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Fort Branch council approves contract to move town finance and billing to VoiceCloud
Summary
The Fort Branch Town Council voted to sign a contract with Voice Systems to replace the locally hosted Keystone financial and billing software with the vendor's VoiceCloud service, citing improved backups, disaster recovery and a new payment portal; the contract carries a $1,000 signing fee, an annual fee of $38,110 and training costs.
The Fort Branch Town Council on Jan. 15 approved a contract with Voice Systems to migrate the town's Keystone financial and utility-billing software to the vendor's cloud product, VoiceCloud. The vendor said the system will be hosted in Microsoft Azure, will use multifactor authentication and will maintain automated backups and redundant U.S. data centers for disaster recovery.
Parker, the vendor representative, told the council the cloud product supports remote access, real-time payment posting and an integrated payment processor that aims to reduce nonsufficient-funds transactions. "As long as you have an internet connection and a device you will be able to access the software from anywhere," Parker said when describing remote access and the customer portal.
Council members pressed for cost and implementation details. Parker outlined a payment schedule that includes a $1,000 invoice at contract signing, a second payment of $38,110 when the town goes live (projected late July or August), and a training payment not to exceed $23,275 based on an estimated 19 training days; the vendor also quoted an annual fee of $38,110. Council discussion referenced estimated server maintenance costs the town currently pays (about $2,500 per year) and a typical multi-year server replacement cost (vendor estimated roughly $10,000) when comparing on-premises maintenance to the cloud subscription.
The council voted to proceed. A motion to sign the contract and authorize the vendor to send the DocuSign agreement was seconded and approved by voice vote.
The contract approval does not change existing governmental oversight or audit requirements. Council members said the recurring annual fee will be split among relevant funds (general, water, sewer and stormwater) to lessen the single-account impact on next year's budget. Stacy Alers, who handled budget questions during the meeting, said the town had anticipated a maintenance increase and planned to distribute the cost across funds.
Next steps: the vendor will send the DocuSign contract and invoice; the council will execute the agreement to schedule an August go-live and on-site training. The council requested follow-up information on realized savings (for example, printing and auditor travel reductions) after several months of operation.
