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Goodyear finance director outlines Munis integrations, aims to optimize payroll and payment imports by spring
Summary
Finance Director Jared Askelson reviewed the city's core financial system (Tyler Munis), listed current data-imports and manual-entry pain points, and said integrations for payroll/timekeeping and other systems will be optimized by next spring.
Jared Askelson, Goodyear finance director, presented a plan Oct. 6 to identify, evaluate and prioritize integrations between the city's financial system and a variety of operational software.
Askelson said the city's core financial platform is Tyler Technologies' Munis system, implemented in fiscal 2018, and that Munis is used for multiple modules but not every specialized function. He described three types of data transfer: full data integration (bi-directional and reconciled by the system), automated or manual data import (point-in-time transfers), and manual duplicate entry.
The nut graf: Askelson said the highest near-term priorities are human-resources and payroll integrations, which are tied to earlier payroll and timekeeping assessment responses; the city aims to optimize those integrations by spring of next year and will report progress to the audit committee and council.
Askelson named specific systems and pain points: timekeeping systems (ExecuTime, Telestaff, SubItUp) currently feed time entries into Munis, but employee records still must be entered manually into multiple systems. Recruiting/onboarding via NeoGov requires duplicate data entry. Payment processors and functional systems — Accela (development services), ambulance billing, court case management (Arizona Judicial Automated Case System), and the parks and recreation Fusion system — include both automated imports and manual entry that staff must reconcile.
He said the city will ask the internal auditor to review the Acela import process and then expand similar import controls to other payment-processing systems. On utility billing, the city will import trash-can inventory into Munis and improve address imports between GIS and Munis by implementing business rules to reconcile address formatting differences. For budgeting, Questica currently exchanges data with Munis but capital projects in TDX are double-entered; options include importing from TDX directly into Munis or adding an intermediary import.
Council members asked about system updates and how the city keeps integrations working when vendors release patches or upgrades. Askelson said the city maintains a testing regimen and monitors vendor update cycles, and noted that some integrations can break when modules are updated.
Ending: Askelson said supplemental funds were used to purchase vendor tool sets needed for integrations, that staff and IT will continue to work with partner departments, and that the internal-audit program will help prioritize projects based on risk.
