Homewood finance director asks finance committee to recommend Synovus Bank as depository ahead of accounting software upgrade

Lester Smith, Homewood’s finance director, asked the city’s finance committee to recommend that the City Council approve Synovus Bank as a depository, saying the change is timed to support a scheduled upgrade to the city’s accounting software. “We’re asking the finance committee to recommend the city council the approval of Synovus Bank as a depository,” Smith said during a presentation to council members and Synovus representatives.

Smith said the accounting upgrade from Encode 9 to Encode 10 is scheduled to kick off Jan. 20 and is due to go live May 1; he told the committee that delaying the project would push the go-live date into the next calendar year. He said the finance department is prioritizing internal controls, with the treasury function and payroll identified as the highest risks.

Synovus Bank representatives presented services they said would support those goals. Laura Clark, the local Synovus leader, described the bank as a relationship-focused institution and introduced Jared Bass, the bank’s government solutions relationship manager, and Annie Scott, a treasury management specialist. Bass and Scott outlined a business process review to document workflows for accounts receivable, payables and reconciliations, and they described fraud-mitigation tools, daily data feeds for reconciliation and controls for transfers and card programs.

Scott described Synovus’s commercial “virtual card” product (referred to in the presentation as the Synovus 1 card or “ghost” card) and said it would allow some credit-card purchases to be preapproved and routed into accounts payable so documentation is captured up front. She also explained a SmartSafe receivables solution that uses a secure drop safe and an armored-courier service (Loomis) to credit deposits the next day and provide detailed denomination reporting.

Jared Bass discussed pricing and account structure. He said Synovus proposes reducing the city’s roughly 30 accounts to about 10 core accounts, all earning interest at an indexed rate Bass described as “fed funds minus 75 basis points,” which was presented in the proposal as 3.75% at current fed funds levels. Synovus projected that change would yield approximately $132,000 a month after fees, and the bank’s proposal includes an earnings credit rate of 40 basis points (0.40%) to offset fees.

Smith said the bank services would be integrated with the upcoming Encode update—the documented workflows from Synovus would be built into the accounting system. He also emphasized governance and signature authority: the finance director said he is not authorized to sign checks or wire money in his current role, and the council will need to specify authorized signers in any depository resolution.

Council members asked for references and comparison information. Synovus offered client references and detail appendices; Synovus representatives identified other governmental clients in Alabama and said their team supports governments across five states. Smith said the item will appear on the council agenda as “Other New Business” for a formal vote on Monday and that the finance committee is being asked to make a recommendation before that vote.

No formal motion or vote on a depository was recorded during the presentation. The discussion included multiple clarifications about segregation of duties, dual controls for transfers, fewer but segregated accounts, and operational changes to reduce fraud risk and simplify reconciliation before the Encode go-live.