Client Profile: Clarkdale, AZ

Industry: Municipality
Tyler Client Since: 2008
Number of Employees: 36
Location: Clarkdale, Arizona
Tyler Product Used: Incode^®
Population: 4,000+

Situation Overview

In March 2016, the Community and Economic Development Department at the Town of Clarkdale, Arizona, was faced with a situation that’s all too familiar among local government agencies: a rapidly growing volume of work and an inability to hire additional staff. To address this issue, department staff knew they needed to maximize the efficiency of the processes and services across their organization — including their software.

The Evaluation

What followed was a full evaluation of the town’s use of the software system they had been running for nine years — Tyler’s Incode® solution. Additional town departments were consulted, calls were placed to Tyler’s Incode support team, Incode’s online manual was read, and potential process changes were tested. The results were surprising.

“What we discovered was a system rich with features that were underutilized or simply implemented incorrectly,” said Senior Planner Beth Escobar. “We discovered the knowledge and use of Incode that had been passed down from employee to employee over the years was outdated and didn’t utilize the system in the most effective way.”

Inefficiencies unearthed during Clarkdale’s process review included the incorrect processing of business licenses and creation of incomplete licenses, leading to incorrect balances on reports; underutilization of the comments section for building permits, inspection cards and occupancy certifications, leading to extensive manual data entry; and inaccurate and unreliable reports due to tracking permits outside of the Incode system.

“It was during this time that we discovered how intuitive Incode was and how big of an impact process changes and updates were going to have on our department,” Escobar said.

Implementing Process Changes and Reaching Peak Efficiency

In an effort to increase the efficiency of their front office functions, Escobar and the Community and Economic Development Department staff worked to identify key changes they could make to their business processes and workflow. These changes included clearing out incorrect outstanding balances, closing out old permits, creating new and working templates, and adding property information to permits.

“As we began to make changes and update our processes, our staff was pleasantly surprised to learn of Incode’s true capabilities,” Escobar said.

With their increased utilization of Incode, the Town of Clarkdale is now able to process business licenses, animal permits, and building projects quicker and more efficiently, as well as easily and accurately track their productivity with Incode’s reporting functionality.

Measurable Improvements

Today, the town’s average turnaround time for processing new home permits is 8.25 days, the average turnaround time for all other permits is 2.6 days, and estimated permit fee revenue has been exceeded by more than $20,000 — all while providing enhanced customer service to their residents.

But perhaps the most important discovery made by Clarkdale officials since updating their processes was the discovery of a group of building permits with balances that couldn’t be tracked to payments. This led to an internal audit of building permits and business licenses — something that may have never occurred without a process review, further proving to Escobar the importance of ensuring your organization is using its software to its fullest potential.

“Properly utilizing a system can affect an organization by leaps and bounds. You may be ‘getting by’ in a system but if you are not fully utilizing it, it could mean big losses for your organization,” Escobar said. “There may be a lot your system could be doing to make your department or organization more efficient, you just have to take the step to learn more about the system.