PSI welcomes La Verne, CA to the user group

After a great deal of due diligence and months of painstaking research of available products, the City of La Verne deemed PSI's AlarmTrack™ to be the most efficient and viable option available.

Also in the running was Crywolf (who is strong in marketing). We would love to learn from the Crywolf marketing team how to obtain sole source agreements without prompting the client to consider other solutions.

When functionality, flexibility and top notch service are important, PSI is usually selected as the best option!

MailCentral processes 59,000 Tax Statements

This week, the City of Oakland via PSI's MailCentral service has processed over 59,000 tax statements. In addition to the tax statements, also included with each statement was one or more pages of inserted instructions and a return envelope.

Accounts with returned mail will be marked quickly and easily by staff to ensure USPS postal discount requirements are met so the cheapest possible rates are obtained. For more information see the link below:

http://ribbs.usps.gov/99_testing/documents/tech_guides/MUProcessGuide.pdf

For maximum efficiency, returns will be processed via lockbox for automated input into LicenseTrack!

Case Study: City of Oakland

Learn how the City of Oakland, CA has benefited from the use of our software. Take a look at the new case study available at http://progressivesolutions.com/.

Orange County and Brea Fires

To say that our user conference was red hot is clearly an understatement.
Soot and ash originating a mile away currently obscure the sky and are landing at our office grounds.
However, PSI is confident that the fire departments on the scene will successfully maintain the situation.
It has been said that the four seasons in California are: Fire, Flood, Earthquake and Drought. Lets hope the flood season is skipped this year.

Code Enforcement Officer Killed

On Thursday November 13th 2008, code enforcement officer Rodney Morales, 40, was shot while investigating a routine zoning complaint in Aurora, Colorado. He was taken to a local hospital where he was pronounced dead about an hour later. Police are searching for the killer and have announced there is a $10,000 reward for information leading to the shooter’s arrest and conviction. Our thoughts go out to his family. For more information visit: http://www.denverpost.com/breakingnews/ci_10976011?source=rss

Progressive Solutions' User Conference

The annual PSI user conference was held at the Clarion in Anaheim and attended by 44 individuals. Those lucky few witessed the latest enhancements and multi-system integrations. 60 individuals attended the Club 33 function.
Thank you all for attending and special thanks to our keynote cities of Monterey and Oakland.
Ask any of our attendees to see if there was benefit to be had. Steve Jones of El Segundo was pleased to inform the group that recent use of our RevenueTrack module brought in $250,000 of additional licensing revenue and that PSI software made it so easy.
If you were unable to attend, we look forward to seeing you next year!

City of Oakland Gains Efficiency with Lockbox Functionality

The City of Oakland has sucessfully completed negotiations with Bank of America regarding the format and operating procedures to be used for processing up to 80,000 city business tax renewal payments.

PSI has successfully accomodated the import specifications.

The new procedures are expected to significantly reduce the labor expended in the processing of tax returns using the previous process.

'Red Flags' Rule Delayed to 5/1/2009

The Federal Trade Commission will suspend enforcement of the new 'Red Flags Rule' until May 1, 2009. To access the complete article please visit the link below:
http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2008/10/redflags.shtm

Clarion Extends Room Block Deadline to Friday

The Clarion Hotel graciously agreed to extend the room reservation deadline (and the corresponding rate) until midnight this Friday, October 17th, 2008 for the PSI User Conference.

Website Upgrades

New features arrive! In the continuing effort to breathe life into the PSI website, accessibility and aesthetics have received some attention:

Forums

A forum has been made available for our customers to facilitate communication and to make sure questions do not go unanswered. Check it out!

Product Pages

Visually and functionally, the product pages have been given a new personality. Visitors will be able to more easily find information and assistance if needed. Pages are being updated progressively; please excuse the dust.

Events

The Progressive Solutions News blog now sports a fancy new Event feed providing a listing of upcoming events and links to their details.

Are You Using an Out-dated Browser?

Do many of the sites you visit appear to be "broken?" —perhaps it's time to let that old browser retire.

Using an up-to-date browser ensures that your experience is safe and most enjoyable —accessibility is our top priority. Our site looks so nice because it was designed adhering to standards agreed upon for just that purpose. Many browsers of auld don't render a webpage with these standards in mind.

