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Bristol considers moving municipal finance systems to BSNA/Voice cloud
Summary
At its June 17 work session, the council heard a presentation from Parker Bright of BSNA/Voice proposing migration of Bristol's Keystone/Voice finance and billing software to a cloud-hosted ERP. The vendor cited frequent backups and multifactor authentication; council raised questions about local backups, cost and annual pricing terms.
Parker Bright, a representative of BSNA/Voice, told the Bristol Town Council at its June 17 work session that the town could migrate its Keystone/Voice municipal billing and finance systems to a cloud-hosted ERP the company calls "Voice Cloud." Bright described BSNA as a 40-year firm serving roughly 3,000 local-government customers and emphasized continuous updates, security measures and data redundancy.
Bright said the system would be accessible from any internet-connected device, that customer instances would run in Microsoft Azure, and that the vendor's platform backs up data "every 20 minutes" and can fail over between two data centers located in Arizona and Virginia. He said the company offers multifactor authentication as part of its security package.
The presentation prompted questions from council members and staff about data ownership, backups and cost. Town staff asked whether the town's on-premises server could be retained as a local backup; Bright said he would "check into" local backup options but described the Azure instance as the town's dedicated instance. He also said contract language would state that the town retains its data.
Council members asked about pricing. A staff exchange during the meeting indicated the town's current annual cost for the finance product is in the low thousands; Bright and staff noted a proposed annual fee of "$49.85" as presented during the conversation and discussed a pilot discount in the range of approximately $14,000 to $15,750 for an initial onboarding package. Bright also said BSNA assesses price increases tied to either 5% or a published index ("5% or TPI whichever is greater").
Questions about authentication elicited a demonstration of available multifactor options. Bright said the vendor commonly uses Duo but that other authenticator apps are supported; council members indicated the town already uses Duo.
The vendor's presentation concluded with an offer to provide the town additional pricing detail and contract language for review. Council did not take a formal vote; staff said they would follow up with contract details and clarify backup and security specifics before a procurement decision.
Ending
Staff will obtain written pricing and contract language and confirm whether a local backup option can be retained in addition to the Azure-hosted instance. The town will also verify the annual cost figure cited in the presentation before making any procurement decisions.
