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!

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!

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!

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.

MailCentral processes 77,880 Tax Statements

This past week, the City of Oakland via PSI's MailCentral service has processed over 77,880 tax statements. In addition to the tax statements, also included was one page of inserted instructions and a return envelope.

Returned mail may be quickly notated on the appropriate account for staff review to avoid unnecessary future mailings.

MailCentral ensures that 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!

Upon receipt of business tax payment and full compliance, most 2010 Business Licenses will be printed via MailCentral automation.

Web Business License Renewal Project Completions

Hawthorne, CA, Monterey, CA and National City are live with LicenseTrack Web Renewals and accepting internet payments for 2010 returns.

Monterey almost live with LicenseTrack web renewals

The City of Monterey will be offering businesses the ability to renew business licenses via the internet and is in final testing.
Businesses will also be able to review their status via the web as well.

San Bernardino offers businesses internet renewals

The City of San Bernardino now offers businesses the ability to renew their business licenses via the internet.
In addition, businesses may now review their status via the web as well.
San Bernardino recently added barcode and document scanning equipment to their arsonel to ensure maximum efficiency.

National City accepts Credit Cards over the counter

National City now accepts credit cards at CashierCentral & LicenseTrack Workstations with deposit of funds to their Bank of America Account.
In addition, Businesses may also renew their licenses via the internet & review their license status.

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!

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.

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.

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.