Upgrade Today!

PSI to power National Bureau of Business Licensing Officials

For several years, PSI has been actively involved as a member of NBBLO.
We are pleased to announce that PSI has been selected by the NBBLO to provide membership management functionality to facilitate annual renewals, on-line member information access, internet forums and conference registration starting with next year's Atlanta conference.
We look forward to assisting the NBBLO to provide enhanced member services.

Red Flags Rule of the Identity Theft Program (FACT Act)

PSI is pleased to report that the current release of each PSI software application is configurable to facilitate Red Flags Rule (part of the Identity Theft Program) identification and notification compliance. Reporting to facilitate monitoring and augmented security shall be available by the due date of 11/8/2008.
PSI staff shall also incorporate Red Flag Rule automation opportunities during their presentations at: CMRTA in San Francisco-October of 2008 and the PSI User Conference in Anaheim-November of 2008.

National City goes live with AlarmTrack

Today National City staff received go live training for their new False Alarm Billing application from Progressive Solutions. Staff greatly appreciates the similar look and feel to the other PSI applications currently in use namely: CodeTrack™, ParcelTrack™, PetTrack™, LicenseTrack™ and Ca$hierCentral.
In fact even though two days of training were scheduled, after only one day of training staff was confident enough to go live.
The extra day will be used to provide ad-hoc training as requested.
According to Staff, the system is light years ahead of their prior system (Encompass) and offers substantial efficiencies.

Automation & Efficiency

We just received a competitor's newsletter which touted the company's recent service of "Delivering Efficiency to Government".
It has been said that imitation is the greatest form of flattery.
As Progressive Solutions has been providing seminars in this area for years, it seems the competition may have picked up a tid bit from our seminars.
Items that we have been offering for over a decade (and in some cases even three decades) we occasionally see an allegation that others offer similar functionality (i.e. zip+4).
Unfortunately, this is usually far from the truth as implementation of these concepts generally requires years to perfect to the level PSI offers today.

Earthquake Results

In the past the City of Brea had been voted as one of the best places in America to live. This morning Brea's proximity to Chino Hills did not add to that distinction.

In light of the earthquake, we at PSI are in good shape and had been authorized to check on our homes and family. We hope everyone else is also safe and sound.

PSI's highly rated support services resumed 8am 7/30/2008.

West Hollywood Live on AlarmTrack

PSI, in a string of successes, was selected as the best overall fit for the City of West Hollywood's requirements. Items considered were: cost effectiveness, flexibility and ease of use.

Another competitor, HDL, was already entrenched at the city. When they learned of the city's decision to go with PSI, they dramatically lowered their price in a last ditch attempt to change the minds of city staff.
As the value offered by PSI was self evident, the decision to stay with PSI did not waiver.

Once the city tendered all required data and information, in less than 30 days, data was converted, city staff trained and the city went live with AlarmTrack.

During the data conversion, PSI was able to identify unpaid fees that would not have been otherwise identified which is expected to net approximately $1000.

Fresno to obtain LicenseTrack, PetTrack & Ca$hierCentral

The incumbent HTE system is and has been woefully inadequate for many years. Given the current budgetary situation, efficiency via automation and the ability to collect virtually all outstanding tax revenue is more critical now than ever before!

After reviewing several vendor offerings over a period of more than four years, the city ultimately issued a Request for Proposal which detailed their specific unique requirements.

Vendors were to provide integrated Central Cashiering, Pet & Business Licensing applications that could be tailored to meet all city requirements. During the evaluation process, of the 22 potential bidders and 4 respondents, PSI was the only vendor capable of meeting all their requirements and the majority of their needs out of the box. When taking into account PSI's top rated customer support and automation experience, it soon became clear that PSI was far ahead of the pack!

Oakland live with LicenseTrack & Ca$hierCentral

After months of thorough PSI & City of Oakland staff testing for Oakland's unique requirements and three days intensive training of 50 city staff members, the final converted data was installed at the city. According to Bill Milny: "Staff members are excited and anxious to use their new software". Production use of the software to manage the city's annual $200 million revenue stream will begin Tuesday! We are very pleased with the entire PSI package and will greatly benefit from the document scanner integration as well the integrated Ca$hierCentral slip/validation printers. We fully expect the efficiencies offered in LicenseTrack to dramatically augment our revenue and look forward to using the RevenueTrack functionality.

