maintain proper checks and balances. Connect also enables you to keep confidential information from being manipulated by allowing you to restrict access to certain fields within the application. The software will also allow you to establish triggers within the system to alert administration of specific field changes and deletions. Reporting The report writer is one of the biggest differentiating features of the Connect suite of software. Users truly have access to all data contained in the system. The system has numerous "canned reports" contained within each module. These reports can all be altered by the user by simply adding or selecting selection criteria and report order of fields within the database (including user -defined fields). If there is an instance where the user needs a report that is not already available, they have the ability to create one through the report writer. The report writer gives access to every table and its subsequent data within the system. All reports can be printed to file, Excel, network printer, PDF, etc. Best of all the reporting does not have to come only at month end but it can be viewed by department heads real time through the miViewPoint Dashboard. Each user will have real-time access only to the departments and employees that they are responsible for. This access gives them real time budget to actual, employee vacation balances and vendor payment history.