Examining the CMRTA 2013 Business License Software Survey

Progressive Solutions has been consistently rated as offering the premiere Business License software for many years as we mentioned in our previous blog post.

In February of 2013,  the City of Carson through CMRTA took a survey of cities asking for feedback  on their Business License Software systems.  Carson is expected to issue an RFP for an integrated software solution that will include cashiering, finance, and business license.

Carson's detailed survey questions below were sent out to over 300 California Cities:

1.  Which software do you use for Business licensing: Munis, Progressive Solutions, or other?

2.  Which software do you use for Business licensing: Munis, Progressive Solutions, or other?

3.  Does the software vendor regularly offer improved features and functionality?

4.  How satisfied are you with the support/help desk?

5.  How satisfied were you with their implementation?

6.  How satisfied were you with the cost?

7.  How satisfied were you with their training?

8.  Do they offer a business license specific user conference? Are you satisfied with their conference?

9.  Do they charge for version upgrades?

10. Do they have a history of successful integration with 3rd party software?

11. Do they charge for new reports?

12. Would you recommend implementation of their business registration/license module?
Cities who utilize Progressive Solutions for their business license software (who found the time to respond) overwhelmingly endorsed LicenseTrack.

Here is what some of our customers had to say:

"The support team is fantastic. They solve all questions and problems quickly and they are very easy to get in touch with…I have nothing but praise for their prompt and friendly assistance.”  City of Monterey

"Third party integration has been very successful on PSI’s behalf” City of Pleasanton
PSI received  no negative responses despite receiving the most feedback.  If you are interested you can contact Chris.Retzinger@progressivesolutions.com  to receive the complete survey.

In the future we will exam some past survey results.

CMRTA Conference 2013

This years' CMRTA Conference was once again a very successful learning and networking opportunity for all municipal and associate attendees.   At the Associate Members Appreciation Luncheon on Thursday, Progressive Solutions was the last vendor to speak and collectively thanked all the members for their ranking of the PSI software highest for the past decade of surveys they have taken and their responses.

Progressive Solutions provided the casino chips, and themed beverages for our sponsored Casino Royale Fundraiser for charity which was a hit and brought in over two thousand dollars, "topping the highest recent fundraiser record of about seventeen hundred dollars, by several hundred dollars" per Chuck Maurer, City of Oakland.

Congratulations are in order to our client, David McPherson of the City of Oakland for winning the CMRTA's Lighthouse reward for the seventh time.

We wish to thank our current customers for accepting our invitation and visiting our vendor booth on Thursday: the City of Oakland, the City of San Jose, the City of Orange, the City of San Bernardino, the City of Yucaipa, the City of El Segundo, the City of Gardena, and the City of Highland.

See you at the Progressive Solutions user conference in November!

LicenseTrack The Highest Rated Business License Software

It is not uncommon for a software vendor to boast that it is the "highest rated" solution or that it is "award winning". For example, the interested populace places the highest value on the Olympics principally because judges that are supposed to be impartial evaluate the greatest athletes from around the world when they compete head to head.

While in house customer satisfaction surveys are a great way to help improve a companies software, software surveys conducted where multiple systems for a particular purpose are compared and evaluated by a wide range of cities and users offer the most useful information for comparing systems.

Members of the CMRTA (California Municipal Tax and Revenue Association) every so often conduct software surveys and ask for other cities to answer a questionnaire of different aspects of both software functionality and support.  For business license software in particular, during the last decade Progressive Solutions has earned both the highest ratings as compared to other well known Business Tax Software systems and often the most customer participation.  They are more willing to go public with their thoughts and responses.  Our customers not only like our software but like to tell others about it as well. All published surveys we could find for business license software confirm that: Progressive Solutions LicenseTrack is currently the highest rated business license software system.

We will be doing a series of posts over the course of the next few week covering this years 2013 Business Tax Survey Results and previous years results as well.

The City of Antioch and Progressive Hosting

In an effort to cut costs and relieve overburdened IT departments of managing

secure software and database systems, many cities are considering remote hosting for their software solutions. It is unfortunate many web applications are still greatly lacking in the necessary features to run be an efficient choice for finance departments to consider remote hosting. LicenseTrack and the QuickServe Suite of products from PSI have now been proven to accommodate remote hosting!

Remote hosting removes the burden to City's information Technology departments to maintain and upgrade hardware including servers, and software including Windows and SQL and other software which would otherwise be hosted by the City.  Other considerations including the City maintaining their own PCI compliance must also be evaluated.