PSI certified by MadeInTheUSA.org

Unlike many vendors who pop up in the municipal marketplace, dollars paid to us are spent in the US & Puerto Rican economy. Our highest rated solutions result from US staff members who handily compete with those outside the US with less experience and dedication to the municipal marketplace.
No longer do you need to report issues to those with poor English skills.
If your operation prefers support and software that was designed to meet your current needs and grow to accommodate even your unspoken needs, we are your optimal solution!

Gardena now supports the Korean Language & Characterset

Gardena is now live with PSI's multi-lingual business registration look up.
Gardena's web business registration search currently supports English, French, Spanish & Korean (with Korean characters). PSI's customer facing software has been redesigned to accommodate virtually any language preference.

We believe we are still the first vendor to offer this functionality in a commercial off the shelf solution! This functionality does not rely on rather limited automated translations. Instead the services of language experts facilitate an extremely professional result.

Feel free to test drive the Gardena flavor of our search engine by clicking on the link below:

https://secure.ci.gardena.ca.us/weblookup/Default.aspx

San Bernardino registration search now multi-lingual

San Bernardino is now live with PSI's new multi-lingual business registration look up.
While the San Bernardino web business registration search currently supports only English & Spanish, the software was designed to accommodate virtually any language preference.

We believe we are the first vendor to offer this functionality in a commercial off the shelf solution! This functionality does not rely on rather limited automated translations. Instead the services of language experts facilitate an extremely professional result.

Feel free to test drive our search engine by clicking on the link below:

https://secure.sbcity.org/websearch/

San Bernardino updated to streamlined penalty calcs

The ability for San Bernardino staff to calculate penalties, interest and extended enforcement fees for multiple years was implemented today and now requires only one click for all calculations. Staff may override the calculations per city standard operational procedures.
This facility encourages the correct calculation by staff of amounts due and reduces staff effort previously required as a result of complex manual calculations.

This feature in now a standard feature in LicenseTrack™, our business registration application!

As part of ongoing maintenance, Progressive Solutions offers updates to its customers as new features are added.

This business practice is unique in our industry and offers customer benefits which far exceed the competition's model of having to purchase upgrades.

Monterey parking permit efficiency

The City of Monterey implemented the ability to post multiple parking permit payments using barcodes in just seconds. In addition, we added a no charge custom manual update feature for the city at the request of Gary Baker. This functionality enables each individual permit to either have the expiration date automatically updated or to ensure that staff individually address citizens with non standard payment procedures.

This automation is expected to reduce staff time so they may focus on their future endeavor of enabling citizens to pay their parking permits via the internet.

San Bernardino live with QuickServe Document Imaging

Previously it took a great deal of time for San Bernardino staff to manually locate historical documents associated with an account. Staff no longer need search through a mountain of paper files or question if all documents have been located.
Documents are now automatically attached to business registration accounts.
Retrieval at any time in the future is just a click away.
PSI's high speed document imaging accepts either letter or legal sized documents and the scanner can read either single or double sided documents in a single pass.
PSI offers & supports integration with 2 high speed scanners (from 50-66 ipm) with various capabilities and prices starting at $899.

San Fernando goes live with Check Imaging

Today the City of San Fernando implemented PSI's Check Imaging Solution using a back office configuration and added an additional cashiering register. Out of four total registers, three have been configured for Backoffice Check imaging. Check imaging is often used to associate receipts with the check images used for payment. In the event a refund is requested, imaging efficiently enables City staff to identify the maker of a check so that refunds are properly issued. All check images are retained and stored in an encrypted state.

PSI renews Microsoft Gold Partnership

PSI renewed our Gold Partnership agreement with Microsoft until 3/31/2009.
Thanks to our clients for their references and support.
We will continue to offer the latest technologies and work to increase workplace efficiency.

Ca$hierCentral passes Microsoft Platform Testing

Today Veritest (a division of LionBridge) notified us that Ca$hierCentral had passed Platform Testing for ISV Solutions. This Microsoft™ certification program was designed to ensure that vendors meet Microsoft's rigid and constantly enhanced requirements (such as the new Clickonce functionality).

