TEA Winner: Utility Payment Options Empower Residents
Organization Profile
- Industry: Special District
- Location: Portland, Oregon
- Number of Employees: 25
- Population: 60,000
- Tyler Client Since: 2020
- Tyler Products/Solutions: ERP Pro
- Website: rwpud.org
Challenges
Rockwood Water People’s Utility District provides drinking water for more than 60,000 residents in the Portland, Oregon, region. Since 1997, Rockwood used legacy software that hadn’t released optimizing updates for more than 25 years, preventing them from providing their residents with modernized, timesaving conveniences. “In 1997, I was in the third grade playing Oregon Trail™ on an old PC, and that’s what our previous software looked like. It was a black screen with green writing. It was very dated and didn’t really evolve with the times,” said Dan Zimmerman, senior accountant for Rockwood. “Customers couldn’t access their information. They had been clamoring for modernization, and it just wasn’t possible with that software.”
The outdated system at Rockwood was a major roadblock to their productivity, with many day-to-day tasks requiring manual completion. “Journal entries were done on paper, payroll was manual, physical paper timecards needed to be gathered and manually tallied, and calculations were done in spreadsheets before entering them into the system. It took a lot of time,” said Zimmerman. He elaborated, “The old system required us to edit files that looked like something that nobody should go in and edit. If you messed up one number, the whole file would fail.”
When the COVID-19 pandemic brought the world to a standstill, Rockwood’s workload continued to grow, and the urgency for updated software became even more apparent. “Our old solution didn’t have any capabilities for ease of access for remote work,” said Zimmerman. “On top of that, we had major capital projects that needed to keep moving forward. We were modernizing within our community, so we needed to modernize our system too.”
Solution
After getting budget approval from their board of directors, the Rockwood business office’s team of two was on the hunt for a cloud-based solution that offered fully integrated accounting and utility billing. After a strenuous search, they found what they were looking for in Tyler Technologies’ ERP Pro. “We were kind of blown away at how far behind our old system was,” explained Zimmerman. “You can access ERP Pro from anywhere, and it’s extremely user-friendly. The simplicity of running processes was clean and uncomplicated and made some previously very complex tasks look easy.”
Rockwood explained how Tyler’s implementation team streamlined the process, communicated proactively, and provided hands-on support to ensure a smooth transition for all employees: “The team really helped us and was very patient with us. We’re small, so everybody couldn’t be learning at the same time,” said Cathy Middleton, Rockwood’s office supervisor. “They were very understanding and taught each employee at their own level.”
We’ve met the needs of our citizens by providing them with modern access to their information, and now they don’t have to remind us to bring our software into the future.
Dan Zimmerman
Senior Accountant, Rockwood Water People’s Utility District, Oregon
Results
After transitioning to ERP Pro, the Rockwood team quickly saw significant improvements in their daily processes. “The staff likes the ease of getting around the system,” said Zimmerman. “Doing payroll is a lot easier. Prior to the new system, we were on paper timecards. Now, instead of having to manually calculate on-call and overtime rates, the system does it for us. It saves a ton of time.”
The implementation of ERP Pro enabled Rockwood’s residents to access their personal information and interact with Rockwood more efficiently through the online portal. By centralizing data and streamlining processes, residents now experience improved convenience and transparency. “Our citizens like being able to go onto the portal, which is something we didn’t have before,” said Middleton. “There are different ways they can pay, and they can set up autopay all within the portal. We had been told we needed to make improvements and modernize our software. Since we’ve switched to ERP Pro, we haven’t heard that anymore.”
The adoption of ERP Pro has freed up a significant amount of time within the organization. Teams can now shift their focus towards strategic initiatives and long-term planning, fostering innovation and growth. “We have more time to focus on our nine-year capital project, which involves expanding our groundwater supply,” Zimmerman said. “ERP Pro also allows employees to do their work from anywhere, so they don’t have to plan vacations around payroll schedules. Cathy can do payroll quickly and from anywhere. With one call to the office, somebody can put the checks in the printer, and then payroll is basically done.” Despite being a small team serving a small community, Rockwood embraced the challenge of transitioning to a new ERP software to deliver modern services that empower their residents.