The City of Antioch recently worked with Progressive Solutions Inc to move their databases and software systems offsite to PSI and run them remotely from the city. Without having to sacrifice any existing functionality in their software system including the ability to directly scan 2 page color documents directly into LicenseTrack, they were able to complete this move in June of 2013.

In an effort to further reduce staff burden the City of Antioch also purchased and had PSI implement Web Renewals with great success.  Special thanks to both Stacy Lucchesi (Executive of Information Technology) and Josephine Castro for their contributions in making this project a successful one.

A partial list of immediate City benefits:
• Reduced IT burden
• Reduced City risk
• No receiving or opening mail if a customer pays via the web, versus via mail (saved staff time and saved trees!)
• No waiting on customer at the counter a customer pays via the web versus via walk-in, check or otherwise (saved staff time)
• No underpayments allowed via web, all required information IS REQUIRED (no extra handling time for underpayments, missing info)
• More compliance as there are now more (convenient) ways to pay (less time required to enforce)
• No going to the bank, & money available quickly (saved staff time)
• No manual entry of payments (saved staff time)
• No potential "lost checks" (whether by the PO or City staff) when a customer instead pays via web (more saved staff time)
• No bounced checks (saved staff time)
• All freed staff time can be used for further enforcement = even more revenue for City
• If our Web Payments Module cost is still an issue, we can implement in logical stages to keep within your budget

Some Benefits to Citizens
• Improved Citizen Service/convenience (their time savings)
• Reduced Traffic Congestion
• Reduced Auto Emissions
• Aid the Disabled business  customer Community
• Their desire to "Go Green" enabled by the City

Case Study: City of Pleasanton

The City of Pleasanton staff has now successfully utilized Progressive Solutions®

LicenseTrack™ business licensing application for over a year. Their prior system was undergoing obsolescence, an expensive upgrade, and lengthy beta testing.  The sheer number of tax payers made it desirable to streamline management of this tax function and simultaneously reduce staffing requirements.

After exploring what other cities used and reviewing PSI’s offering, along with over a decade of highest ratings by independent surveys, city staff were convinced that Progressive Solutions’s LicenseTrack™ was the obvious choice.  Staff may instantly identify outstanding tax periods and follow up appropriately either with phone calls or form letters. Calculation of penalties, interest and administrative fees is performed automatically upon the click of button.

LicenseTrack™, the business licensing system from Progressive Solutions® has enabled the City to obtain answers and make operating changes without programming or additional cost. Upgrades and minimal report customizations are included in the annual support fee so that ad hoc requirements do not require additional midyear budgeting. Their Web Renewals, Web Applications and automated Revenue Enhancement rounded out the ensemble, bringing Pleasanton into the 21st century!

Monterey Park Saves Big on Credit Card Processing

The City of Monterey Park went live recently with our multi-track Credit Card Processing. Multi-Track Credit Card processing (part of the Progressive Solutions Credit Engine) allows the City to take advantage of any discounts by segregating revenue. Credit Card companies typically offer lower rates for processing Utility Payments, which can provide savings of thousands of dollars each year.

PSI Virtual Opportunities

To ensure the lowest costs to our customers, to facilitate the greenest footprint possible and to maintain security for both PSI and customer operations, PSI offers support using virtual California offices in Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino and Los Angeles counties. PSI encourages our customers to consider using the PSI software in similar configurations to reap similar benefits.
We thank you all for the opportunity to be of service!

PSI welcomes Westfield, IN to the PSI fold!

The City of Westfield selected PSI's UtilityExplorer™ as the most viable option. PSI and city staff worked long hours to ensure the data was just as city management desired. When functionality, flexibility and top notch service are important, PSI is the only option!

Oakland Posts 4,800 Payments in One Day!

According to Revenue Manager, Steve Bullivant, on March 2nd,2011 Oakland posted approximately 4,800 payments to PSI's LicenseTrack by importing payments with PSI's lockbox import. These payments were the highest single day number of transactions processed to date and totaled approximately $5.2 Million dollars.

If you wish to make your operation more efficient, PSI is ready to help!
Our goal is to make you and your operation look your best!