Santa Barbara implements PSI Enhanced Tax Management Software

The City of Santa Barbara Business Tax Division has implemented PSI's enhanced Tax Management Module for Parking Benefit, Utility User & Transient Occupancy Taxes. PSI's module allows for automatic calculation of penalties, interest and admin fees. In addition, new reports enable staff to readily identify those businesses who are in arrears.
Future opportunities include the ability for businesses to renew their business & pay other taxes via the web.

Exclusive Distribution in Commonwealth of Puerto Rico

Progressive Solutions Inc. is pleased to announce our exclusive representatives in Puerto Rico. Sunrise Solutions of Puerto Rico now offers a vast array of PSI products and will be providing implementation and support services to ensure prompt service outside of the continental US. We look forward to assisting the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico to obtain the benefits of automation found in the PSI suite of products. For more information on Sunrise Solutions visit www.sunrisesolutionspr.com.

Monterey Updates Parking Expirations at Cash Merge

Last week the City of Monterey received a custom software enhancement to ParkingTrack that automatically updates parking permit expiration dates when they merge their payments. Previously they had to either run an extraneous register or manually update expiration dates. The new process is expected to save a staff effort and to minimize errors.

City of Highland Live with Check Imaging

After hardware installation and minimal training last Friday, City of Highland staff today began scanning all checks via Ca$hierCentral, their integrated central cashiering solution. Research to identify the original payee and the capability of transmitting checks electronically were the main reasons the City prompted by Terry Rhodes went with the PSI imaging solution.

Hilton Head Island live with Web Business & Tax Payments

After extensive testing to ensure the PSI software met the Town's high expectations, Hilton Head Island staff today enabled businesses to pay their Business fees and taxes via PSI's Internet Business Registration Renewals and Internet Tax Management offering.

Of keen interest to the town was the ability to restrict renewal of a business license when all associated taxes are not current. In addition, PSI modified the base software to allow extensive customization of the application itself to reflect the town's exact verbage. The town also requested implementation of a credit card payment limit (A $2,500 limit which we accommodated at no additional cost).

Also implemented was an internet business license lookup. PSI accommodated the town desires to provide wild card and non wild card lookups and to display complete address information. Click on the link below if you would like to review the town's new internet functionality.

http://www.hiltonheadislandsc.gov/

Glendale Police Department Alarm Update

Progressive Solutions delivers custom work for the Glendale Police department for their false alarm billing software.

Alarm track now has the ability to add a penalty for accounts that have not paid any part of their balance for a user defined number of days. All Quickserve products have the added ability to filter active and inactive accounts when processing delinquent invoices.

Oceanside live w PSI Occupancy Tax Management

The City of Oceanside is live with PSI's Occupancy Tax Management Module. PSI's tax permit functionality automatically calculates not only the occupancy tax due, but also penalties, interest and administration fees. Identification of delinquent accounts and their unfiled taxes saves the city significant staff effort.

January 2008 Credit Card Payments

In January 2008 over $500,000 in credit card transactions were processed using PSI's integrated credit card functionality. The number of transactions processed was in excess of 3100. Annualized payments are expected to exceed $6 million in just credit card payments alone.

PSI systems also process all the non credit card payments in our over 100 deployed applications used by over 350 users.

If you desire greater efficiency, contact Progressive. All PSI products may be enabled to accept credit card transactions. Other opportunities are Internet Business Search & Renewals, individual internet payments (such as parking citations) or consolidate all city payments via PSI's OneStop.

San Bernardino Business Lookup

The City of San Bernardino has implemented the Progressive Solutions Business License Lookup on their customized version on their Intranet (for City Staff) and internet for the public.
https://secure.sbcity.org/websearch/

Progressive Solutions in The Beaufort Gazette

Progressive Solutions appears in The Beaufort Gazette: "Hilton Head Island to get new computer software." The article highlights the benefits of using our software:

• "Good customer service is access to information,"
  
• "It's designed to improve the flow of information to the customer and not tying up staff,"
  
• "A lot of it is just designed around looking at and building a data system to ... make sure we are policing the community appropriately,"

 - Deputy finance director Steven Markiw

http://www.beaufortgazette.com/local/story/130764.html

City of Riverbank goes live with LicenseTrack

City of Riverbank, with 21,492 residents, goes live with LicenseTrack.