Cookeville To Begin First Phase Of Streamlining Processes

Cookeville has selected a firm to the first phase of its initiative to streamline processes throughout the city’s operations.

During Monday’s Council Work Session, Cookeville Finance and Accounting Director Brenda Imel said the city has chosen Soft Resources LLC. She said first, the company will check all of the city’s software processes and recommend improvements.

“They are going to look at our timekeeping, our HR, our accounting software, our purchasing software, all that kind of stuff,” Imel said. “There’s a lot of it that we do manually. We have some that still fill out time sheets.”

Imel said if the city decides to proceed with phase two, the company would help the city draft an RFP for a new software provider. City Manager James Mills said he believes the service will make city operations much more efficient.

“We spend a lot,” Mills said. “Of course, everybody does nowadays, and it’s the recurring costs that get you. But, we want to be as efficient and cost-effective as we can. Plus, we want some functionality out of this.”

Council will vote on phase one of Enterprise Resource Planning Consulting Thursday. Imel said the agreement is not to exceed $58,000.

Mills said this has been needed for many years. He said the city still uses pen and paper for things that many cities have done virtually for years. He said many city departments use separate software, many of which do not cooperate well. He said the firm the city has chosen has a wealth of experience in helping cities function more smoothly. Council Member Ali Bagci said the benefit is clear.

“Just being able to automate,” Bagci said. “Being able to have a portal page where you can get revenue without having personal interactions of the amount of payments and things like that you can have during a day. You can probably exponentiate because everybody’s just hitting their own little partial page. I think it’s great.”

Imel said after the firm highlights the city’s specific needs, they can bring in potential vendors for scripted demonstrations that require vendors to prove that their software can perform the tasks that the city would need it to. She said the firm would remain independent and not advise the city on which vendor to choose, but offer all information available about those vendors.