Hemet's credit card acceptance now saves Time & Money

It used to take 2 persons 45 minutes per day to accept phone credit card payments.
Now with PSI's efficient Payment Connector it takes only seconds to accomplish the same task using CashierCentral. The fact the second staffer is NO LONGER REQUIRED makes a good situation even better.
Utility payments were previously subject to an almost 3% fee. Now with the PSI software those same credit card transactions quality for a flat 75 cent interchange fee.
Previously payments were accepted with the banks credit card hardware and then reentered at least one more time into the system that was being paid. Now with PSI one single entry is all that is required. The best feature according to Donna Rowley, Hemet Accounting Supervisor, is that when swiping a credit card, the name is automatically entered into the transaction history without additional key strokes.
Hemet has taken a quantum leap to reap the benefits of technology and plans to go even further by sending utility bills electronically and allowing residents to pay those bills via the internet.

PSI to sponsor and exhibit at 2011 NBBLO in New Orleans

As further demonstration of our commitment to the licensing industry, PSI has signed up to exhibit, lecture and sponsor the 2011 NBBLO conference in New Orleans from July 13th to July 15th.
Our presentation will review opportunities to benefit from mobile devices as well as the internet.
** PSI currently works in partnership with the NBBLO to facilitate conference activities and functions.
For more information visit: www.nbblo.org

New Software Product-CollectionTrack

Progressive Solutions recently partnered with the City of Oakland to develop CollectionTrack. Last year a member of the City of Oakland staff visited with Progressive Solutions staff for a few days to hammer out specificiations to automate the Collections division. Within less than one year a fully operational custom Collections tracking system is live and saving time/effort. Staff was so pleased with our efforts they presented PSI staff member, Michael Stanley, with a Citywide CollectionTrack award for a job well done.

PSI to exhibit at the CMRTA in Sacramento

For 30 years PSI has supported the California Municipal Revenue and Tax Association.
This year we will go back to the future in Sacramento.
The staff at PSI look forward to see you there!

PSI welcomes Suisun, CA to the PSI fold!

In another procurement where PSI was compared with the competition, the City of Suisun selected PSI's LicenseTrack™ as the most viable option. PSI and city staff worked long hours to ensure the data was just as city management desired. When functionality, flexibility and top notch service are important, PSI is the only option!

PSI welcomes Los Altos, CA to the PSI fold!

In another procurement where PSI was compared to other vendors, the City of Los Altos selected PSI's LicenseTrack™ as the most viable option. PSI and city staff worked long hours to ensure the data was just as city management desired. When functionality, flexibility and top notch service are important, PSI is the only option!

Gardena Food, Wine and Cigar Festival Tickets available via the internet

In addition to facilitating ticketing for the annual Gardena Jazz Festivals, Progressive Solutions now allows city residents to purchase tickets online for the annual Gardena Food, Wine and Cigar Festivals. The web application integrates with CashierCentral, enables the city to limit ticket sales to the spaces available and offers reporting on ticket fulfillment.
https://secure.ci.gardena.ca.us/fwcf

Monterey now encourages parking pass renewals via the internet

The City of Monterey now offers citizens the ability to renew parking permits via the internet. This saves city staff time and offers improved customer service.
Citizens may also review their permit statuses via the web as well.

PSI welcomes Orange, CA to the PSI fold!

After a great deal of due diligence and months of painstaking research of available products, the City of Orange deemed PSI's LicenseTrack™ to be the most efficient and viable option available. The runner up was HDL. When functionality, flexibility and top notch service are important, PSI is your best option!

San Jose CA live with AlarmTrack

The City of San Jose is the 3rd largest city in California. With a population of almost a millon citizens, only San Diego and Los Angeles rank higher. PSI now enables the city to retrieve false alarm incidents directly from their Computer Aided Dispatch (CAD) system. This functionality facilitates prompt billing and expedites customer payments to the city.
Next PSI will create an invoice data export for the city's central cashiering software to further ensure citizens are reminded of their outstanding balances.

PSI is the leader in Alarm Billing Technology. When compared with the most popular alarm software offerings, PSI clearly offers the most features and functionality.

PSI offers a suite of seamlessly integrated products as well to cities from the east coast to the west coast. They are also known for helping cities as small as California City or as large as Oakland, Fresno and San Bernardino.

Fresno CA live with LicenseTrack & CashierCentral

Fresno CA has been live with PSI's PetTrack and CashierCentral products since May of 2009.
Challenges associated with millions of history records and poor quality data have been overcome. Consequently, the final component, LicenseTrack, is now also live.

LicenseTrack facilitates many operational efficiencies and makes it less burdensome to shoulder staff reductions imposed as a result of budgetary cutbacks.

LicenseTrack's general ledger account capabilities offer full auditablity and a much more detailed picture for improved integration to their Oracle General Ledger.